Educational seminar: a look back in pictures - Faculty of Medicine, Montpellier

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Marie-Anne BOIVIN

Marie-Anne GILLAIN was born in 1773 in Montreuil near Versailles.

She is sent to boarding school with the Visitation nuns.

During the Revolution, she took refuge in Etampes, at the home of a relative who was the mother superior of the Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu.

There she studied under the surgeon and worked for two and a half years, from 1793 to 1796, as a hospital lady, that is, a lay person offering her services voluntarily to the poor and sick.

In 1797, she returned to Versailles to marry Louis BOIVIN, deputy head of the National Domains office.

Quickly pregnant, she suddenly found herself widowed in 1798, at the age of 25, without resources and with a young daughter to raise.

She then decided to put to good use the knowledge she had acquired from the surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu d'Étampes and enrolled at the Maternity Midwifery School in 1799.

In 1800, she graduated and left for Versailles to join her daughter and practice her profession.

In 1801, following the death of her daughter, she obtained permission from Marie-Louise Lachapelle to return to the Hospice de la Maternité.

In 1803, she was appointed head supervisor of the breastfeeding section. She held this position for eleven years, until 1814. During this long period, she took the opportunity to attend classes given by her patron, the surgeons at the Maternity Hospital (Baudelocque, then Dubois) and the chief physicians (Andry, and especially Chaussier), from whom she gathered observations and lessons.

In 1812, she wrote a Mémorial de l’art des accouchements(Memorial on the Art of Childbirth) and published it. It was approved by the Department of the Interior, which made it one of the textbooks given to graduates of the Maternity School.

In 1814, her position as supervisor was eliminated and she was dismissed, receiving a gratuity equal to her annual salary of 360 francs.

In October, she obtained a position as storekeeper and bursar at the Poissy General Hospital, which she held until January 1819, when the general hospital was converted into a prison.

Little is known about this period of her life: did she continue to practice obstetrics despite her new, more administrative duties? Did she do so within the framework of the general hospital? Or did she have a private practice? In any case, she seems to have enjoyed a comfortable salary of 1,200 francs per year for a time, which was almost as much as the head midwife at the maternity hospital.

In 1818, she anonymously competed for the Paris Medical Society's prize for academic achievement, submitting a thesis on internal uterine hemorrhages. She was awarded the medal.

On February¹, 1819, she entered the Maison Royale de Santé in Paris as head midwife, with a modest salary of 350 francs per year.

In 1821, an opportunity for promotion arose with the death of Marie-Louise Lachapelle.

According to procedure, the General Council of the Hospices must submit to the Minister of the Interior a list of five candidates to succeed the illustrious midwife.

On November 14, 1821, the Council voted and agreed on a list with Marie-Anne Boivin in first place; she received 12 out of 12 votes in the first round to select the top candidate.

A month and a half later, the Minister of the Interior endorses the Council's choice.

But the winner refused the position (or rather resigned), forcing the council to propose another list. Why did she refuse? All contemporary biographers explain this decision by the public promise Marie-Anne Boivin made to her former protector never to replace her, even after her death. If this is the case, she kept her word and another midwife, Madeleine Catherine Legrand, was appointed in 1822.

Marie-Anne Boivin therefore continued to practice at the Royal Health Care Facility, where she accumulated observations, publications, and distinctions.

In 1828, she presented a thesis on spontaneous abortions, which was awarded a prize by the Bordeaux Medical Society.

In September 1835, at the age of 62, worn out and tired, she retired and urged the hospice council to pay her a pension. Finally, after a first stroke that left her hemiplegic, she died in May 1841.

In 1902, one of the rooms in the renovated maternity ward was named after Marie-Anne Boivin.

Louise Bourgeois

She was born in 1563 on Boulevard Saint Germain or in Mons into a family of doctors.

She married Martin BOURSIER, master surgeon and pupil of Ambroise PARÉ, in 1594.

She finds herself without resources when her husband is enlisted in the king's armies.

She quickly gained renown among the ladies of the court and delivered the queen's babies six times.

She receives 500 crowns for the birth of a boy and 300 for the birth of a girl.

She lost her reputation following the death of Marie De BOURBON-MONTPENSIER, wife of Gaston d'ORLÉANS, during the birth of the Grande Mademoiselle.

According to the surgeons who performed the autopsy on the woman who had given birth, the death was caused by placental debris remaining in the uterus, and Louise Bourgeois was subsequently accused of negligence.

At that time, there were few male obstetricians practicing, and they attempted to take precedence over the midwives' guild.

Louise questions their competence by harshly criticizing the autopsy findings and the skills of obstetricians; however, her response has the opposite effect to that intended, giving them publicity.

