Generations of healers, mainly women trained in practical methods like botany, midwifery, and herbal therapies, were subject to torture and death. The Hammer of Witches was particularly explicit as to the threat presented by female healers who attended to reproductive care, pregnancy, and childbirth: “Witches who are Midwives in Various Ways Kill the Child Conceived in the Womb, and Procure an Abortion; or if they do not this, Offer New-born Children to the Devil.”
