Madame du Coudray

by Allyn Bures (Vanderbilt University)

Angelique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray, midwife to the nation of France, holds a substantial position in the history of early modern medicine. Mme du Coudray is most famous for her revolutionary midwifery teaching techniques, including an incredibly detailed textbook and lifelike machines utilized to simulate childbirth (1).

As a practicing midwife in 18th century Paris, Mme du Coudray violated the majority of standards demanded of midwives; she had no children of her own, was not married (though possibly widowed), and believed in the organization of midwives (2).

In 1751, Mme du Coudray traveled to Auvergne, where birth survival rates were incredibly low, and was exposed to the horrors of untrained peasant midwifery. She dedicated herself to improving midwifery practices in rural France, designing child-bearing machines constructed from leather, dyed fabric, padding, and real pelvic bones, wicker, or wood to replicate deliveries (3, 4). Later models included sponges that released dyed liquids representing blood and amniotic fluid at proper moments (3).

In 1759, the same year that Mme du Coudray released the first edition of her midwifery manual Abrege de L'art des Accouchements, King Louis XV appointed her to spearhead a nationwide public health campaign educating female students and male surgeons in rural provinces (5). This campaign, the first of its kind, would counteract the low birth survival rates throughout the country and rebuild the soldier population that had been depleted in the Seven Years' War.

Mme du Coudray's teaching initiative was a huge success, lasting 30 years and educating an approximated 400,000 peasant women; in addition, a number of male surgeons taught her technique to later students. By the end of her career in the 1780s, approximately 2/3 of practicing French midwives used her techniques; success rates were reflected in the increased numbers of successful births that appeared in the 1780 and 1790 censuses (5, 6). Before her 1794 death, she ensured that her legacy was lasting by providing for her "niece" Marguerite Guillaumanche and her surgeon husband Coutanceau to continue teaching the du Coudray technique at France's first maternity hospital (5).

Image: "The Machine." Madame du Coudray's Machines. Musees en Haute Normandie.

Sources:

(1) Gelbart, Nina. "The Monarchy's Midwife who Left No Memoirs." French Historical Studies (19) 1996: 997-1023.

(2) Cody, Lisa. "Sex, Civility, and the Self: du Coudray, d'Eon, and Eighteenth Century Conceptions of Gendered, National, and Psychological Identity." French Historical Studies (24) 2001: 379-407.

(3) Riskin, Jessica. "Eighteenth Century Wetware." Representations (83) 2003: 97-125.

(4) Stanley, Autumn. Mother and Daughters of Invention. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1995.

(5) Marland, Hilary, ed. The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives on Europe. London: Routledge, 1993.

(6) Gelbart, Nina. The King's Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Witches and Midwives

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early seventeenth century, which witch hunts had reached their height, midwives were often depicted as witches who communed with the devil. While there may be questions regarding the exact nature of prosecution/persecution of midwives between 1500 and 1700, description of the demonic works of the midwife-witch nonetheless abound in lay and learned writings through the early-modern era. Kramer and Sprenger's influential witchcraft book Malleus Maleficarum, first published in 1486 and reprinted no fewer than thirty times between 1487 and 1669, contains frequent reveries on witch-midwives and their horrific acts toward new mothers and their offspring. This book of witchcraft reports a woman's allegations that she was punished after she refused to allow a midwife with a "bad reputation"to assist her in her pregnancy. Soon after she went into labor, the rejected midwife went into her room, paralyzed her so that she could not speak, and vowed to avenge herself. The midwife-witch then put thorns, bones, and bits of wood in her entrails so that, six months later, the new mother would be "tortured"with unbearable pain.

From Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France
(p. 64). Author? yours truly.

Men and Women in Midwifery

by Allison Nelson (Vanderbilt University)

In the early modern period, midwifery began to change from a female art into a male occupation. The shift was not a smooth one. Indeed, it began in 1522, when Dr. Wertt of Hamburg dressed up as a woman in order to observe midwives and learn about childbirth. When he was discovered as a man, Wertt was burned alive. Later in the mid-sixteenth century, however, the renowned surgeon Pare laid a more solid foundation for men's work in the birthing room; he did this by aiding in delivery by pulling babies out of the womb by their feet during difficult births.

A contributing factor in this shift of gender roles was Louis XIV's use of male midwives to deliver his illegitimate children. As men delivered his mistresses babies, male midwives gained popularity. A rapid population boom in Europe further encouraged these social changes; as the population grew and universities increased their study of reproduction and anatomy, childbirth became a medicalized and, thus, masculinized domain. Case studies, rather than oral tradition, became the preferred method for educating individuals about childbirth (1).

There existed three recognized distinctions between male and female midwives. First, the men held a monopoly over medical tools, which women were disallowed from owning. Second, the male midwives were more formally educated in universities; there they dissected bodies, read case-studies, and learned about classical theories. Women, on the other hand, were taught through experience; they apprenticed and learned through women's household manuals. Third, male and female midwives viewed patients differently. While women's manuals emphasize individual relationships and take a maternal tone, men's manuals stressed quantitative practices and medical causality (2).

Even as male midwives gained popularity, their acceptance was not unanimous. Some people believed that men did not belong in the birthing room; since men could never experience childbirth, some believed it was beyond the realm of male expertise. Such critics often cited the Bible, claiming the absence of men at recorded births. Other critics viewed male midwives as interlopers into other men's domestic territory. In a space where the husband or father was absent, the male midwife's presence stood out as inappropriate; it raised questions about the male midwives' potentially inappropriate behavior toward vulnerable female bodies. Thus issues of female modesty and male property emerged, and opponents called upon husbands to bar male midwives from their homes (3).

While gender issues caused debate, so too did suspicion about scientific instruments and their over-use in the birthing room. Frequently, male midwives used tools even in "normal" births that might not necessitate them -- and the tools posed additional risks. Not only did the tools threaten additional infections, but their misuse could harm the baby or its mother. Renowned female midwife Sarah Stone, for example, claimed that in her career she had only seen four cases that could have been safer through the use of tools (4).

Image: Fores, Samuel William. "A Man-Mid-Wife." From Man-Midwifery Dissected. London, 1793. (Wellcome Library, London)

(1) Schnorrenberg. "Is Childbirth Any Place for a Woman? The Decline of Midwifery in Eighteenth-Century England." Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture (10) 1981: 393.

(2)Fife, Ernelle. "Gender and Professionalism in Eighteenth-Century Culture." Women's Writing (11:2) 2004: 185-200.

(3)Blunt, John. "Man-Midwifery Dissected: or, The Obstetric Family Instructor." 1793.

(4) Stone, Sarah. "A Complete Practice of Midwifery." 1737.