| |
|
|
Susan Edson (1823 - 1897)
In 1853 Edson graduated from Eclectic College of Cincinnati and in 1854 from the Cleveland Homeopathic College. Edson opened a practice in Washington D.C. where she was a physician for the family of President Garfield. Edson attend Garfield during his terminal illness, although she only allowed to tend him as a nurse. She helped to found the Homeopathic Free Dispensary, National Homeopathic Hospital and the Washington branch of American Homeopathy.
Cassandra Pickett Durham (1824 - 13 3 1885, ) first licensed female doctor in Georgia
Originally from South Carolina, Pickett moved to Georgia before the Civil War. Twice widowed, she married Doctor John Durham in Preston in 1855, then bore him 5 children. He had practices in Sumter, Dooly and Webster counties. After the death of her husband in 1869 she placed her children with relatives and enrolled in the Reform Medical College, later the Georgia Eclectic Medical College in Macon, graduating in 1870. She opened a practice in her home. Cassandra became involved in the suffrage movement.
Her daughter, Annie Ruth (29 April 1867, Webster County, Ga. - 15 May 1949, Dawson Terrell County, Ga.) was a school teacher and a poet. In addition to writing for the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Annie Ruth wrote a book of poetry, "O'Land Beloved and Other Poems." In December 1887 she married William Nimrod Methvin (3 April 1867 - 4 Nov 1921)
Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska (Dr. Zak) (1829-1902)
Zakrzewska's father was from an old, noble Polish family who lost its property after the division of Poland. Her grandfather converted to Protestantism and her father was a freethinker believing that his daughters should be able to support themselves. When he lost his job in army, the family was support by her mother who was a midwife. Zakrzewska started to help her and many times she applied for schooling, but she was rejected since she was unmarried. In the end, a German physician helped her by taking the matter up with the king. Her father, originally supportive of her decision, turned against the idea because of the publicity. At the same time, her mother began to support her. After finishing a course of midwifery, she was given a pass for the hospital which caused a scandal. After the death of the doctor who supported her, she lost her job; but before his death he managed to inform her that in the US women could study medicine to become physicians. She made decision to travel to US. Her father was against it, wishing her to marry. He agreed, but only after she promised to take one of her sisters with her. In the US they were practically starving since they knew no one and did not know any English. They survived by knitting.
Trained in her native Germany as a midwife and experienced as an instructor of midwifery, Zakrzewska immigrated to America in 1853. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell arranged for Zakrzewska to attend Cleveland Medical College where she was among the first women in the country to obtain a medical degree. Returning to New York, Zakrzewska helped Blackwell build her new hospital. Adept at fundraising, Zakrzewska traveled to Philadelphia and Boston for Blackwell's hospital. Offered a teaching position at the New England Female Medical College in Boston, Zakrzewska moved to Boston and was outraged to discover that the school was little more than a place to train midwives. She lead the effort to create a new teaching hospital, founding the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1862. Her school was of such a high caliber that after 1881, she only admitted women who had already earned an MD. She was also a founding member of the New England Woman's Club, one of the two original study clubs that would serve as models for the twentieth- century woman's club movement.
Maria Minnis Homet (? - ?)
Minnis graduated in 1853 from the Female (later Woman's ) Medical College in Pennsylvania. Later she practiced medicine in a Pennsylvania village. On November 13, 1856 she married Edward Homet and lived with him in Homet's Ferry, Pennsylvania for near next forty years. About 1866 she closed her practice at the request of her family.
Alice Boyle Higgins, first women to graduate from the Medical College of the Pacific (renamed Cooper Medical College in 1882 and acquired by Stanford University in 1908)
Married at the age 16 to Doctor William Morris Higgins, a registered pharmacist, Alice Higgins had three children. She entered the Medical College of the Pacific at age 40. In 1877 she graduated from the Medical College of the Pacific, and from 1881 to 1882 did post-graduate work at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She was made an honorary member of the College's alumnae association. Offered the chair of the anatomy department, she declined and returned to her family and opened successful practice in Anaheim, California.
Celia Ann Dayton (24, June 1815, Herkin County, New York - 18. November 1895), first woman doctor in Kansas
The daughter of Samuel Herbert, Dayton began studying medicine with Dr. John E. Todd of Baldwinsville, N. Y. She took a partial course of medicine at Casselton University, Rutland, Vermont. In 1831 she married Amos A. Dayton. She began a practice in 1849 in Baldwinsville, Onondaga County, N. Y. From there she moved to Butler, Branch County, Michigan where she practiced nearly five years. She also practiced in Rutland County, Vermont and St. Albans. In January 1859 Dayton moved to Spring Hill, Kansas where she practiced medicine. In 1862 she divorced her husband Amon. Her only son, Hiram Eugene Dayton, was killed at Blue Springs, Missouri on January 27, 1962 during the Civil War.
Agnes McLaren (1837 - 1913) St Agnes, the first women who graduated in medicine from the university in Montpellier
McLaren was a daughter of a liberal MP (Minister of Parliament) from his second marriage. Her step-mother was Priscilla Bright McLaren. In 1866 Agnes signed a petition for women suffrage. When the Edinburgh branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage was founded in 1867, Priscilla was chosen as president while Agnes and Eiza Wigham were chosen secretaries. In September 1871 Agnes and Jane Taylor traveled through northern Scotland propagandizing for woman suffrage. At this time she started to think about becoming a doctor. The following year Agnes and Wigham again traveled through Scotland: in two months they held 18 suffrage meeting. In 1875 Agnes was a member of central committee of the National Society for Women Suffrage. She became a friend of Sophia Jex- Blake, whose wish to enter Edinburgh University was supported by her father. When she herself wanted to study medicine, however, her father and step-mother did not support her.
