Category: The Roles of Women in the Development of Different Branches of Science and Medicine in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), born Marguerite d’Angoulême, was a French noblewoman who wrote many works, often in examination of social justice. Her mother, Louise of…

The institutionalization of medical and scientific knowledge in universities effectively shut women out from the formal healthcare profession. This exclusion caused women to practice on…

Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696), also known as Marie de Rabutin-Chantel, was a French noblewoman who was a member of the aristocracy and specialized in domestic medicine, medicine by amateurs, and self-healing. 

I I Doña Oliva Sabuco de Nantes y Barrera (1562–c. 1622/29) was the daughter of a chemist who believed in educating his daughter, but who…

Louise (Boursier) Bourgeois was born in 1563, and she was a midwife who took up the profession to help her family financially after their fall from wealth during the French religion wars. 

Elizabeth (Talbot) Grey (1581-1651), countess of Kent, and her sister, Aletheia Talbot Howard, the countess of Arundel, were a part of an elite group of women who had access to limited (informal) scientific education.