Madame Durocher

In the museum of the National Academy of Medicine, Brazil’s oldest medical institution, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, an unusual photograph catches visitors’ eyes. Short hair, moustache, coat and tie all contribute to the strangely virile appearance of midwife Madame Durocher, the first female member of the Academy of Medicine and the only woman to have her portrait displayed in the large hall of homages.

Born in Paris in 1808, Madame Durocher arrived in Rio de Janeiro at the age of seven, accompanied by her mother, an elegant French dressmaker, who, along with other compatriots, migrated to Brazil when Napoleon Bonaparte was deposed.

In her early years in Brazil, Madame Durocher, a refined, delicate young lady, worked in her mother’s shop as a florist and dressmaker. She unofficially married a Brazilian and had two sons by him. A few years later, however, her mother died and her husband was murdered by accident. Debts from her mother’s shop were piling up and Durocher was forced to hand it over to her creditors.

Although she had inherited some paid slaves, Madame Durocher decided to free them and made a big decision: to prepare for a new profession as a midwife.
Durocher knew, from her own experience, that little was known about the female body. Many women preferred to die than be examined by male doctors or midwives, and refused the use of vaginal speculums and palpation. She knew many women who had died giving birth.

And it was thus that, in 1832, she became the first and only female student in the Birthing Course at Rio de Janeiro’s brand-new School of Medicine.

In spite of a serious sight defect in one eye, as the result of a childhood illness, Madame Durocher was a brilliant student and slowly began to treat clients, among whom slave women, prostitutes and members of the high-society.

She didn’t like to make any kind of distinction, whether racial or social. She gradually became versed in the most popular obstetric techniques of her time, such as the use of forceps, version and embryotomy, as well as dealing with eclampsia and haemorrhages, complications that were often lethal for mothers and babies. She also practiced first aid on newborns to get them breathing again.

With time, she also began to practice in the areas of gynaecology, post-natal care, and forensic examination (in cases of sexual abuse, defloration, rape and others). Although people without medical diplomas were forbidden to practice gynaecology, Madame Durocher was constantly sought out and recommended for such functions.

As she had to go out at night to see her patients and had suffered a few accidents and attempts at sexual violence, Madame Durocher started wearing men’s clothes.

She adopted an odd mixture of men’s and women’s garments (a long skirt, bow-tie, black frock coat and silk half-top hat) and assumed an ugliness that wasn’t natural to her: she cut her long hair short and started masculinising her facial features.

Durocher knew that midwives were not terribly respected and many were also seen as easy women because they cared for the prostitutes who frequented the House of Mercy hospitals. She realized that not looking like a woman and taking on a male persona gave her “authority” when dealing with doctors and institutions, which were beginning to accept her articles, theses and arguments.

n the streets of Rio de Janeiro, she came to be seen as a poorly defined mixture of man and woman. And although she was made fun of and persecuted by some newspapers and even some more conservative doctors, Durocher was increasingly respected for her ability to resolve the most complicated deliveries. Even a doctor who had ridiculed her in several newspaper articles and who had been responsible for an inspection of her home, had to call her in to perform his wife’s extremely difficult delivery.

Durocher said she had never refused a single call-out, even to help homeless women in the streets of Rio. She was under great physical and intellectual strain, as she was always ready to argue with the authorities about the limitations of government assistance for women. Even during epidemics of yellow fever and cholera, she never stopped seeing patients in poorer parts of town and once almost died of cholera.

Despite her declaration that she would never stop treating slave women and prostitutes, she was made royal midwife and delivered Emperor Pedro II’s children.

Despite her statement that, “just as there are effeminate men, there are also manly women,” it was never known if her decision to wear men’s clothes also had to do with sexual preference. Madame Durocher continued to raise her children and led a very discreet private life.

Determined to treat patients who couldn’t afford to pay her and donating her earnings to people in need, after more than 50 years of work and 8,000 deliveries, Madame Durocher died in extreme poverty. She liked to say that she had helped bring great men into the world, but, without a doubt, she had also helped bring some great scoundrels into the world.

In her obituary, an Academy of Medicine director wrote, paradoxically: “[She] was the only woman to penetrate this institution, but her masculine character and talent patented, on these benches that she so often occupied, the real justification for this well-deserved distinction.”

CLike George Sand, Madame Durocher knew that women in the nineteenth century were fated to the invisibility of domestic toil or jobs without recognition. With her masculine appearance, she won profession and public respect.