Sensory Language as a Gateway to Knowledge and Evidence in Early Modern English Midwifery Writing (1540-1800): On Verbs of Tactile Perception

The Early and Late Modern periods witnessed many developments in both midwifery practice and writings about childbirth: the advent of instruments, medical men (‘man-midwives’) gaining regular access to the birthing chamber and midwifery texts being written by an increasingly diverse range of authors (learned physicians, surgeons, traditional midwives, man-midwives). While much has been made of these developments in historical studies of the period, very little has been said about how these changing cultural values are reflected in the language of the midwifery texts from this era, and how language itself is the vehicle through which medical epistemology is discursively construed. This paper will demonstrate how linguistic expressions of knowledge and evidence, particularly those related to tactile perception, are employed in the midwifery writings of the period, and what – if any – changes occur in their usage throughout the first three-centuries of vernacular English-language medical writing.