She was the first midwife to write a book on obstetrics, Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruits, fécondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveau-nés(Various Observations on Sterility, Miscarriage, Fertility, Childbirth, and Diseases of Women and Newborn Children), published in 1609.

In this book, she points out that infertility in couples can be male-related, even though, like doctors of that era, she confuses the ability to procreate with sexual vigor.

She identified the role of malnutrition in fetal health and was the first to prescribe iron supplements to treat anemia.

She emphasizes the importance of anatomical knowledge for midwives and urges doctors to allow them to attend lectures and dissection classes.

In 1636, Parisian midwives launched a petition to the Faculty of Medicine requesting that Louise Bourgeois be allowed to teach them obstetrics, but this right was denied.

Subsequently, however, one of her students, Marguerite du Tertre de la Marche, was appointed head midwife at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital and succeeded in overhauling the content of their training.

She died on December 20, 1636, on Boulevard Saint Germain at the age of 73.

Jean-Louis BAUDELOCQUE

He was born on November 30, 1745, in Heilly, Picardy.

He was the son of Jean Baptiste BAUDELOCQUE, a surgeon, and Anne Marguerite LEVASSEUR. His brothers Félix Honoré (1744-1794) and Jean Baptiste (1749-1800) were both doctors. He was the third of ten children.

It was his father who introduced him to surgery in the countryside of Picardy.

He completed his studies in Paris at the Hôpital de la Charité, where a renowned master of obstetrics, Solayrès de Renhac (1737–1772), practiced.

In 1772, after Solayrès' premature death at the age of 35, he collected his lecture manuscripts and succeeded him as professor of obstetrics at the Hôpital de la Charité. Thanks to Baudelocque, Solayrès' work was saved from oblivion.

In 1775, on the initiative of the surgeon Augier du FOT, a demonstrator of childbirth in Soissons, he published, thanks to the manuscripts bequeathed by Solayrès de RENHAC, the first edition of a manual intended for the training of midwives. This work was later republished under his name alone, under the title "Principles on the art of childbirth through questions and answers for midwifery students." It was reprinted three times during Baudelocque's lifetime and three more times posthumously.

In 1776, following his thesis defense on symphysiotomy, "An in partu propter angustiam pelvis impossibili, symphysis ossium secanda?", he was appointed surgeon at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris and was awarded a master's degree in surgery by the Collège de Chirurgie de Paris.

On April 5 or 6, 1777, in Paris, he married Andrée DERULLIER (de Vulier, de Voulier, de Rullie, de Rouillier), whose family manufactured mannequins of pregnant women for demonstrations in childbirth classes. She died on January 4, 1787, without children.

In 1781 and 1789, he published the first two editions of his scholarly treatise "L'Art des accouchemens" (The Art of Childbirth) in two volumes. He became famous for his forceps, his practice of cesarean sections, and the invention of the pelvimeter, which measures the external anteroposterior diameter to determine which patients might encounter difficulties during childbirth.

On September 14, 1788, in Amiens, he married Marie Catherine Rose Laurent, and the couple had five children (three daughters and two sons).

During the French Revolution, guilds and faculties were abolished. Hospitals lost some of their staff and funding. However, Baudelocque managed to build his reputation as a midwife thanks to a city clientele and private obstetrics classes.

In 1794, the former Faculty of Medicine was replaced by the École Centrale de Santé de Paris (Paris Central School of Health), where he was responsible for teaching medical students and midwives.

In October 1795, the Maternity Hospice welcomed poor women and single mothers to give birth and provided clinical training for midwives and doctors from the School of Health.

In addition, this institution also takes in abandoned children.

In 1798, Baudelocque, in addition to his position as professor of obstetrics at the Paris School of Health, became chief surgeon at the Maternity Hospital.

In 1802, the Hospice de la Maternité school was founded, where Baudelocque put his teaching talents to good use, employing mannequins to practice examinations and obstetric procedures. He favored observation over action, preferring to let nature take its course and using instruments as little as possible.

Busy with his many responsibilities, he delegated some of his authority to the head midwife of the Maternity Ward, Marie-Louise Lachapelle (1769-1821), who took on part of the teaching of the midwifery students and was authorized to use forceps on her own in cases of difficult deliveries.

He was involved in a high-profile lawsuit brought against him by an obstetrician, Jean François Sacombe, a fierce opponent of cesarean sections and defender of traditional midwifery practices. Sacombe, who had set himself up as a defender of midwives, accused Baudelocque of infanticide, but ultimately lost his case in 1804 and, at the same time, all sense of proportion.

