Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 400.5

LOUISE BOURGEOIS BOURSIER (1563-1636) Obseruations diuerses sur la sterilité, perte de fruict, fœcondité, accouchements, et maladies des femmes, et enfants nouueaux naiz. Chez A. Saugrain 1609 [12], 120, [4] leaves (the last leaf blank and wanting) : 2 ports. (metal cuts) 18 cm.

Louise Bourgeois Boursier was the midwife who attended Marie de Medici, the wife of Henri IV. A pioneer of scientific midwifery, Boursier would induce premature labor in patients with contracted pelvis or uterine hemorrhage, an idea probably derived from Paré. She was one of the first women to be trained at the school for midwives which was opened at the Hôtel Dieu. She was the “sworn midwife” to the city of Paris and in 1601 she officiated at the birth of the Dauphin, later to be Louis XIII. Observations was the first book on obstetrics published by a midwife and the vade mecum of contemporary midwives. This book includes an engraved title and engraved portraits of Marie de Medici and of the author by S. Hacquin, as well as some letters in facsimile. Prior damage in lower margins of later pages by worms show evidence of past repair.

Cited references: Waller 1365; NLM 17th C. 1625; Garrison & Morton 6145

John Martin M.D. Endowment