Louise Bourgeois Boursier

Louise (Bourgeois) Boursier (1563–1636) was royal midwife at the court of King Henry IV of France and the first female writer in that country to publish a medical text. Largely self-taught, she delivered babies for and offered obstetrical and gynecological services to Parisian women of all social classes before coming to serve Queen Marie de Medicis in 1601. Bourgeois successfully delivered Louis XIII (1601) and his five royal siblings: Elizabeth, Queen of Spain (1602); Christine Marie, Duchess of Savoy (1607); Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans (1607); Gaston, Duke of Orléans (1608); and Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, Queen of Scots, and Queen of Ireland (1609). In 1609, Bourgeois published the first of three successive volumes on obstetrics: Observations diverses sur la sterilité, perte de fruict, foecondite, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz / Amplement traictees et heureusement praticquees par L. Bourgeois dite Boursier. Subsequent volumes were published in 1617 and 1626, also in Paris.