midwife — a person, usually a woman, who is not a doctor but who is trained to
provide medical assistance to women in giving birth. In many traditional cultures, a village
midwife would also care for other kinds of patients as well, and midwives often had some
knowledge of medicinal plants. In Europe during the 1500s and 1600s, many people thought of
midwives' herbal remedies as magic potions, and consequently thousands of midwives were burned
alive as witches.