Justine Siegemund
Justine Siegemund | |
|---|---|
 Justine Siegemundin | |
| Born | Justine Diettrich 26 December 1636 |
| Died | 10 November 1705 (aged 68) Berlin |
| Occupation | Midwife |
| Known for | The Court Midwife (1690) |
| Spouse | Christian Siegemund |
| Children | None |
Justine Siegemund, or Siegemundin, (26 December 1636 – 10 November 1705) was a Silesian midwife whose obstetrical book, Court Midwife (1690), was the first female-published German manual.[1][2]
Early life
Siegemund was born on 26 December 1636,[3] the daughter of Elias Diettrich, a Lutheran minister, in Rohnstock (now Roztoka, Poland), in the former Silesian Duchy of Jawor. Her father died in 1650 when she was 14 years old. In 1655, she married Christian Siegemund, an accountant. The couple remained childless through their 41 years of marriage and supported each other in their professional careers.
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Career
1656–1672
At age 20, Justine Siegemund suffered considerably at the hands of incompetent midwives who wrongly assumed that she was pregnant when, in fact, she suffered from a prolapsed uterus. Her experience motivated her to educate herself about obstetrics,[1] and she practiced herself for the first time in 1659,[1] when she was asked to assist a case of obstructed labour related to a misplaced infant arm. Until 1670, she provided free midwifery services to peasant and poor women in her local area, although she also gradually diversified her client base to include women from merchant and noble families.
1670–1701
In 1670 she was named the "city midwife" of Legnica/Lignitz.[1]Given her thriving midwife practice and expanding client base, Siegemund was called upon when a cervical tumour threatened Luise Duchess of Legnica, which she successfully removed, after male physicians called on her professional services. The same year, Martin Kerger—her former supervisor—accused her of unsafe birthing practices. Kerger's own colleagues at the Frankfurt on Oder medical faculty sided with Siegemund instead, and Kerger's own statements demonstrated that he lacked her practical experience-based professional knowledge of women's reproductive and infant anatomies and childbirth. [citation needed]
His allegations did not affect Siegemund's professional employment opportunities, while her expertise and dexterity caught the attention of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg who appointed her as his court midwife termed the Chur-Brandenburgische Hof-Wehemutter in Berlin in 1683. She also served as royal midwife for Frederick III's sister Marie-Amalie, Duchess of Saxony-Zeitz,[1] and delivered four of her children. At the court of August the Strong, she assisted Saxon Electress Eberhardine to give birth to her son, Frederick August II (1696). At the same time, she attended other births within the Berlin area.
While in the Netherlands, Mary II of Orange (1662–1694) suggested that Siegemund should author a textbook training manual for midwives.[1] Siegemund had probably already started to compile the Court Midwife, however. [citation needed]
Siegemund rarely used early pharmaceuticals or surgical instruments within her practice. By the time that she died on 10 November 1705 in Berlin, Siegemund had delivered almost 6,200 infants, according to the Berlin deacon who presided over her funeral.[1]
The Court Midwife (1690)
In 1689, Siegemund travelled from The Hague to Frankfurt on Oder, and submitted her draft manual to the Frankfurt on Oder medical faculty, which approved her medical documentation. She had incorporated embryological and anatomical engravings from Regnier de Graaf (1641–1673) and Govard Bidloo (1649–1713), which enhanced its practical utility. From April to June 1689, she protected her intellectual property stake in the volume through gaining printing privileges from the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, as well as the Holy Roman Emperor.
In Leipzig, Andreas Petermann (1649–1703) charged her with similar offences to those that Kerger had already advanced, but given his own comparative professional inexperience, Siegemund once again was able to surmount this challenge to her professional reputation.