Despite being one of the first 14 first students of the newly opened London Medical School for Women, she graduated in 1876 from the university in Montpellier and was registered in Britain in 1878. She enrolled at the university in Montpellier because she received a letter of support from Cardinal Manning, Bishop in Montpellier. In the middle 1870s she became a member of the executive committee of the Medical School for Women, which Jex-Blake founded in Edinburgh. In 1878 she inherited 100 £ from Caroline Norton to use for women suffrage. McLaren gave the money to the Edinburgh National Society.
In 1882 she passed the exam before the Royal College of Physicians at Dublin. In 1882 McLaren started a medical practice in Cannes. Beginning in 1884, McLaren worked as a visiting physician in a dispensary in Edinburgh between June and October, and then spent the remainder of the year in Cannes.
In 1899 McLaren turned to the Catholic Church, eventually becoming a lay sister for the Dominican Order. Her home near Antibe was a place of repose for many Catholic priests. One of her visitors was a Dutch Wagner who wanted to found a hospital for men in India but who had problems with staff. Nuns were prohibited from acting as doctors by canon law. She traveled to Rome many times trying to change of law, but never succeeded. In the end she found a doctor, Elizabeth Bileby, for the hospital. She herself traveled to India to see the situation in 1909. Until her death she was a member of a Catholic women's suffrage society and as well as a supporter of other suffrage organizations.
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906)
From the wealthy and well-connected Putnam publishing family, Putnam was determined to become a physician. Since she came of age just as the Civil War began, she expected greater opportunities than women who had come before her. She acquired her medical degree from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1863 and went to France for post-graduate training. After 2 years of efforts, she became the first woman of any nationality to be admitted to the prestigious Ecole de Medecine. She graduated with high honors and won an award for her thesis. When she returned to the US in 1871, Putnam was better educated than most physicians of either sex. Due to her family's connections, she was able to develop a strong private practice. One by one, she was admitted to the most prestigious medical organizations. She continued her research, publishing over 100 scientific papers.
Unusual for her time, Jacobi continued her medical practice after she married and had 3 children. She organized the Advancement of the Medical Education of Women in 1874 and served as president for most of her life. An active suffragist, her "Common Sense Applied to Woman Suffrage" became a classic for the suffragist movement.
Emma Rosina Heikel (17 March 1842, Kaskisi? -1929, Helsinki) First woman doctor in Finland and Scandinavia.
Heikel's parents were Carl Johan Heikel (d. 1850) and Kristina Elisabeth Dobbin. She attended school in Pietarsaare, Vaasa and Helsinki. When she finished school she wanted study medicine as her brothers John Edvard (1834 - 1917) and Emil (d. 1872) had done. She completed a physiotherapy course in Stockholm (1865 - 1866), then a midwifery course in Helsinki (1867). In the autumn of 1869 she returned to Stockholm to improve her knowledge of anatomy and physiology and to start dissection. In following autumn she was allowed to attend physiology lectures at university of Helsinki. A year later, with special permission of the Emperor, she was allowed to study medicine without being officially enrolled at University. In 1871 she completed degree of Licentitate of Medicine (armollisen kirjeen) and was granted restricted permission to practice medicine - she was allowed to treat only women and children. She never obtained unrestricted permission to practice medicine. After graduation she traveled throughout Europe thanks a scholarship. In 1878 she visited Stockholm and Copenhagen and in 1878 she got a license.
After 1879 she practiced in Vaasa and in 1880 she visited St. Petersburg, Dr. Winkel in Dresden, Professor Freud in Strasbourg, Professor Howitz in Copenhagen, and Professor Abelin in Stockholm. In 1883 a position for her in gynecology was created for her in Helsinki with the help of donations and the position was changed to gynecology and pediatrician in 1889. An advocate of women's education, Heikel opposed legalized prostitution. She was a founding member of Konkordia - liitto, an academic association for women, and Naissasialiitto Unioni, a women's rights movement.
Lucy Dupey Montz (1842, near Warsaw, Kentucky - 1922), first woman dentist in Kentucky
Montz taught school and later decided to attend the Cincinnati College of Dental Surgery. She graduated with honors in 1889 and became a member of the faculty. At age 51, Montz returned to her hometown Warsaw, Ky to practice dentistry. She retired 1921.
Maria Field Wanzer (1843? - 1933), the first woman graduate of a California Medical School
To obtain money for her medical education Wanzer worked in her father's store as the postmaster and the telegraph operator. Wanzer married in the 1860s. In 1873 she was accepted by the Toland School in San Francisco, which was later that year bought by the coeducational University of California, becoming California's first female medical student. She graduated three years later in 1876 and became the first woman graduate of a west coast medical school. She left Santa Cruz and started to work as a doctor in San Francisco. She continued working as a doctor for 57 years until her death.
Nancy Levell (? - ?), first woman physician in St. Louis
Levell graduated from Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania. In 1866 she moved to St. Louis. With help of ophthalmologist Dr. Simon Pollak, Levell obtained a position at Mullanphy Hospital Clinic. Pollack tried to secure her admission to the St. Louis Medical Society, but was unsuccessful.
Anita E Tyng (? - ?)
Tyng graduated from Woman's Medical School in Pennsylvania in 1864. In January 1866 she applied unsuccessfully with one of her colleague to Harvard. They wrote,
We, the undersigned, having spent the requisite three years in medical study, and having received the degree of M D. from Female College of Boston and Woman's Medical School in Philadelphia respectively, have practiced in this city for some time past as acting physicians in the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Finding however that our diplomas, though legally sufficient, are not always considered satisfactory by male physicians we are anxious to put qualification beyond dispute, and therefore appeal to you, the faculty of Harvard medical school, as to the highest authority in the state, to give us the opportunity of doing so.
