Communication

摘要

Female medical experts in early modern France faced challenges to their credibility and authority as they struggled to communicate technical information during trials. "The difficulties of determining the veracity of the corporeal signs of a crime were particularly acute with regard to the reproductive female body, which was perceived to be less reliable than its male counterpart. The ability of the female medical expert to accurately and truthfully interpret such signs was also questionable, and at times she seems to have been as much 'on trial' as the bodies of those she examined."