This text is divided into three volumes. Opening with a list of common medicines followed by Latin names for illnesses, the text is structured into alphabetical sections detailing potential causes for concern of the body. While this work is intended for a general audience and not specifically for those working with female bodies, we have included it here as it plays a role in democratising access to this type of specialised knowledge that had previously been in the domain of highly educated medical practitioners. There are many surviving copies, suggesting each edition had a wide reach and was valued as a medical book in French society. One interesting aspect of this text is that it was printed under the pseudonym of “Mr L***” (Vandermonde, 1760, p. v), an element noted in other medical texts of this time.
However, Vandermonde is also a controversial figure in medical literature today, as he wrote extensively on eugenics and propagated ideas on human population control in order to attain the perfect human specimen. Asserting (male) control over the reproductive system is a feature of medical literature of the Enlightenment, as advancement in scientific knowledge and societal norms about the place of women were joined with more precise ways of reading and interpreting the female body. The female body is conceptualised abstractedly by Vandermonde; he seldom addresses women directly, referring to their ailments and addressing their remedies by using the imperative. He is distant from the subject and there is a scant use of the personal pronoun, compared to its abundance in English language texts.