Tyng worked in the New England Hospital for Women before opening a dispensary in Rhode Island. She was probably a member of Rhode Island Medical Society. Later while still in Providence she helped to start the career her colleague Harriet Belcher, who assisted her and whom she recommended to some of her patience. In 1880, Tyng delivered a paper on "Dysmenorrhea" (painful / abnormal menstrual periods) to the alumnae of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania where she declared, "I do not believe that we are born to suffer, or be born sick and malformed simply because we are born women." She called for a concerted effort by women physicians to investigate the subject of female health:
I would like women physicians to study and to write about these points and their prevention before and at the time of puberty. I would also like to have the whole subject of dysmehorrhea carefully studied, not only the mechanical, which I proposed for today, but also that arising from congestion, inflammation and nervous conditions. I hope we shall continue this subject year after year, until our united efforts will produce a series of valuable papers, to be published together as "Women's Views of Dysmenorrhea," or some similar title.
Annie Elizabeth Clark (1844-1924), 8th fully qualified female physician in Britain
Clark was one of the first 14 women to enter the London Medical School for Women in 1874. In the second half of 1876, she traveled with Sophie Jex-Blake and Edith Pechey to Bern where she completed her medical education and graduated in 1877. She practiced in Birmingham, where she lived in Edgbaston at 4 Calthrope Road. She also worked in Midland Hospital for Women.
Ross, the first female university-trained physician to practice in Montreal
Ross was born in northern England to Joseph and Isabel Whiteheads. Her father was friend of George Stevenson, who encouraged him to be an engineer. When her father was give a position with the Caledonia railway, the family moved to Scotland. For unknown reasons, but possibly to participate in the planning and building of the railway from Toronto to Goderic, in 1847 her father moved the family to Canada. Unfortunately, the family moved to Canada during a depression and they were forced to work as farmers. Her father made potash, a hard and dangerous task. The children helped on the farm and attended school in nearby Clinton, where the Church of England founded a school in 1842. Her mother wanted her to have the education of a young lady so she was sent to a boarding school, Sacred Heart in Montreal where she stayed until she was 18. The school taught French, art and music. She excelled in music and her musical talent was appreciated, quite a compliment considering that her music teacher was none other than the famous singer Madam Emma Albani. Ross was also awarded a gold medal for her French.
When the building of railway between Branton and Buffalo started, her father got a job there and the entire family moved to Clinton, a rapidly growing town. After her return home, her father introduced her to his young Scottish colleague. Shortly thereafter they were married in the town's Presbyterian Church: she was 19 and he was 26. The young couple moved to Montreal, he worked on the railway site she took care of their two children and invalid kinswomen.
Caring for her kinswomen ignited a spark of interest in medicine and Ross decided to study medicine, which was not possible in Canada in 1865. Consequently, Ross decided to study medicine in Philadelphia, placed the care of their children in the hands of a kinsmen, and departed for Philadelphia while her husband worked on the railway. Although her husband agreed, her father was not at all pleased.
After a year, her children and a niece, who took care of the children while Ross studied, came to live with her in Philadelphia. Ross spent the summers in Canada with her husband. On March 11, 1875 Ross received her diploma as one of three Canadian to graduate that year from the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia.
After a short vacation the family settled in Montreal, where she was one of the first women to open a medical practice. Probably afraid of a hostile reaction, she did not apply for membership in the medical society. In 1878 Ross and her step-mother visited Manitoba, where her father and her husband worked. The conditions were very pioneering that year and grasshoppers ate some of their dresses and linens, so the women did not settle in Manitoba at that time. The men finished with the building projects in 1880. Her husband bought a saw mill near St. Boniface and moved it to Whitemount, Manitoba, where there was an adequate wood supply. The next year he finished a log house where she moved with her children.
Originally she thought that she would eventually treat only family members, but shortly after her arrival an accident occurred, and her husband, who normally gave the first help, promised the wounded man a real doctor. When the wounded man saw that the real doctor was a 5 feet tall women, he was not pleased, but after being successfully treated changed to one of the best partisan of Ross. She differed from the majority of other female doctors, whose clients were generally other women and children. Her clients were generally men who started to respect this fashionably dressed women (she ordered her dresses in East) and after she sewed the wounds of one of the men after a drinking party in the pub, which was unpleasant even for his colleagues. She had her practice, she cared for her family, and she bore another 3 children in Manitoba, the last when she was nearly 50. She taught in Sunday School and played music. In 1887 she attempted to be licensed and asked some attorneys in Winnipeg for help. But in the end she was not registered. Later she was a member of Manitoba Medical Association. After her husband's death in 1902 (?), she moved to Winnipeg where she lived with her daughter Minnie on Leonore Street.
Susan Dimock (April 24, 1847, South Carolina – May 1875), first US woman to finish her university studies abroad, 4th woman to graduate from Zurich University
Daughter of an editor (father) and a teacher (mother), Dimock wanted to be a doctor ever since she read her grandfather's medical books in her childhood. Her childhood was spent in Tarheel where her parents had a small hotel. She applied two times to Harvard, but she was rejected both times. With the help of Zakrzewska who helped to collect money for her studies, she left in 1868 for Zurich where she graduated with honors in 1871. Caped on 26 October 1871 the title of her thesis was "Über die verschiedenen Formen des Puerperal- fiebers."
After a stay in Europe during which where she visited Kaiserwerth and met Florence Nightengale, she returned to Boston in 1872, where she worked in the New England Hospital for Women. She started a medical program for nurses. In 1872 she applied for membership in the Massachusetts Medical Association, but was rejected like all other women. She died in a shipwreck of the Shiller near Cornwall.
Anna Bäumler ( 1849?, Munchen (Munich)- 1919, Calcutta?, India)
Bäumler's father was a high state civil servant. Bäumler herself probably had some teacher training. In the 1870s Bäumler worked as an educator in India. She probably began to study medicine in 1881 in Paris. On November 11, 1882 she matriculated in Zurich University, where she continued in her studies in 1883. She graduated 1887. After finishing her studies, she worked for a short time in Paris and in Vienna. In 1890 she went to London to obtain a diploma licensing for Britain. She worked in Lahore, Agra, and, last, in Calcutta in India. She died in India.
