Etude medico-legale sur les attentats aux moeurs. [Bound with :] Étude médico-légale sur l’avortement

Paris: J.-B. Baillière et fils, 1857. SECOND AND FIRST EDITIONS. Later sheep-backed boards, spine gilt. Somewhat foxed, but otherwise very good. Typographic tables in the text. Two foundational texts in the forensic history of sex crimes. The first, offered here in its second edition, explores the medical and legal natures of flashing, rape, sexual assault, pederasty, and sodomy. The study defines the terms of sex crime vocabulary to establish consistency in related cases, with lengthy entries for deflowering, debauchery, and penetration, and it sets the range for what should be considered underage. Tardieu attempts to prove a typology of the sex criminal: hyper masculine, mentally unstable, and violent, often with a misshapen penis. In the final part of the text, he notes the transmission of STIs as a result of rape as a legal addendum and gives 21 case studies of criminal sex acts. The second title, here in its first edition, is the first French legal study on abortion. Abortion was an unmitigated crime in France at the time, but as Tardieu explains, the high rate of stillbirths made it difficult to determine which were purposefully inflicted. Here he describes eight different methods of abortion and supplies several case studies of each, including chemical descriptions of abortive medications. He stresses the culpability of “wise women” who provide the necessary supplies and instructions for abortions and implores that they be strictly watched by law enforcement. This text was the medico-legal authority in France for the next 60 years.

Both titles are rare: OCLC records 4 institutional copies of Étude médico-légale sur les attentats aux moeurs in the U.S. (Penn, NY Academy of Medicine, Chicago, and Michigan) and only one copy of Étude médico-légale sur l’avortement (Penn).

Donaldson, Homosexuality and medicine 176; Hirsch V: 516; Le Naour and Valenti, Histoire de l’avortement passim.