Based on careful notes that she had made during her deliveries, she published an authoritative obstetrical text titled the Court Midwife (actually Die Kgl. Preußische und Chur-Brandenburgische Hof-Wehemutter) in 1690. On 28 March 1690 the Almer Mater Viadrina (the oldest university in Frankfurt an der Oder) certified her book.[3] The book discusses its topics in the form of a dialogue between herself and Christina, a pupil.[4] The Court Midwife was systematic and evidence-based in its presentation of possible childbirth complications, including problems like poor presentations, umbilical cord problems, and placenta previa and their management. In the textbook, Siegemund presented a solution to the delivery of a shoulder presentation, in those days an often catastrophic situation leading to the death of the baby and potentially the mother. She worked out a two-handed intervention to rotate the baby in the uterus securing one extremity by a sling. She also is credited (along with François Mauriceau) of finding a method to deal with a hemorrhaging placenta previa by puncturing the amniotic sac.[5]
After Siegemund's death, the Court Midwife went through numerous republications, including Berlin (1708), and Leipzig (1715,1724), with modifications that included corroborative male gynecological citations and accounts of the Kerger and Petermann cases when it was republished in 1723, 1741, 1752 and 1756.
Works
- Die königl[ich-]preußische und chur-brandenb[urgische] Hof-Wehe-Mutter : das ist: ein höchst nöthiger Unterricht von schweren und unrecht stehenden Gebuhrten, in einem Gespräch vorgestellet, wie nemlich durch göttlichen Beystand, eine wohl-unterrichtete Wehe-Mutter mit Verstand und geschickter Hand dergleichen verhüten, oder wanns Noth ist, das Kind wenden könne ; mit einem Anhange heilsamer Arzney-Mittel und ... Controvers-Schriften vermehret .... Berlin : Rüdiger, 1723 Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf.
Bibliography
- Waltraud Pulz: «Nicht alles nach der Gelahrten Sinn geschrieben» – Das Hebammenanleitungsbuch von Justina Siegemund. Zur Rekonstruktion geburtshilflichen Überlieferungswissens frühneuzeitlicher Hebammen und seiner Bedeutung bei der Herausbildung der modernen Geburtshilfe. München 1994. (Münchner Beiträge zur Volkskunde. Bd. 15.)(vorher Phil. Diss. München 1992.)
- Lynne Tatlock: "Speculum Feminarum: Gendered Perspectives on Obstetrics and Gynecology in Early Modern Germany" Signs: 17 (Summer 1992): 725–740.
- Waltraud Pulz: "Aux origines de l'obstétrique moderne en Allemagne (XVIe - XVIIIe siècle): accoucheurs contre matrones?" In: Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 43 (1996), pp. 593–617.
- Waltraud Pulz: "Gewaltsame Hilfe? Die Arbeit der Hebamme im Spiegel eines Gerichtskonflikts (1680–1685)". In: Rituale der Geburt. Eine Kulturgeschichte. Hg. v. Jürgen Schlumbohm [u.a.] München 1998. (Beck'sche Reihe. 1280.) pp. 68–83, 314–318.
- Lynne Tatlock (translator): The Court Midwife: Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 2005: ISBN 0-226-75709-9
Legacy
On 28 March 2023, as part of their Women's History Month campaign, Google celebrated Siegemund with a doodle whose reach included the US, the UK, Iceland, Switzerland, Greece and Germany.[3][6]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Blum, Nava; Lane, Hilary J.; Fee, Elizabeth (2010-1). "Justina Siegemund and the Art of Midwifery". American Journal of Public Health. 100 (1): 68–69. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.171371. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 2791243. PMID 19910341. Archived from the original on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "La sage-femme aux petites mains | Prendre corps". corpsgir.hypotheses.org. Archived from the original on 14 March 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
- ^ a b c "Celebrating Justine Siegemund". www.google.com. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- ^ Speert, Harold (1973). Iconographia Gyniatrica. F. A. Davis. p. 74. ISBN 0-8036-8070-8.
- ^ Who Named It?. "François Mauriceau". Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2008.
- ^ Desk, OV Digital (27 March 2023). "Google celebrated Justine Siegemund with a doodle". Observer Voice. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
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