Leonora Howard King (April 17, 1851, Athens (Farmersville), Ontario - June 30, 1925) the first Canadian doctor to work in China and the first Western woman to be made a Mandarin, an honour of the Imperial Chinese Order of the Double Dragon)
Although Howard was from a farming family, she was exposed to the life of a physician: her paternal grandfather and two uncles were physicians. Although she lived near the Queens College in Kingston, women were not permitted to attend its medical school. Consequently, in 1872 King moved to the US to study medicine at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1876.
After graduating from medical school, Howard was denied the opportunity to pursue post-graduate studies in medicine or to practice medicine at her home in Canada. As a result Howard spent almost fifty years as a member of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society as a Methodist missionary doctor in the northern Chinese province of Chihli.
In 1881 she founded Isabella Fishe Hospital for Women and Children. On a personal note, in 1884 Howard married widower Alexander King, from the London Missionary Society, whose wife Elizabeth died 1881. In 1902 they visited Europe: her husband stayed in Britain while she traveled to Vienna. She convinced local nobles to set up dispensaries, hospitals, and even a Government Medical School for Women, which trained doctors and nurses in Tientsin (1908). She won the favour of Chinese royalty by treating hundreds of wounded soldiers during the 1894-95 war with Japan. Howard King and her husband retired 1916.
Bohuslava Keckova (March 18, 1854 - ), first female, university - trained Czech physician
Keckova was born in the village of Bukol, which today is part of village Vojkovice near to Kralupy n. Vltavou. Her father inherited a farm, which he sold and moved to Karlin when he was active in building industry. When she was 16, she finished Prague Girls High School and, with special permission, she became the first Czech female to pass the secondary school finishing exam, the maturita, on 24 July 1874. In October of the same year, she enrolled in the medical school in Zurich. On August 4, 1888 Keckova completed her medical studies, becoming the first female Czech university - trained physician as well as the 22nd female European graduate of university medical program.
Keckova returned to Prague, desiring to publish her dissertation and to work as a physician and failing at both tasks. Although women had been permitted to attend university lecturers with the dean's permission since 1878, women were not allowed to matriculate and so could not obtain a university degree. Doctors with foreign diplomas were allowed to practice in Austria only after recertification, for which was necessary to pass some university exams. Keckova's 1882 attempt to become a member of the medical society failed.
Having inherited some money after her father's death, she had no financial problems, enabling her to enroll in midwifery courses in Wien. (Europeans refer to Vienna as Wien.) After finishing the mid-wife courses, she opened a midwifery practice in Prague.
In the opinion of some of her male colleagues, she was too successful. When the Austrian government was looking for female doctors for Bosnia in 1892, she applied and was given a place in Mostar. After an audience with Minister Kallay, she arrived in Mostar on January 11, 1893 and quickly began to work. In the first year at Mostar, she treated more than 700 patients.
Mary E. Britton (1855, Lexington, Kentucky -1925), first African - American women to practice medicine in Lexington
Along with her sister Julia Britton Hooks (1852 - 1942), who studied music, Mary Britton studied at Berea College between 1871 and 1874. After graduating, Britton taught at several schools between 1876 and 1897. Active in a variety of civic organizations, Britton served as a secretary to the board for the Colored Orphans Home, was the founding director of the Colored Orphans Industrial Home, served as the president of the local woman's improvement club, and was involved in the suffrage movement. Britton wrote hundreds of newspaper articles against racial segregation for such noted newspapers as the American Citizen, The Daily Transcript and the Lexington Leader.
Eventually, Britton returned to school. After graduating from the American Missionary College, Mary Britton returned to Lexington where she became the first African - American women to practice medicine. She practiced medicine, specializing in hydrotherapy and electrotherapy, from 1904 through 1923 at her home at 545 North Limestone Street while maintaining her social activism. She is buried in Lexington Cove Haven Cemetery.
Anna Galvitz-Hotz (June 22, 1855 - Nov. 2, 1934), first female physician of Colombia
Galvitz-Hotz's father was military officer Nicanor Galvitz and her mother, Sophie Hotz, was from Switzerland. When she was 6 years old, she was sent to Bern to attend school. On April 17, 1872 she enrolled at Bern University with a special permit since she was not yet 18 years old. She helped Anna Bayerova finish her studies by giving her 500 franks. Galvitz-Hotz graduated from Bern University in 1877. After finishing her studies she returned to Columbia, where she practiced medicine. She is buried at German cemetery in Bogota, Columbia.
Eliza Cook (1856 Salt Lake City - 1947?, near Mottsville), first female doctor licensed in Nevada, suffragist
Cook moved to Carson Valley in 1870 with her family, graduated from Stanford University Medical School, studied at Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, and began practicing medicine in 1884. In 1899 Cook was licensed to practice medicine by the state board of medical examiners in Nevada. She practiced in Carson Valley and never married.
Louise Southgate "Dr. Louise" (1857- August 15, 1941) one of the first female physicians in Northern Kentucky, suffragists
Louise Southgate was from a well-to-do family who arrived in Kentucky about 1790. Southgate graduated from Laurel Memorial College, which merged with Miami Medical College - today the University of Cincinnati Medical School. Southgate went to Europe to finish her studies in Vienna and in Paris at the Pasteur Institute. Southgate was forced to get a portion of her medical training in Europe because in US she was not able to perform an autopsy: cadavers were male and it was not considered proper for a woman to work on them.
She began her practice in Northern Kentucky in 1894 by opening an office at 107 W. Fourth Street in Covington. She practiced for over 35 years until 1930. In 1910 she bought the ancestral stone home of her great-grandfather, Thomas Kennedy, at 124 Garrard Street in Covington, where she lived with her sister, a teacher, Virginia Southgate (died Sept. 29, 1929) and where she had a medical office. In 1910 she participated in Kentucky's Equal Rights Association conference held in Covington where she spoke on The Sisterhood of Women and served as chair of the convention's publications committee. She was also involved with Booth Hospital.
