Marguerite Lamarche

[1][2] Marguerite Dutertre was born in 1638 to a poor family in Paris, and was orphaned at an early age.

She married Jean Didiot, sieur de Lamarche when she was aged 23, and a year later became the head midwife of the Hôtel-Dieu, teaching students.

At the request of the administrators of the Hôtel-Dieu, she produced her book on the principles of midwifery, D'instructions familières et très-faciles, faites par questions et réponses touchant toutes les choses principales qu une sagefemme doit savoir pour Vexercice de son art.

(Familiar and very easy instructions, made up of questions and answers, touching on all the main things that a midwife must know to practice her art.)

[1] Her book D'instructions familières ... has been said to be "the first medical textbook written by a woman in Europe" ("den första medicinska läroboken skriven av en kvinna i Europa"),[3] but Louise Bourgeois, known as La Boursier, has also been described as "the first female author in [France] to publish a medical text", as her Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruict, foecondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz (Various observations on sterility, loss of fruit, fecundity, childbirth and illnesses of women and newly born children) was published in three volumes from 1609 onwards.