At birth : the modern state, modern medicine, and the royal midwife Louise Bourgeois in seventeeth-century France

In this article I explore the connections between state cenhalization, the professionalization of healing, and the end of the royal midwife Louise Bourgeois' (1563-1636) illustrious career in seventeenth-century France. Specifically, I analyze seventeenth-century narratives of two events which frame Louise Bourgeois' public career as a writer and royal midwife in order to demonstrate the way that the changing meanings of childbirth and the role of the midwife in the medical hierarchy were bound up in state formation and consolidation. The result for midwives was that, though they could still practice, they were ultimately considered marginal to the medical community

At Birth: The Modern State, Modern Medicine, and the Royal Midwife Louise Bourgeois in Seventeenth-Century France

In this article I explore the connections between state cenhalization, the professionalization of healing, and the end of the royal midwife Louise Bourgeois' (1563-1636) illustnous career in seventeenth-century France. Specifically, 1 analyze seventeenth-century narratives of two events which frame Louise Bourgeois' public career as a writer and royal midwife in order to demonstrate the way that the changing meanings of childbirth and the role of the midwife in the medical hierarchy were bound up in state formation and consolidation. The result for midwives was that, though they could still practice, they were ultimately considered marginal to the medical community

Are Women as Smart as Men? Midwives and Medical Men in Seventeenth-Century France

Presentation given at the Haunting Histories of the Female Body Symposium held on November 17, 2006 in the Ferst Room, Georgia Tech Library. This session was part of Panel I: Early Modern Reproduction: the Politics of the Productive Female BodyRuntime: 35:05 minute

At birth : the modern state, modern medicine, and the royal midwife Louise Bourgeois in seventeeth-century France

In this article I explore the connections between state cenhalization, the professionalization of healing, and the end of the royal midwife Louise Bourgeois' (1563-1636) illustrious career in seventeenth-century France. Specifically, I analyze seventeenth-century narratives of two events which frame Louise Bourgeois' public career as a writer and royal midwife in order to demonstrate the way that the changing meanings of childbirth and the role of the midwife in the medical hierarchy were bound up in state formation and consolidation. The result for midwives was that, though they could still practice, they were ultimately considered marginal to the medical community