Emelie M. Lawson
In 1879 Lawson graduated from Cooper Medical School San Francisco, California. She opened a practice in Brooklyn, New York.
Annie E Rice (1850? - 1884), one of the two first female students of Georgetown Medical School
Rice's father was a First Consul to Japan. While in Japan, Rice studied first with a private tutor, then later in a seminary in San Francisco. In 1875 her father moved to Washington D. C. In 1880 Rice along with Jeannette Sumner became the first women to enroll in Georgetown Medical School. In the following year, when the school again banned female medical students, the two transferred to the Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania. Rice graduated in 1883 and in the spring returned to Washington D. C. Here Rice and Sumner founded a dispensary at 10th Street and Northwest for the medical and surgical treatment of women and children by women only.
Lilias Hamilton (1858 - 1925)
Prior to qualifying in medicine, Hamilton trained as a nurse at Liverpool Infirmary. She was a personal physician to the Amir of Afghanistan from 1894 to 1896. She succeeded in convincing her royal patient of the utility of smallpox vaccination. The Emir decreed obligatory vaccination in all his states. She was deputed to organize a general vaccination service. In 1915 during the WW I she served in Serbia with the Wounded Allies Relief Committee.
Ida Heiberger (1858, Washington, D. C - 16. June 1938, Washington ?)
Ida Heiberger was the daughter of Franz J. and Emma J. Heiberger. Although her father was a humble craftsman, a tailor, Heiberger graduated from Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania in 1885. After her graduation, she finished her studies in Vienna, Switzerland and in Zurich during the winter and spring semesters of 1885-1886. She was given another diploma on June 3, 1886. She ended her stay in Frieburg, Germany. She returned from Europe earlier than she planned because Sumner asked her to help her in her clinic. Heilberger worked with Sumner for more than a year. In 1890 she resigned her post and founded the Women's Clinic in Washington DC where she worked as a doctor until the 1920s. She lived with two her sisters. She worked for Women Christian Association and the Young Woman's Christian Home. She was a member of medical society and in 1894 she presented a paper at the meeting of the American Medical Association in San Francisco. Between 1894 and 1898 Heiberger sat on the national body's Judicial Committee and in 1896 she served on the board of censors. She was also a member of the Women's Medical Society and the Anthropologic Society.
Marguerite Champendal, first woman who graduated in medicine from Geneva University
Marguerite Champendal was the daughter of the minister Jacques Henri Samuel and his wife, Christine Elisabeth Roch Champendal. Marguerite never married. She worked as a teacher in Berlin and in Paris. Against the will of her family she studied medicine in Geneva.
For a year and half she worked in a Geneva clinic for women. She also studied for a short time in Paris before graduating in 1900. She opened a practice in the working-class part of Geneva. In 1901 she founded Säuglingsmilchküche und Beratungsstelle Goutte de Lait and in 1905 she founded the school Le Bon Secours in Geneva. In year 1916 she published a book Le petit manuel des mcres.
Marta Paul Hughes
In 1880 Hughes graduated from the School of Medicine at the University of Michigan then completed post-graduate work at the School of Auxiliary Medicine in Pennsylvania.
Hattie F. Atwater
Atwater graduated from Wooster Medical College in Cleveland then practiced medicine in the 1880s in Carson City, Nevada.
Ruth E. Newland
Newland graduated from the Medical Eclectic College in Cincinnati and practiced in Virginia City, Nevada in 1880s.
Maria White (April 11, 1858, Grover City, Mercer County, Pennsylvania - ? )
One of 8 children of George W. and Susanna Kerr (Wallace) White, White's father war a stone-cutter, mason, and farmer and a member of the prohibition party. After receiving her elementary school education in Groove City, White attended the state normal school in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. She taught school, then took a two-year-long course at Groove City College. In 1881 she went to New York City as a missionary where she spent a year. In 1882 her father died and she returned to home. After entering the Woman's Medical College of Baltimore in 1883, White took a course in bacteriology at Johns Hopkins College. She graduated in 1886. After some post-graduate training, she sailed for India in September, 1886 from Philadelphia under the auspices of the United Presbyterian Board of Missions.
In India she worked as the first female surgeon in Sialkot, Panjab. The next year she opened a dispensary and a hospital. Later she bought a plot of land and built another, larger hospital. She also founded another dispensary in near Pasrur. In 1894 she returned to America to live in Astoria, Oregon. She was active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Prohibition Party. Later she returned to India, ending her medical career in Pasrur.
Agnes von Babo (1859, Seckenheim - ?)
In 1892 Babo matriculated in Zurich, where she also passed the secondary school examination. She was caped in 1900 and in 1902 she recieved German approbation. Her dissertation was entitled "Ein Fall von kleincystischer Entartung beider Ovarien." From 1903 until 1936 or 1937 she worked as a gynecologist and pediatrician in Dresden.
Elizabeth Burr Thelberg (c. 1860 -)
Burr was a professor of physiology and hygiene from 1887 to 1890 and from 1892 to 1930 at Vassar College. On January 14, 1926 was she decorated by the French government for her war work. She was one of the originators of the American Women's Hospitals and served for many years on the board.
Kate Nicholas Post
She graduated in 1879 from Cooper Medical School in San Francisco. She practiced in Virginia City, Nevada in early 1880s where her office was located at 87 South C Street.
Mary McLean (1861, Washington, Missouri -1930 ), first woman admitted to the St. Louis Medical Society
The daughter of Elijah McLean, a physician in Washington, Missouri, Mary McLean attended Lindenwood and Vassar College then studied medicine at University of Michigan, graduating in 1883. After she decided to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, she became the first woman to hold the position of the assistant physician at the St. Louis Female Hospital. In 1885 she became first woman admitted to the St. Louis Medical Society and remained the only women in the society for next 15 years. She continued practicing surgery until 1928, when she fractured her wrist and was forced to give it up. Nonetheless, she contained to practice medicine until her death. She gave her inheritance from her father to the care of aged people.