In 1806, Napoleon appointed Jean-Louis Baudelocque to the chair of obstetrics, the first chair of medical specialty in France.

He became the obstetrician to the queens of Spain, Holland, Naples, and all the ladies of the court.

He had been chosen and selected in advance to bring into the world the heir awaited by Napoleon and Empress Marie-Louise of Austria. But, struck down by a cerebral hemorrhage, he would not live to see the birth of the King of Rome.

He died on May 2 or 3, 1810, at 16 Rue Jacob in Paris (^{6th arrondissement}) at the age of 65, where he lived.

He was buried in the Vaugirard West Cemetery, then exhumed due to expropriation for the construction of the current Boulevard Pasteur.

He was then buried on August 17, 1839, in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery (^45thdivision).

He was the most famous obstetrician of his time.

A doctor at the Hôpital des Enfants Malades (Hospital for Sick Children), he gave his name to the Baudelocque Clinic in 1890.

In 1966, the Port-Royal maternity hospital was built. The two merged in 1993 (Paris^{14th arrondissement}).

Today, there is a midwifery school named after her on Avenue Denfert-Rochereau.

François CHAUSSIER

He was born on July 2, 1746, in Dijon, in the parish of Saint Pierre.

His father was a master glazier.

After attending the hospital in Dijon, his mother sent him to Paris to continue his medical studies, and he enrolled at the Royal College of Surgery, where he studied regularly between 1765 and 1767, attending anatomy classes taught by Raphaël SABATIER and Jean-Joseph SUE.

At the same time, he was learning about surgery at Lafaye's clinics and, in the afternoons, at Isaac GOURSAUD's clinics.

His years of surgery came to an end in 1768, when he obtained the title of Master of Surgery: he settled in Dijon as a surgeon.

He married Jeanne CARRE, daughter and granddaughter of a master surgeon, on July 27, 1767, in Quetigny, Côte d’Or. Together they had a son, Bernard François Hector (1769-1837).

In 1769, he opened a free course in human and comparative anatomy, which was attended by many students for over ten years.

In 1774, the States of Burgundy established a chemistry program with Louis-Bernard GUYTON de MORVEAU as the head professor and Hugues MARET and François CHAUSSIER as assistants. Upon MARET's death in 1786, he was promoted to second professor of chemistry.

In Dijon, his professional qualities earned him the favor of his clients, and his reputation quickly spread beyond Burgundy. He made a name for himself at the Academy of Surgery through several presentations, which led to him being awarded the Academy's Gold Medal at the public session on April 10, 1777.

He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Besançon on January 14, 1780, and in 1784, he became a correspondent for the Royal Society of Medicine. That same year, he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters in Dijon, where he became secretary general following the retirement of Guyton de Morveau.

In 1785, at the request of the States of Burgundy, he published a popular guide on treating bites from rabid animals: "Method for treating bites from rabid animals and vipers, followed by a summary on malignant pustules" (with Joseph Enaux, 1726-1798).

In 1789, he published a study on the muscles of the human body, in which he proposed a more rational classification than that previously taught: "Summary exposition of the muscles of the human body according to the methodical classification and nomenclature adopted in the public anatomy course in Dijon"; this work was republished in 1797.

On December 20, 1789, he read a paper entitled "Surgical and legal observations on an important point of criminal jurisprudence" at the Academy of Dijon, in which he demonstrated the role that doctors could play in informing the justice system. This work was well received, and the following year he began teaching a course in forensic medicine in Dijon.

On 3 Nivôse Year III (December 23, 1794), he married Angélique LABOREY in Dijon (Section du Crébillon), and they also had a son, Franck Bernard Simon (1804-1866).

In 1794, Antoine-François Fourcroy was tasked by the National Convention with reorganizing medical education and sought out a figure who could provide him with details on how to go about this. Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois, from Côte-d'Or, who headed the Committee of Public Safety's Department of Science and Arts, recommended François Chaussier, who thus joined the Committee of Public Instruction. He drafted a report and a draft decree, which he read to the Convention on 7 Frimaire, Year III (November 27, 1794). In it, he proposed the creation of a single "Central School of Health" in Paris. The members of the Convention, who were largely open to decentralization, requested the creation of other similar schools in Montpellier and Strasbourg, and it was on this basis that the report was adopted on 14 Frimaire (December 4).

Chaussier returned to Dijon, where he resumed his classes and studies, as well as the duties entrusted to him: he had been appointed physician at the Hospices de Dijon in April 1793 and surgeon to the prisons. He did not remain there long, however, as he was called back to Paris to take up the chair of anatomy and physiology at the Ecole de Santé. Chaussier was, in the words of Joseph-Henri Réveillé-Parise, the most famous professor of physiology at the Paris School: he argued that vitalism was the basis of all physiological studies.

