Born: 17 October 1720, France
Died: 23 December 1805
Country most active: France
Also known as: Geneviève-Charlotte d’Arlus, Marie-Genevieve-Charlotte d’Arlus
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Geneviève Thiroux d’Arconville once wrote of women, “Do they show science or wit? If their works are bad, they are jeered at; if they are good, they are taken from them, and they are left only with ridicule for letting themselves be called authors.” A novelist and scientist, her efforts went beyond translation of English works into her native French—she also added her own commentary, which pushed her writing from the acceptable to the unacceptable for women of the 1700s, particularly given her interest in the sciences. As such, she left her name off these works. When she collaborated with anatomist Jean-Joseph Sue on the French version of Treatise on Osteology, including adding illustrations that she paid for, he was believed to be the sole author. She also spent a decade studying putrefaction (the processes by which plant and animal matter rots), conducting experiments and recording her findings. She found that protecting the matter from air and exposing it to copper, camphor, and cinchona slowed spoilage. Her Essai pour servir a l’histoire de la putref́action (Essay on the History of Putrefaction), published in 1766, detailed more than 300 experiments but left out the author’s identity. One reviewer opined the author “must be a highly distinguished physician with a deep knowledge of both chemistry and medicine.”