About 1904, McLean together with a committee of church women from all denominations opened a shelter for young women newly arrived in St. Louis, the first step to founding the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA).
Dicia Houston Baker (1865 - 19 April 1907, Birmingham)
Dicia Houston Baker graduated from Cincinnati's Laura Memorial Women's College in 1889, received certification from the Jefferson County Board of Medical Examinersthe in 1899 in Alabama and appeared on the county medical society rolls from 1901 until 1905. Baker died in her home in Birmingham after an illness of more than two month in April 1907.
Ella Elizabeth Barnes (? - June 1898)
Barnes graduated in 1893 from Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania. In 1893 she was licensed in Alabama from the Jefferson County Board, Alabama. She was a memeber of the Jefferson County Medical Society, Birmingham.
Ella Blaylock Atherton (?, England - after 1906)
Blaylock was born in England, but spent her childhood in Canada, eventually attending McGill University and, later, the medical college for women in Kingston. Graduating in 1887, Blaylock moved to Nashua in the US in 1888. In 1898 she married an American lawyer Henry B. Atherton (1835 - 1906), a widower with four children. They had two additional children, Blaylock and Ives. Atherton practiced medicine in the US for more than 40 years. She is said to be the first women to perform an abdominal surgery in New Hampshire. She was behind the founding of Nassau Memorial Hospital and was later a member of the board of the hospital.
Louisa Wright (1862, Fern Prairie - 1913), first woman doctor in Clark County, Washington and second physician in the county
Wright's father, Lewis Van Leet, crossed the plains in a wagon and built a farm called The Oaks. After finishing elementary school, she taught school for $25 for month. From her saving she paid for her studies at Oregon Medical School and at the University of Michigan. She graduated in 1885 then practiced in Missoula, Mont. and after 1887 in Camas, four years after the community was founded. She died of injuries sustained when she was kicked by a horse. She is buried in Fern Prairie Cemetery.
Halle Tanner Dillon (1864, Pittsburgh - ) first African-American women licensed to practice medicine in Alabama
Tanner graduated from the Women Medical College of Pennsylvania then moved to Tuskegee, Alabama in 1891 where she received the Alabama medical board's certification. She worked for Tuskegee Institute and its 450 students and 30 officials.
Nena (Mary) Jolidon Croake (1865/1856 - 1934, Los Angeles)
One of her great-grandfathers was a French volunteer in the US War of Independence. .After he returned to France as a teacher, he was made Mayor of Vauthiermont, but was killed by Prussian invaders. His son emigrated to the US in 1826 with two children. Mary was a daughter of Dorcas A. Thompson (1836, Indiana) and Francis J Jolidon (b. 1825), who married on April 3, 1856 in Hancock County, Illinois. Croake practiced Osteopathic Medicine in Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington. It is possible that she had some private study with Everett A. Sommer who lived nearby. In 1899 she founded the Tacoma Women's Study Club. She served as a president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Society and was active in the 1910 campaign. She married former Pierce County Deputy Sheriff and former District Customs Collector in Victoria John B. Croake (1850 - 1913) in the 1890s.
While in her 40s, in 1912 she was one of the first two women (term 1913 - 1914) elected to the Washington State House for Pierce County's 37th Legislative District as a member of the Progressive Party. Her slogan during the campaign was "Consideration for Women is a Measure of the Nation's Progress," and she argued that since women were now enfranchised in Washington, "it is only just and fair that [they] be given a trial." She left the town 1923.
Lucinda Graham (- c 1895)
Graham graduated from Toronto's Trinity College in 1891 after which she relocated to Shanghai, China as a medical missionary. She died from cholera. In 1895 Graham was replaced by Jean Dove. Graham's diaries are in the United Church Archive in Toronto.
Ina Alma Josefina Rosquist (1865, Lovisa ? - 1942)
Ina Rosquist was born into a family of sea captains. She attended school first in Lovisa (?), later at a girls' school in Helsinki, where she met Karolina Eskelin. Rosquist and Eskelin would later study together at the university. With special permission, Rosquist started studying at Helsinki University in 1885. Until 1888 she studied at the faculty of arts and in 1896 she graduated from the School of Medicine. From 1897 to 1923 she worked in a hospital in Helsinki where she specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis.
Rukmabai (India, c. 1866 - 1951)
Rukhmabai was born in India around 1866, and went to study medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women around 1889, with support from the Dufferin Fund (The Countess of Dufferin's Fund for Supplying Medical Aid to the Women of India), which had been set up in 1885 by Harriet Georgina Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, for the purpose of providing medical relief to Indian women, building hospitals, and encouraging women to study medicine.
Rukhmabai was already well known in both India and Britain because she had fought with help of her step father a successful court case to release her from a marriage contract made for her in early childhood. When her husband sent for her, she refused to go to his home because she disliked him. A long and celebrated court case followed in the 1880s, with Rukhmabai declaring that she would rather face a prison sentence than go back to her husband.
Rukhmabai qualified as a doctor in 1894 and completed her education with an MD from Brussels. She thus became the first of many Asian women doctors to receive training in Britain. After qualifying, Rukhmabai returned to India, where she practised in the city then known as Bombay (Mumbai). She died in 1951.
Gisela Kuhn (March 22, 1867 March 3, 1943, Terezin)
Born into a Jewish family, Gisela's father was an officer and steward Rosenfeld-Roda and her younger brother was the writer Roda-Roda.
When she was 20 years old, she married Jindrich Kuhn, a wealthy co-owner of a Brno textile factory. After her husband sold his portion of the business, they moved to Zurich, where she privately took the secondary school finishing exam. She began to study medicine that summer semester and completed her studies April 12, 1898 with her dissertation, Ueber tracheitis membrancea.
