Smollett's defence of Dr. Smellie in "The Critical Review".

SOME RATHER convincing internal evidence supports Professor Knapp's argument that 'it is all but certain' Smollett reviewed Elizabeth Nihell's A Treatise on the Art of Midwifery,' a piece in which Mrs. Nihell attacked the obstetrical theories of Dr. William Smellie who, in his Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, advocated the superiority of male midwives and the efficacy of instruments in childbirth. While the arguments for Smollett's having possibly reviewed this assault on the theories of his friend and teacher rely primarily on his relationship with Smellie and on his knowledge of obstetrics,2 two pieces of stylistic evidence in the review itself clearly indicate that Smollett was its author: (1) verbal echoes of Smollett's review of Smellie's Treatise in the Monthly Review for 1751 and (2) the use of a strong visual analogy, the kind which Smollett drew so often in his reviews in the Critical Review for 1756 and which helps distinguish his pen from those of Armstrong, Francklin, Murdoch, and Derrick.3 Of both their friendship and mutual professional respect we know that when Smellie was engaged in the publication of his Treatise in 1751 he asked Smollett to assist him in preparing the second volume for the press (for which Smollett wrote a receipt for fifty guineas 'in full consideration for one half the Copy Right') and most probably to write the introduction to the third volume.4 Certainly the passage defending Smellie's teaching method in the review reprinted below5 could only have been written by one intimately familiar with that doctor's pedagogy and practice. It recalls both Smollett's pointed emphasis on the value of experience and observation in his reviews of medical works in 1756 as well as the following comment in his Monthly review of Smellie's Treatise: ' . . . he [Smellie] asserts nothing that is not justified by his own experience, and fairly owns the circumstances of his own miscarriage, in those instances wherein his attempts have failed.'6