A decree dated 7 Vendémiaire Year III (September 28, 1794) officially created the École Centrale des Travaux Publics (Central School of Public Works), which would later become the École Polytechnique. less than a month after it opened, the Board of Directors proposed setting up an infirmary and appointing a "health officer" (the revolutionary term for doctors) to care for sick students and also give lessons on "the art of preventing and alleviating illness." The list of École Polytechnique staff for the following year lists him as Claude Louis Berthollet's assistant, "responsible for teaching zootechnics and sanitation, and school doctor." In fact, he taught Berthollet's course during his absence in Italy in 1796-1797. After the regularization of chemistry teaching, Chaussier seems to have abandoned teaching this science and restricted himself almost entirely to his duties as a physician.

In 1799, "Les tables synoptiques" (Synoptic Tables) was published to great acclaim. It is a summary of the physiology, pathology, and therapeutics of the various anatomical systems of the human body.

On May 9, 1804, he was appointed Physician of the Maternity Hospices and entrusted with the Presidency of the medical juries for the examinations of Health Officers, Pharmacists, and Midwives for the district of the Paris Faculty of Medicine.

He was a member of the commission appointed by the Minister of the Interior in October 1810 to study "secret remedies," where he worked alongside André Marie Constant Duméril, Jean-Joseph Menuret, and Nicolas Deyeux.

In 1815, after the fall of the First Empire, he was replaced in his position as physician at the École Polytechnique, but he remained a professor at the Faculty until November 21, 1822, when the Restoration changed the organization of the Faculty: he was appointed honorary professor and his chair was taken away from him. He was deeply embittered by this and the next day suffered a stroke that temporarily deprived him of his speech and ability to walk. He recovered, but remained hemiplegic, which did not prevent him from continuing his work at the Maternity Hospital.

On May 6, 1823, he was admitted tothe Academy of Sciences.

Between 1824 and 1827, he published several works on forensic medicine: "Forensic Manual on Poisons, Preceded by Considerations on Poisoning"¹⁴, "Collection of memoirs, consultations, and reports on various subjects of forensic medicine"¹⁵, "Forensic Memoir on the Viability of the Unborn Child, Presented to^{His Excellency} the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice"¹⁶

François Chaussier died at his home in Paris on June 19, 1828, at the age of 81, from a stroke.

He was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery (^18th division) on June 21: Nicolas-Philibert Adelon gave a speech on behalf of the Academy, Marie-Alexandre Désormaux, representing the Faculty, did the same, and Duméril, on behalf of the Royal Academy of Sciences, read a long eulogy.

Don's^second son, Franck CHAUSSIER, followed in his father's footsteps and defended his doctoral thesis in 1827 in Montpellier.

He is a French physician, professor at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences.

Chaussier was the main editor of articles devoted to pharmacy inthe Encyclopédie méthodique ¹³.

Angélique Marguerite Le BOURSIER du COUDRAY

She was born in 1712 in Clermont-Ferrand into a family of doctors.

She first spent three years as a student of Anne BAIRSIN, a midwife teacher.

On September 26, 1739, she received her diploma and shortly thereafter became a certified midwife.

She worked as a midwife at the Châtelet in Paris for sixteen years.

In 1752, to combine practice with theory, she published a book entitled "A Summary of the Art of Childbirth."

In 1754, she returned to Auvergne and began giving lessons free of charge.

In 1758, she designed her famous demonstration "machine" (made of wood, cardboard, fabric, and cotton), which was approved on December¹ by the Academy of Surgery.

During the two-month training course, students were invited to practice on the mannequin.

In 1759 (or 1757 or 1767), Louis XV granted her a pension and provided her with a royal charter authorizing her to teach throughout the kingdom. She embarked on a 25-year tour of France teaching obstetrics, which continued until 1783, during the reign of Louis XVI, and trained more than 5,000 women and surgeons.
In 1768, she enlisted the help of her niece, Miss Marguerite GUILLOMANCE.
In 1769, a^second edition of her book was published, which she had illustrated with 26 charming color engravings.
In 1770, she hired a young surgeon named Mr. COUTANCEAU in Bordeaux, who married her niece shortly thereafter.
In 1789, she lived with her niece.

She died on April 16, 1794, at the age of 79, in Bordeaux, in poverty and solitude, her niece and husband being absent. There is a Rue Angélique du Coudray in Thorigné-Fouillard and also a Rue Madame-du-Coudray in Clermont-Ferrand, her hometown. The maternity ward at the hospital in Melun (77) also bears her name.

Educational seminar: a look back at June 27, 2025

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