After graduation she worked for Krankkasse, an early Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in Remscheid near Koeln, Germany, but she had to abandon her job since, as a woman, she could not keep it on a permanent basis. Speaking Czech, German, and French and having some understanding of English and Serbo-croatian, she applied for the position of state doctor in Bosnia.
Two possibilities were discussed: either a position in Tusla or a position in Banjaluka. Her colleague received her Austrian-Hungarian citizenship in time to receive the position in Tulsa, so the position in Banjaluka went to Gisela.
After arriving on July 9, 1899, Kuhn took the oath and, later that same day, began her work. She stayed in that position for a year, during which time she treated 16 men, 936 women, and 479 children, of which 46.2% were Muslims, 30.3% were Eastern Orthodox, and 19.6% were Catholics. She treated infections, respiratory diseases, and venereal diseases, as well as performing small surgical operations. During her first year in Bosnia she divorced, was baptized with the name of a Czech Saint Ludmila, and returned to using her maiden name. Later, as Gisela - Ludmila Rosenfeld, she married her colleague W. Januszewski. They stayed in Bosnia where she had her private practice. On March 20, 1903 she even opened a dispensary in Gornji Sehr in the Muslim part of Banjaluka. The town paid her 800 K for year, 600 K as a salary and 200 K for a transportation.
During 1905 she treated 1605 women in her office and visited an additional 920 women in their homes: 660 in Banjaluka, 124 in Nazareth, and 136 in Slatina. She and her husband stayed in Banjaluka until 1912, when they moved into Gratz. Gisela - Ludmila once again took the certification exams, this time at Gratz University and on February 24, 1915 had her diploma certified.
Now a widow, Gisela - Ludmila worked for Graz-Eggenberg Hospital beginning in 1916. After WWI, in 1919, she once again opened a private practice. In 1929, she was the second woman (after Possaner-Erenthal) to be awarded the title, Medizinerat. During WW II, she was deported Terezin, where she died.
Karolina Sidonia Eskelin (3 April 1867, Helsinki - 6 Nov. 1936, Helsinki), first woman in Finland who had doctoral degree in medicine
Daughter of sea captain Nikolai Eskelin and his wife, Sidonia Antonietta Boberg, Karolina attended schools in England and Belgium and eventually attended a Swedish girls' school in Helsinki. Eskelin began her study at the University of Helsinki in 1885. Eskelin and her friend Ina Rosqvist graduated from medical faculty with bachelors' degree in 1891 and she finished her doctoral degree 1895. After graduation she worked as a physician and published numerous articles and a few popular books. For some years she was a junior physician in department of surgery at the University of Helsinki, working under Professor Maximus Widekind from 1897 to 1899. Between 1900 and 1903 she ran a private hospital in Tampere. Between 1904 and 1905 and again in 1912 she practiced medicine in the US in several places including Massachusetts, Michigan, and Oregon). After returning to Finland she opened a practice in the Kallio district of Helsinki and specialized in gynecological surgery. She was one of the first women in Finland with a diving license.
Esther Pohl Lovejoy (Nov. 16, 1869 - 1967), leader of American women's Hospitals overseas, second women to graduate from the University of Oregon Medical school, and first woman physician in the Klondike.
Lovejoy became the second woman graduate of the University of Oregon Medical School when she graduated in 1894. She was the first female graduate of that school to actually practice medicine. She practiced medicine in Portland until the Alaskan gold rush beckoned. In the 1890s Esther operated a makeshift hospital to treat scores of gold miners after an epidemic of meningitis broke out. Later Esther returned to Portland and entered public life as a pioneer member of the Portland Board of Health (1905) and as health officer and chairman of the Board (1907 to 1909), the first woman in the U.S. to hold these positions. She was a member of the Medical Women's National Association (MWNA) which was founded in 1915, and she was present at the first meeting in New York of the MWNA War Service Committee renamed the American Women's Hospitals. She was present at a conference held in June 1917 in Washington between the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense and the heads of fifty- nine other national women's societies. In Washington she represented the National Woman's Medical Association for maternity service and to fight infant mortality. She had been authorized by her organization to go to France to study conditions there, and the Woman's Committee gave her letters of introduction to American officials in France. She traveled to France in August 1917 and in Paris joined the staff of the American Red Cross. In 1919, she founded the Medical Women's International Association and was chosen to be the chairman of the executive board for the American Women's Hospitals. She died in 1967.
Vera Kovalevska (10 Feb. 1870 -1928)
A miraculous child, Kovalevska was the second oldest of 4 children, 3 of whom survived to adulthood. Her father was Alexander Kowalevsky, a brother of mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaia's husband. Not unexpectedly, Alexander was in contact with his brother's wife. Vera Kovalevska spent her childhood in Odessa, where her father worked as a zoologist. In 1866 she graduated from Odessa gymnasium, and, as many young Russians girls from families of the intelligentsia, she decided to study medicine. In October 1886 she traveled together with Jekaterian Belokopytova to Laussne, Switzerland where she began studying at the academy. Since students had to be 18 years old to enroll in the school, Vera pretended to be her late, older sister Olga. In Laussane she studied with Jekaterina Belokopytoba, Clemence Broye and another two girls. In the autumn of 1899 she moved with Clemence Broye to Bern where they shared a flat. In 1892 she attended the Pasteur Institute in Paris where she met her father's friend, Elias Metschnikov. That autumn she studied in Bern, where was joined by her younger sister, Lidja. She graduated at the beginning 1896. Thanks to her family's connections she found a job in Paris with Metschnikow at the same place where Fjodor Tchistovitch, a brother-in-law of her friend Jekaterina Belokopytovba, worked. She married him in 1901. Later she worked as a bacteriologist in the Czar's Institute for Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg, where I. P. Pavlov, some of her father's former students, and some of her fellow student from Bern also worked.
Sarah Campbell Allan , first licensed female physician in South Carolina
Allan was licensed in October 1894. In 1895 was an intern in New England Hospital for Women and Children. Allan practiced psychiatry at Columbia for 12 years before retiring to Charleston to take care of her old father in early 1900s.
