A. M. Mauriceau

author

A. M. Mauriceau

Best known for a controversial 19th-century guide to women’s health, this author name was used for a book that mixed practical advice on menstruation and pregnancy with information about contraception and miscarriage. The identity behind the name is uncertain, but sources often connect it to the world of Madame Restell and her circle in New York.

1 Audiobook

The married woman's private medical companion : embracing the treatment of menstruation, or monthly turns, during their stoppage, irregularity, or entire suppression. Pregnancy, and how it may be determined; with the treatment of its various diseases. Discovery to prevent pregnancy; its great and important necessity where malformation or inability exists to give birth. To prevent miscarriage or abortion. When proper and necessary to effect miscarriage. When attended with entire safety. Causes and mode of cure of barrenness, or sterility.

The married woman's private medical companion : embracing the treatment of menstruation, or monthly turns, during their stoppage, irregularity, or entire suppression. Pregnancy, and how it may be determined; with the treatment of its various diseases. Discovery to prevent pregnancy; its great and important necessity where malformation or inability exists to give birth. To prevent miscarriage or abortion. When proper and necessary to effect miscarriage. When attended with entire safety. Causes and mode of cure of barrenness, or sterility.

by A. M. Mauriceau

About the author

A. M. Mauriceau is the name attached to The Married Woman's Private Medical Companion, a widely circulated mid-19th-century book about menstruation, pregnancy, fertility, and birth control. The work was frank for its time and stood out because it addressed subjects that were often treated as taboo in public print.

Modern library and museum sources suggest that “A. M. Mauriceau” was probably a pseudonym rather than a clearly documented individual author. Several sources connect the name to Madame Restell, the well-known New York abortion provider and businesswoman Ann Lohman, or to people in her business circle, including her husband Charles Lohman.

Because the authorship is not firmly settled, it is best to think of A. M. Mauriceau as a historical pen name linked to reproductive advice publishing in the 1840s and 1850s. Even with that uncertainty, the book remains a revealing document of how women’s health, secrecy, commerce, and social controversy came together in 19th-century America.