Midwives and Spin Doctors: The Rhetoric of Authority in Early Modern French Medicine

Abstract

This chapter traces the establishment of medical authority in French obstetrical treatises throughout the seventeenth-century. A close analysis of rhetorical tropes in these scientific texts offers valuable insights into the politics of women’s health care in the early modern period. Looking at the incongruous intrusion of autobiographical narratives in medical texts, this chapter investigates the reasons for such an unusual staging of the self and argues that for these medical practitioners, making fragments of their lives public equates with publicizing or advertising their authority. This literary practice is concomitant with an important institutional shift, which replaces ill-famed midwives with university-trained surgeons, ultimately altering care practices and opening up the birthing chamber to male physicians such as Jacques Duval and François Mauriceau.