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TEACHING IN SURGERY. 429
Certain highly-gifted women, like LOUISE BOURGOIS, who
attended MARIA DE' MEDICI, consort of HENRI IV., and
advanced the literature of obstetrics, must be looked upon
as exceptions. In Paris the midwives received a systematic
education. In the Hotel Dieu there was a lying-in institution
in which the obstetric probationers were taught by
the head-midwife. The well-known MARGUERITE DE LA
MARCHE, whose handbook for midwives is among the best
literary productions of that age, worked for some time in
this position.
The course of instruction lasted for three months. During
the second half of this period the probationers had themselves
to perform all the services required during labour.
Only in extraordinary cases was the surgeon of the department—himself
also an obstetrician—called into consultation.
As a general rule women in labour refused to accept the
assistance of a man. This unseasonable modesty derived
support from the ignorance of most of the doctors and
surgeons who had no opportunities of getting experience
in midwifery. This state of affairs was not altered until
such exaggerated prudery was given up* and the help of
the male sex was claimed in cases of labour. The Duchesses
DE LA VALLIERE and DE MONTESPAN, and other ladies of
the French Court, made a beginning. " Their example was
soon copied," writes P DlONlS, " and even women of the
lower classes declared that they would rather have obstetricians
of the male sex than midwives, were they not
deterred by the high fees of the former."t A school of
obstetrics was in 1720 founded at the Hotel Dieu in Paris.
In 1743 a course of instruction in gynaecology was also
started in the surgical school, and in 1754 the medical
faculty even felt itself called upon to create a professorship
of obstetrics.
* On certain other occasions quite different conditions obtained. Fide Les
consultations deMME. DE SEVIGNE, ed. p. P. MENIERE, Paris 1864, p. 21 etseq.
t SIEBOLD op. cit. ii, 189.—SUE d. Jungere; Versuch einer Geschichte der
Geburtshilfe, Deutsche Ubers, Altenburg 1786, S. 99.