Two centuries ago, Marie-Anne Victoire Gaillan Boivin already knew the mechanics of childbirth in detail, its complications, and the variables that put the life of the mother or baby in danger, as well as having accurately drawn 133 positions of an unborn child in the mother’s womb.

Her etchings were so accurate that her contemporaries would say that “she had eyes on the tips of her fingers.” The reality is that Marie Boivin knew anatomy inside out, having invented a pelvimeter and a two-part vaginal speculum that could be gently widened to view the cervix.

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From nurse to gynecologist

Marie-Anne Victoire Gaillan Boivin was born in Paris 200 years ago, on April 9, 1773. Her medical training began in a convent where the nuns educating her were also the ones who ran the Hôtel-Dieu d’Étampes hospital.

She worked as a nurse in that same hospital until she married Louis Boivin at the age of 24, with whom she had a daughter, but was widowed the following year.

Boivin resumed her studies and entered the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris hospital, which had been teaching midwifery since the 14th century. There, she learned from Marie-Louise Lachapelle, a renowned midwife.

She continued her studies at Versailles, where she obtained a certificate. However, after her daughter’s death, she returned to Paris to work at the Hospice de la Maternité. There she was promoted to supervisor of the breastfeeding section.

Marie Boivin was not just a midwife; she was also an excellent scientific illustrator. During her training, she recorded the positions of a baby in the womb, and those drawings were discovered by the physician François Chaussier, who encouraged her to publish them.

Marie Boivin, a gynecologist from two centuries ago, knew anatomy in detail because she invented two tools that allowed her to see the cervix, a pelvimeter and a two-part speculum. (Illustration from the book “Traité pratique des maladies de l’utérus et de ses annexes: atlas” by Marie Boivin)

Manuals: The Art of Obstetrics

In 1812, at the age of 39, she published Mémorial de l’art des accouchements (Manual on the Art of Obstetrics), an illustrated book spanning nearly 700 pages in which she explained the positions of fetuses in the womb, the use of forceps, premature births, causes of miscarriage, signs of death in the mother or the fetus, and the umbilical cord.

This manual was awarded an Order of Merit from the King of Prussia and was translated into German and Italian. After publishing her first work, the author worked at l’Hôpital Poissy and the Maison Royale de Santé.

One of her greatest contributions to medicine was the book Traité pratique des maladies de l’uterus et de ses annexes: atlas (A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Uterus and Its Appendages: Atlas), in which she described the diseases of the uterus and narrated the first surgical removal of a cancerous cervix. This publication also contained scientific illustrations made and colored by herself.

Her drawings resemble those of modern medicine because Marie Boivin knew anatomy in detail, as she had invented two tools that allowed her to see the cervix, a pelvimeter and a two-part speculum.

What’s more, she was one of the first doctors to use a stethoscope to listen to the fetal heartbeat.

Marie Boivin was one of the first doctors to use a stethoscope to listen to the fetal heartbeat. (Illustration from the book “Mémorial de l’art des accouchements” by Marie Boivin)

In life, this obstetrician won a silver medal from the Société de Médecine de Paris for an essay on uterine bleeding.

She earned an honorary doctorate in medicine from the University of Marburg in Germany and recognition from the Société Médicale d’Émulation de Paris, the Société Médicale Pratique de France, and learned societies in Berlin, Brussels, and Bruges.

She died in dire straits at the age of 68. Despite this, her contributions were by no means forgotten. In fact, she was the only woman to be included by Isidore Bourdon in his book Illustres médecins et naturalistes des temps modernes (Illustrious Physicians and Naturalists of Modern Times).