Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/587

 as a "sworn midwife" of the city of Paris. She gained steadily in experience and public favor, and the record states that already as early as 1601 she had the good fortune to officiate at the delivery of Henry the Fourth's wife (Marie de Medicis) of a son—the Dauphin (later, Louis the Thirteenth). Her royal patrons were much pleased with the services which she rendered on this occasion, and, as a further evidence of the confidence which she inspired, they asked her—as each of these occasions approached—to preside at the births of five other children.

One of the meritorious features of the treatise which Louise Bourgeois wrote, says von Siebold, is to be found in the fact that she championed most earnestly podalic version. The book was translated into both German (1644) and Dutch (1658).

François Mauriceau (1637-1709), who was indisputably the most distinguished writer on obstetrics of the seventeenth century, was born in Paris. During the early part of his career he was simply a general surgeon, but, after the lapse of a few years, he gave up all his other work and confined himself strictly to midwifery. For quite a long period he held the position of Chief Obstetrician at Hôtel-Dieu, and at the same time he conducted an extensive private practice in cases of confinement. Worn out by the excessive amount of work which he performed during the most active period of his career, he was finally obliged to retire from practice several years before his death.

Mauriceau did not invent any remarkable obstetric instruments or procedures, but he was the first to set forth in clear and precise terms the principles of this science and art and to expound the rules required for putting them into practice. The titles of his two most celebrated treatises are the following: "Traité des maladies des femmes grosses," Paris, 1668; and "Observations sur la grossesse et l'accouchement," Paris, 1695. In 1706, three years before his death, he also published "Dernières observations sur les maladies des femmes grosses."

The first of the three books mentioned passed through five