Louis de Serres
1) A Lyonnais Physician's Tale of Sad Sterility
The extract below furnishes an example of the period's fascination with false births – when labour appears to commence, but there is no foetus to be delivered. In this case, another physician's proposed cure for sterility had relied upon his patient eating foods likely to produce heat and flatulence, since both were commonly believed to favour conception. De Serres blames this diet for the symptoms resembling labour from which the woman suffered.
[.] and it happened thus to a certain doctor I know, who, having promised in vain to ensure that a most respectable lady from the Dauphiné region should be able to conceive (she is married, but as sterile as a mule), in truth made her use various remedies which not only made her belly and her breasts swell, but also brought her a great many other signs indicating pregnancy, such as faintness, a distaste for some foods, loss of menstruation, clear and palpable movement in the belly, milk in the breasts, an inexplicable loss of weight, and other such things. So that the said Lady, thinking she had had a real stroke of luck, prepared her midwife, wetnurse and all the other trinkets for her future child, of whose happy delivery, when the term came, the above mentioned doctor confidently assured her. But what happened? Why, when the nine months were ended, the said Lady expelled no more than a puff of air, and fell into a grievous illness, and thought to die from it. And all this came from having consumed only very hot and windy things during her phantom pregnancy on the instructions of her Doctor, who was much blamed for having undertaken too lightly to cure such a case of sterility before having really studied it.
1) Un physicien lyonnais raconte un faux accouchement
Cet extrait fournit un bon exemple de la fascination exercée par les accouchements manqués ou les faux accouchements. Un autre médecin avait proposé à une femme stérile de manger des aliments « forts et venteux », car on croyait ces deux qualités aptes à favoriser la conception. Cependant, de Serres tient ce régime responsable des symptomes d'une grossesse qui n'en était pas une.
[...] ainsi qu'il en arriva à un certain Medecin de ma cognoissance, qui s'estant vainement promis de faire devenir enceinte une fort honneste Damoyselle Dauphinoise, mariée (laquelle est naturellement aussi sterile qu'une mule) il luy fit voirement user de plusieurs remedes qui la firent devenir non seulement grosse de ventre et de tetins, mais aussi luy procurerent un grand nombre de signes eqivoques de grossesse, comme peuvent estre les deffaillances de coeur, desgoutemens, suppressions de moys, mouvement manifeste et sensible au ventre, laict aux tetins, maigreur extraordinaire, et plusieurs autres semblables. Si que ladite Damoyselle croyant d'avoir trouvé la febve au gasteau, elle appresta la sage femme, la nourrice, et toutes les autres beatilles pour son futur enfant, de la sortie heureuse duquel le susdit Medecin l'asseuroit avec passion lors que le terme seroit venu. Mais qu'en arriva-il ? Certes les neuf moys estans expirez, ladite Damoyselle ne fit que du vent pour tout potage et tomba en une grande maladie de laquelle elle cuida mourir ; et ce pour n'avoir usé que de choses fort chaudes et venteuses durant la grossesse imaginaire par l'ordonnance dudit Medecin, lequel fut grandement blasmé d'avoir entreprins un peu trop legerement la guerison d'une telle sterilité avant que l'avoir bien cogneue.