Séverin Pineau

Séverin Pineau, known in Latin as Severinus Pinaeus Carnutensis, was a Parisian physician and surgeon to the king who lived from about 1550 to 1619. He is particularly known for his work in gynecology and obstetrics. His book on the signs of virginity, pregnancy and childbirth caused a sensation in its day for the frankness with which it treated these subjects, and some copies were confiscated for that reason. In 1579 he and his friend and colleague Ambroise Paré watched a dissection of a woman performed by Jacques d'Amboise. In 1597 he argued for symphysiotomy, the separation of the pubic bones, so that the child could be given priority during a difficult labour. He taught the anatomist Gaspard Bauhin, and a street and a cul-de-sac in Chartres have borne his name since 1970.