Inhalt: 'In the end, they celebrated. They bragged.They got me finally, was their feeling.They said I would take my secrets to the grave.They should be so lucky.'Axie Muldoon, the headstrong daughter of Irish immigrants, forced to beg for pennies as a child on the brutal streets of New York City, grows up to become the most successful – and controversial – midwife of her time. 'Saved' from poverty by a well-meaning philanthropist, Axie is sent West with her brother Joe and her sister Dutch. But the kindness of strangers is short-lived and soon Axie returns to the city of her birth, separated from those she loves but determined to one day reunite her family.When she is taken in by a Manhattan doctor Axie learns the craft that she will live by – and later fight for. As a purveyor of 'lunar tonic for the relief of female complaints' she rises from the gutter to the glitter of 5th Avenue high...