Sneak Peek

Damien Ihrig, MA, MLIS
Curator, John Martin Rare Book Room

Happy May, friends! These are exciting times for the JMRBR. We have our open house WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, with featured speaker Greta Nettleton. The book this month from Marie-Anne Victoire Boivin will give you a sneak peek at what we will have on display. Read below for more details.

In other news, I am very excited to let you know that the JMRBR will experience a major remodel this summer and fall. As part of a larger project to renovate the fourth floor of Hardin, the JMRBR will receive a new, separate reading room constructed in the area just outside of the current JMRBR. The reading room will provide researcher access to books and space for hosting classes and events. The current JMRBR will be converted to a shelving space, helping to maintain the security and preservation of all JMRBR materials.

Unfortunately, this means that access to the JMRBR collection will be limited during construction, but I will be available to assist researchers and instructors with their needs. Requests to use material will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Work on the fourth floor is expected to begin in June, with completion anticipated by the beginning of next year.

The folks at Hardin are excited about the changes coming to our building, especially the new space for the JMRBR and the improved services we can provide our users. We look forward to celebrating those changes with you next year!

Stay well and happy reading!

Hours

The Room is available Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5:00 (U.S. Central) and Friday by appointment. Face masks are welcome and KN95 masks are available for free to all visitors. To guarantee the Room is available, please contact me at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154.

All times are Central

Book of the Month

BOIVIN, MARIE ANNE VICTOIRE GILLAIN (1773-1841). A practical treatise on the diseases of the uterus and its appendages. Text printed in London by Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, atlas printed in Edinburgh by Charles Smith, 1834. 559 pages of text, with 41 plates of illustrations in the atlas. Text: 23 cm tall, Atlas: 26 cm tall.

Marie Boivin, one of the most accomplished and respected midwives in all of Europe, was a voluminous writer, innovative surgeon, and skillful gynecologist. She was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Medicine by the University of Marburg because of the quality and expertise of her writings.

A French midwife and inventor, Boivin wrote several publications that were translated into many languages and used as instructional texts for over a century. She began studying anatomy during the French Revolution, but her education ceased briefly when she married Louis Boivin in 1797. She received her diploma in 1800 and practiced in Versailles until her husband’s death. She moved to Paris to work and began publishing.

Boivin learned from other influential midwives, including Marie-Louise Lachapelle, who trained her in midwifery and was already working as a respected colleague of prominent obstetricians. In France, midwives were considered medical staff and were taught in public maternity hospitals. This allowed women to gain more professional recognition and administrative seniority than in other countries, such as the UK, where medically supervised midwifery training was not available to women until the latter half of the 19th century.

Boivin's book Traité pratique des maladies de l’uterus et de ses annexes, published in Paris in 1833, was a very advanced gynecological text for the 19th century. Unlike previous books, it focused on the reproductive organs as a system rather than just in relation to childbirth. It was based on first-hand case studies and autopsies, including the first account of the surgical removal of a cancerous cervix.

Boivin collaborated with Antoine Dugès, who was on the Paris medical faculty for a number of years before becoming professor of obstetrics at Montpellier in 1825. The uterus and its adnexa in their normal and diseased states are treated in detail with many illustrative case histories. The atlas, with its forty-one lithographs drawn by Boivin, illustrates the most common pathological states of the female genitalia. The translation presented here, Practical Treatise of the Diseases of the Uterus and of its Annexes, was her last work.

The text and atlas are covered in a common 19th-century green cloth over thin paper boards. Both show some wear and tear along the outer edges but otherwise are in very good shape. The atlas has some minor foxing throughout and, not surprisingly, given the impressive illustrations, seems to have been more heavily used than the text.

Stop by the open house on May 3rd to see these books and many others!

Contact me to take a look at this book or any others from this or past newsletters: damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154 to arrange a visit in person or over Zoom.