Angelique du Coudray

Madame du Coudray. From Aloïs Delacoux, Biographie des sages-femmes célèbres, anciennes, modernes et contemporaines (Unknown artist. Paris: Trinquart, 1834)

Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray (1715, Clermont-Ferrand – 1794, Bordeaux, France) was a pioneering midwife. She rose from middle–class origins to become midwife to the Queen and delivered the future King Louis XIII. ^[1]

Life

Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier Du Coudray was born into an eminent French medical family, she became the head accoucheuse at the Hotel Dieu in Paris. ^[2]

Du Coudray invented the first lifesize obstetrical mannequin, for practicing mock births. This was a life-sized female torso, extractable baby doll, and auxiliary exhibits such as model umbilical cords. The mannequin and models were made of fabric, leather, and stuffing, with leather and wicker for the frame. Originally the pelvic basin and bones were real. ^[3] The invention is often attributed to Englishman William Smellie, but the French Academy of Surgeons approved Du Coudray's model in 1758 giving her prior claim on the invention.

She published an early midwifery textbook, Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics) in, 1759.

In 1759, the king commissioned her to teach midwifery to peasant women in an attempt to reduce infant mortality. Between 1760 to 1783, she travelled all over rural France, sharing her extensive knowledge with poor women. She is estimated to have trained more than 5,000 women and about 500 surgeons and physicians. ^[4]

Du Coudray died in Bordeaux on April 17, 1794. ^[5]

See also

• Louise Bourgeois Boursier, ancestor, midwife to Marie de' Medici. ^[6]

References

Sources

• Angélique du Coudray at the Dinner Party database, Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved October 24, 2007.
• Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology By Autumn Stanley, Page 234. Published 1995, Rutgers University Press. (at Google books)
• The King's Midwife : A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray, by Nina Rattner Gelbart, Berkeley : University of California Press, (1998). ISBN 0-520-21036-0 (At Worldcat)
• Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, by Mary Lindemann, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, (2010). ISBN 978-0-521-73256-7
• Biographie d'Angélique du Coudray , Jean-Yves Gourdol , Medarus .
• Musée du CHU de rouen CNU Hospital, Rouen , France.
• "Bourgeois, Louyse." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved March 2012

External links

• Artifacts related to du Coudray at the Museum of France On line Archive. Retrieved March 2012

This biographical article about a nurse is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e