Blood and expertise: the trials of the female medical expert in the ancien-régime courtroom.

This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtroom through a close reading of three case studies: Marie Garnier, expert midwife tried for false testimony in 1665, and Angélique Perrotin and Barbe-Françoise D'Igard, accused of false accusation of rape and infant substitution, respectively, in the 1730s. The difficulties of determining the veracity of the corporeal signs of a crime were particularly acute with regard to the reproductive female body, which was perceived to be less reliable than its male counterpart. The ability of the female medical expert to accurately and truthfully interpret such signs was also questionable, and at times she seems to have been as much "on trial" as the bodies of those she examined.

The hidden truths of the belly: the uncertainties of pregnancy in early modern Europe. (Society for the Social History of Medicine Student Prize Essay 1999, runner-up.).

For early modern men and women and their medical practitioners, the experience and understanding of pregnancy was primarily uncertain. This uncertainty extended to the whole process of pregnancy--from the moment of conception to delivery, the detection and bearing of a 'true fruit' was doubtful. This 'uncertainty' was heightened by the fact that both body and language could conceal the truth. The woman herself was frequently uncertain and could be mistaken in her interpretation of the condition of her belly. This ambiguity is expressed in the vague and faltering language used to describe such experiences. Women's bodies were believed to conceal the truth more readily than their male counterparts. Equally a woman's physical narrative was more likely to be distrusted. Tensions surrounding the appropriate nature of women's 'knowledge' of such hidden 'secrets' also affected the ways in which women and their practitioners described the 'truths' of the belly. This article traces the ambiguities faced by women and their midwives/accoucheurs through three areas of pregnancy: quickening, false conceptions, and the threat of miscarriage. The much-neglected source of medical texts and observations is drawn upon, alongside letters and diaries and judicial material.