January 16, 2005

Midwives

Natalie at Phiobiblon has a couple of posts about midwifery and illegitimacy in 18thc France (in the latter post she mentions the mind-boggling possibility that upwards of 40% of infants born in France in the period were illegitimate ended up in foundling hospitals).

Attaining Legitimacy: Eighteenth-Century Man-midwives and the Rhetoric of their Texts by Candice Dahl in Gateway: an academic journal on the web.

Sites and Margins of the Public Sphere, special number of Eighteenth-Century Studies, 32.4 (Summer 1999), has a number of great articles available through Project Muse.

Sex, Gender and the Female Body, special number of Women's Writing 11.2 (2004). Articles not free yet but will be twelve months after publication.

Childbirth, midwifery, and science: The life and work of the French royal midwife Louise Bourgeois (1563 — 1636) by Bridgette Ann Majella Sheridan (Diss., Boston College, 2002).

Sharon's bibliography, Pregnancy and Childbirth.

Books/chapters and articles about midwifery history, a bibliography at Nursing and Midwifery History UK.

The History of Women and Science, Health, and Technology: a bibliographic guide to the professions and the disciplines: Midwifery.

Martha Ballard and a Man-Midwife: a time of transition in midwifery: an interactive exploration of the famouse illustration by Isaac Cruikshank. An an annotation from the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (links from Caricatures of Nurses and Midwives through history).

Ask the Quack: post and get diagnosed. Be sure to check out the literary endorsements.

Update (17/1/05) In the comments, Sharon links to Elain Hobby's "Secrets of the Female Sex: Jane Sharp, the reproductive female body, and early modern midwifery manuals." Women's Writing 8.2 (2001): 201-212.

Scribbled at January 16, 2005 05:41 PM AST | Hmmm? (4) | TrackBack (0) | Link Cosmos | More? c18th, gender/sexuality, medical/science




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