The King's Midwife

The King's Midwife PDF Author: Nina Rattner Gelbart
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052092410X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
This unorthodox biography explores the life of an extraordinary Enlightenment woman who, by sheer force of character, parlayed a skill in midwifery into a national institution. In 1759, in an effort to end infant mortality, Louis XV commissioned Madame Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray to travel throughout France teaching the art of childbirth to illiterate peasant women. For the next thirty years, this royal emissary taught in nearly forty cities and reached an estimated ten thousand students. She wrote a textbook and invented a life-sized obstetrical mannequin for her demonstrations. She contributed significantly to France's demographic upswing after 1760. Who was the woman, both the private self and the pseudonymous public celebrity? Nina Rattner Gelbart reconstructs Madame du Coudray's astonishing mission through extensive research in the hundreds of letters by, to, and about her in provincial archives throughout France. Tracing her subject's footsteps around the country, Gelbart chronicles du Coudray's battles with finance ministers, village matrons, local administrators, and recalcitrant physicians, her rises in power and falls from grace, and her death at the height of the Reign of Terror. At a deeper level, Gelbart recaptures du Coudray's interior journey as well, by questioning and dismantling the neat paper trail that the great midwife so carefully left behind. Delightfully written, this tale of a fascinating life at the end of the French Old Regime sheds new light on the histories of medicine, gender, society, politics, and culture.

The King's Midwife

The King's Midwife PDF Author: Nina Rattner Gelbart
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052092410X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Get Book

Book Description
This unorthodox biography explores the life of an extraordinary Enlightenment woman who, by sheer force of character, parlayed a skill in midwifery into a national institution. In 1759, in an effort to end infant mortality, Louis XV commissioned Madame Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray to travel throughout France teaching the art of childbirth to illiterate peasant women. For the next thirty years, this royal emissary taught in nearly forty cities and reached an estimated ten thousand students. She wrote a textbook and invented a life-sized obstetrical mannequin for her demonstrations. She contributed significantly to France's demographic upswing after 1760. Who was the woman, both the private self and the pseudonymous public celebrity? Nina Rattner Gelbart reconstructs Madame du Coudray's astonishing mission through extensive research in the hundreds of letters by, to, and about her in provincial archives throughout France. Tracing her subject's footsteps around the country, Gelbart chronicles du Coudray's battles with finance ministers, village matrons, local administrators, and recalcitrant physicians, her rises in power and falls from grace, and her death at the height of the Reign of Terror. At a deeper level, Gelbart recaptures du Coudray's interior journey as well, by questioning and dismantling the neat paper trail that the great midwife so carefully left behind. Delightfully written, this tale of a fascinating life at the end of the French Old Regime sheds new light on the histories of medicine, gender, society, politics, and culture.

The Midwife's Tale

The Midwife's Tale PDF Author: Sam Thomas
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250010772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
In the tradition of Arianna Franklin and C. J. Sansom comes Samuel Thomas's remarkable debut, The Midwife's Tale It is 1644, and Parliament's armies have risen against the King and laid siege to the city of York. Even as the city suffers at the rebels' hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of rebellion. One of Bridget's friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to be burnt alive. Convinced that her friend is innocent, Bridget sets out to find the real killer. Bridget joins forces with Martha Hawkins, a servant who's far more skilled with a knife than any respectable woman ought to be. To save Esther from the stake, they must dodge rebel artillery, confront a murderous figure from Martha's past, and capture a brutal killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. The investigation takes Bridget and Martha from the homes of the city's most powerful families to the alleyways of its poorest neighborhoods. As they delve into the life of Esther's murdered husband, they discover that his ostentatious Puritanism hid a deeply sinister secret life, and that far too often tyranny and treason go hand in hand.

Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology

Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology PDF Author: Helen King
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754653967
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The Gynaeciorum libri, a compendium of ancient and contemporary texts on gynaecology, is the inspiration for this intensive exploration of the origins of a subfield of medicine. Focusing on its readers in the period from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, when men and women were in competition for control over childbirth, Helen King sheds new light on how the claim of female difference was shaped by specific social and cultural conditions.

The Court Midwife

The Court Midwife PDF Author: Justine Siegemund
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226757102
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
First published in 1690, The Court Midwife made Justine Siegemund (1636-1705) the spokesperson for the art of midwifery at a time when most obstetrical texts were written by men. More than a technical manual, The Court Midwife contains descriptions of obstetric techniques of midwifery and its attendant social pressures. Siegemund's visibility as a writer, midwife, and proponent of an incipient professionalism accorded her a status virtually unknown to German women in the seventeenth century. Translated here into English for the first time, The Court Midwife contains riveting birthing scenes, sworn testimonials by former patients, and a brief autobiography.

Childbirth, Midwifery and Concepts of Time

Childbirth, Midwifery and Concepts of Time PDF Author: Christine McCourt
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455866
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
All cultures are concerned with the business of childbirth, so much so that it can never be described as a purely physiological or even psychological event. This volume draws together work from a range of anthropologists and midwives who have found anthropological approaches useful in their work. Using case studies from a variety of cultural settings, the writers explore the centrality of the way time is conceptualized, marked and measured to the ways of perceiving and managing childbirth: how women, midwives and other birth attendants are affected by issues of power and control, but also actively attempt to change established forms of thinking and practice. The stories are engaging as well as critical and invite the reader to think afresh about time, and about reproduction.

Varney's Midwifery

Varney's Midwifery PDF Author: Helen Varney
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 9780763718565
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1480

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Book Description
Known as the “bible†of midwifery, this new edition of Varney's Midwifery has been extensively revised and updated to reflect the full scope of current midwifery practice in a balance of art and science, a blend of spirituality and evidence-based care, and a commitment to being with women.

Baby Catcher

Baby Catcher PDF Author: Peggy Vincent
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743219341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
In this engaging account of her career as a midwife, Vincent describes the hilarious, sometimes frightening, events surrounding the appearance of a new human being. More than a collection of unforgettable stories, "Baby Catcher" is a clarion call for a less technological, more personalized approach to childbirth in this country.

The Midwife of Bethlehem

The Midwife of Bethlehem PDF Author: Diane Lucas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780990878001
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
A beautiful telling of the Christmas nativity story through the eyes of the women who may have come to help Mary give birth to Jesus.

The Midwife's Apprentice

The Midwife's Apprentice PDF Author: Karen Cushman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547722176
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
In a small village in medieval England, a young homeless girl acquires a home and a new career when she becomes the apprentice to a sharp-tempered midwife.

Minerva's French Sisters

Minerva's French Sisters PDF Author: Nina Rattner Gelbart
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
A fascinating collective biography of six female scientists in eighteenth-century France, whose stories were largely written out of history This book presents the stories of six intrepid Frenchwomen of science in the Enlightenment whose accomplishments--though celebrated in their lifetimes--have been generally omitted from subsequent studies of their period: mathematician and philosopher Elisabeth Ferrand, astronomer Nicole Reine Lepaute, field naturalist Jeanne Barret, garden botanist and illustrator Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, anatomist and inventor Marie-Marguerite Biheron, and chemist Geneviève d'Arconville. By adjusting our lens, we can find them. In a society where science was not yet an established profession for men, much less women, these six audacious and inspiring figures made their mark on their respective fields of science and on Enlightenment society, as they defied gender expectations and conventional norms. Their boldness and contributions to science were appreciated by such luminaries as Franklin, the philosophes, and many European monarchs. The book is written in an unorthodox style to match the women's breaking of boundaries.