Despite this general decline in the affairs of women in surgery, several women pioneers continued to perform operations and gain knowledge from both instruction and clinical experience. Catherine Bowles, a London surgeon and wife of a surgeon, became well known for her operations for hernia, bladder stones, and hydrocele. Lady Read had a practice in eye surgery. Dupuytren said of Madame Boivin, a French obstetrician/midwife, that “she had an eye at the tip of each finger.” (1). Louyse Bouregeois, friend and pupil of the French barber surgeon Ambrose Pare, was an obstetrician and surgeon in the 17th century. Her work is noted in Pare’s writing. In 1602, Lady Hoby, a French army surgeon, wrote in her diary: I had a child brought to see me that
