Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance medical treatises written by physicians contain information pertaining to various categories of people involved in healthcare. In case of specific patients, women and children, female assistance by midwives and nurses is indispensable; female auxiliaries often replace the physician in crucial moments such as birth or swaddling. When specific technical skills or professional activities regarding medicinal substances are concerned, druggists step on stage. Female “paramedics” are not academics or learned persons like physicians. Physicians provide comprehensive descriptions of their assistants’ mission and gestures in their treatises. The situation for druggists is more complex: they could be learned botanists or simple merchants; whatever their learning and training may be, their social position differs from the physician’s. Galen and Hippocrates refer to female and male “paramedics”. Soranos refers exclusively to female ones. Razes underlines the instrumental role of nurses in child nutrition and development. The Renaissance commentators of Galen (François Valleriole, Leonhart Fuchs) insist on the competence and morality of midwives and nurses. The French Renaissance physicians Simon de Vallambert, Jacques and Charles Guillemeau refer to Galen in order to emphasize good practices and prevent errors of female “paramedics”. Our aim is to study those descriptions, focusing on midwives and nurses. How do physicians establish the hierarchical limits between them and their assistants? What is the status of “paramedical” knowledge: amateur or professional, although not officially included in the academic medical curricula?