Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany (original) (raw)
Related papers
Blame and vindication in the early modern birthing chamber
Medical history, 2006
Who was to blame when a labouring woman or her unborn child died during the early modern period? How was responsibility assessed, and who was charged with assessing it? To answer such questions, this article draws on French obstetrical treatises produced by male surgeons and female midwives between 1550 and 1730, focusing on descriptions of difficult deliveries. Sometimes the poor outcome of a labour was blamed on the pregnant woman herself, but more often a particular medical practitioner was implicated. Authors of obstetrical treatises were careful to assign fault when injuries or deaths occurred in cases concerning them. Chirurgiens accoucheurs (surgeon men-midwives) regularly accused female midwives of incompetence, yet also attacked fellow surgeons as well as those male physicians officially superior to them in the medical hierarchy. Female midwives similarly condemned the actions of male practitioners, without hesitating to censure other women when their mismanagement of deliveries had tragic consequences. Part of authors' eagerness to blame others stemmed from the fear of being held accountable for mistakes preceding practitioners had made. Ascribing responsibility usually went hand-in-hand with defensive claims of innocence, or boastful declarations of having saved a suffering woman from the bungling attempts of less skilled birth attendants. French obstetrical treatises are replete with ''blame narratives''. These tales take the form of case studies, with authors providing the date of the delivery in question, as well as an overview of the woman's condition and recent history. Authors argued that previous practitioners had failed to act appropriately, causing the appalling state of the woman and her child. They typically described how they had then intervened to rescue the woman, or else explained what could have been done if they had been summoned more quickly to the birthing room. The stories are conventional, and clearly meant to place individual authors in a flattering light. They also allude, however, to the precarious position of both male and female midwives in the birthing chamber. Practitioners risked losing their reputations when difficulties arose in relation to childbirth, but could acquire status if accredited with a successful outcome. Studying authors' denunciation of others reveals the ways in which power could shift during a single delivery, when new practitioners were called in for consultation, and earlier ones declared unqualified. Instead of depicting a ''gender war,' in which men attacked women, the stories offer a more complex vision of the interactions between different birth assistants, including surgeons, physicians, and female midwives. This analysis of blame also suggests reasons why female midwives requested male assistance with challenging births. Though these women governed the birthing room
Pregnant Imagination, Fetal Rights, and Women's Bodies: A Historical Inquiry, The
Yale JL & Human., 1995
Competing historical and cultural understandings of the human body make clear that medicine and the law construe bodily truths from differing knowledge bases. Jurists rely virtually entirely on medical testimony to analyze biological data, and medical professionals are not usually conversant with the legal ramifications of their diagnoses. In early modern Europe, both physicians and jurists recognized that their respective professions were governed by different epistemological standards, a view articulated by F6lix Vicq d'Azyr (1748-1794), anatomist and secretary to the Royal Society of Medicine in France from 1776. Vicq d'Azyr noted that while lawyers were required to make unyielding decisions based on conflicting laws, customs, and decrees, physicians were permitted more latitude for uncertainty.' In the late twentieth century, Western medicine and law have become inextricably entwined as technologies have produced new ethical dilemmas facing medicolegal jurisprudence. The authority of women to voice and explain their experiences of pregnancy and childbirth before and during the eighteenth century contrasts powerfully with the twentieth century's reliance on medicolegal decisions to define these experiences. In early modern Europe, women controlled information, experience, and beliefs concerning reproduction, and women held authority over it. A woman only became officially and publicly pregnant when she felt her * The author would like to thank Robert Kieft, Reference Librarian at Haverford College, and the librarians at the Historical Collections of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia for research assistance.
2014
"This dossier emerges from the workshop “Childbirth and Women's Health in Pre-Modern Societies” that took place in Heidelberg in November 4-5, 2011, and which aimed to offer different perspectives on how birth and the health problems related to it were conceptualized and practically dealt with in pre-modern times. The “pre-modern” here refers to that expanded set of multiple spatial, chronological and cultural conditions in which, through a variety of media, the human agents had learnt, transmitted and practiced medicine before (or in parallel to) the implementation of the historical scientific discourses that were to make a base for the present Western modes of interpretation. The role played by writing and the production of cultural knowledge in the whole process of conceptualizing, understanding, learning, and managing the complex experience of birth, therefore, represent the key element in the articulation of the whole thematic line of this monographic issue. We intend to present a picture of the medical spheres on pregnancy and birth in the ancient Near East and East-Asian systems, through addressing the same set of questions to the diverse sources available for each case study. This approach will serve the purpose of bringing to light how different disciplines, fields, and materials, have given answer to them." http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/de/forschung/c-health-environment/c1/workshop-birth-and-womens-health-in-pre-modern-societies.html"