The Art of Childbirth A SeventeenthCentury Midwifes Epistolary Treatise to Doctor Vallant: A Bilingual Edition

The extraordinary story of a seventeenth-century French midwife and her treatise on childbirth. In 1671, Marie Baudoin (16251700), head midwife and governor of the Htel-Dieu of Clermont-Ferrand, sent a treatise on the art of childbirth to her powerful Parisian patron, Dr. Vallant. The story of how Baudoins knowledge and expertise as a midwife came to be expressed, recorded, and archived raises the question: Was Baudoin exceptional because she was herself extraordinary, or because her voice has reached us through Vallants careful archival practices? Either way, Baudoins treatise invites us to reconsider the limits of what we thought we knew midwives could be and do in seventeenth-century France. Grounding Marie Baudoins text in a microanalysis of her life, work, and the Jansenist network between Paris and Clermont-Ferrand, this book connects historiographies of midwifery, Jansenism, hospital administration, public health, knowledge and record-keeping, and womens work, underscoring both Baudoins capabilities and the archival accidents and intentions behind the preservation of her treatise in a letter.