A photocopy of a typed manuscript entitled "Sarah Campbell Allan, M.D. South Caroline's Pioneer Woman Physician: A Biographical Sketch" by McDermid. A copy of transcript of Allan's diary (1900) resides in Drexell library.
Bessie Belle Little (? - 24 Sept. 1952)
In 1891 Little graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College, Number 1 and worked there between 1893 and 1894. In 1894 Little persuaded university officials to begin a new program in physical culture in New Haven, Ct and in 1897 became an instructor at the KSAC school of physical education. She held the Chair of Physiology Training at Bryn Mawr College from 1900 to 1904. From 1902 to 1906 she studied at the Women's Medical College in Pennsylvania, taking leave from her position at Bryn Mawr College to complete her degree in 1904. After graduation in 1906 she interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children from 1906 to 1907. After returning home in 1907, Little opened a medical in Manhattan, Kansas, the first women to do so. She also worked as assistant physician in the Department for Student Health in 1922. She was a manager of the Charlotte Swift Hospital until it was sold to the Sisters of St. Joseph, who renamed it St. Mary in 1936.
Alice De Boer (1872 - 1955)
Born probably on Sri Lanka, de Boer graduated from Edinburgh University. The first female doctor in Sri Lanka, de Boers worked at Lady Havelock Hospital.
Linda Neville (1873 - 1961), Angel of the Blind
Neville tried to eradicate trachoma, a leading cause of blindness, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.
Eliska Vozabova (26 June 1874, Milcice -1973)
Born to the Frantisek Vozab and Barbara Vozabova, Vozabova was one of the first students of Minerva. Later she worked as a hospital attendant at German branch of Prague University, but changed to the Czech branch in 1897. Vozabova graduated as the 4th female physician in July 18 1904 from Prague University. She worked in some practices both in Prague and abroad, then opened her own practice in 1911. Hana Sochova wrote a student paper about her.
Adeline Minnie Feder Phillips (1874 -) and Grace Feder Woods (1875 - 1966)
Adeline and Grace were the first two children of six in a wealthy, San Franciscian, Jewish family who owned manufacturing facilities in the city and a large ranch in Fresno. Their father, Samuel Feder (d. 1901), lived at 1224 Golden Gate Avenue. Both sisters graduated in 1895 from the University of California although Grace was not old enough to get a degree. Both continued in their studies in Europe in Zurich. They graduated on 30 July 1896. Adeline married an American while in Europe. She lived in Germany until WW I, when they settled in California with their three children. Grace was accepted to Berlin University. Later in 1897 she interned in Moorsfield Hospital in London, which offered her a job as head nurse. She rejected it and in 1898 she returned home. In San Francisco her situation was not better: her father prohibited her from working. She married three times: Aaron Hexter from Mokelumne Hill, Ca (September 1901), Thompson, and Woods (m. 1915), a glove store owner. She had a daughter, Jerrie, from her second marriage.
Caribel Van Dort Spittell (7 April 1876 - )
Born as 5th of 8 children and second of 3 daughters in the family of William Gregory van Dort (24 Oct 1841 - 28 Oct 1921) and his second wife Sophia Marion ( 15 March 1851 - 14 Oct 1921) nee McCarty, van Dort married Kandy in 1870. She studied in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), in Glasgow, and in Edinbourgh. She received a gold medal for surgery. On December 28, 1911 she married Richard Lionel Spittell (9 Dec 1881) in St. Michal and All Angels Church in Colombo. Richard Spittell was a surgeon in General Hospital in Colombio and an anthropologist. Caribel was President of the Ceylon Red Cross. In 1918 they had a daughter, Yvonne Eleanor.
Sabina Dembowska (3 July 1877, Wilanow near Warsav - 1962)
Dembowska completed the gymnasium with the silver medal. She studied four semester in Krakow then she went to Zurich to study medicine where she graduated in 1907. Her dissertation was entitled "Über die prophylactische Wendung beim engen Becken."
Stephanie Weis-Eder (1878 - )
Weis-Eder finished the girls' gymnasium in Vienna and took the graduating exam at Academic Gymnasium in Vienna in 1898. In 1904 Weis-Eder graduated from university. In November 1906 she was named as an assistant physician in a hospital for children. Later she became a GP in Vienna.
Bianca Binenfeld
Binenfeld finished the girls' gymnasium in Vienna and took the graduating exam at Academic gymnasium in Vienna in 1898. She graduated from university in Vienna in March of 1904.
Kornelie Rakicova (1879, Ruma - July 11, 1952, Mostar)
On 9 December 1902, Rakicova graduated from Budapest University. After contining her early training by working in a Buda-Pest gynecologic clinic with Professor W Taffer, Rakicova opened her own practice in Novy Sad. When she applied for a position as state doctor, the government in Sarajevo appreciated that she was young, had graduated from a domestic university, and was fluent in the language. On April 11, 1908, Rakicova was named by decree as a provisional doctor to Bihac. After hiring additional local help for the town hospital and moving to the town, Rakicova began working in her office on August 1, 1908. Her provisional status was changed to permanent status on August 4, 1909. In January 1912, Rakicova was awarded for her fight against infectious diseases, especially syphilis. Having problems with her superiors, she shortly thereafter asked for a transfer to Banjaluka. Her transfer was approved on November 1st and on March 5, 1916 she was again given another award. Between December 5, 1917 and the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire, she worked in Mostar. After WWI, she remained in Mostar until her death, working at the Mostar hospital and as a doctor for the Mostar court.
Matilda A Evans (1870s, Aiken - 1935)
After finishing at the Quaker's Schofield Normal School, in 1897 Evans graduated as the only African-American women from Oberlin College. She opened a practice in Columbia, South Carolina where she treated both whites and African-Americans. She founded the first African- American hospital in South Carolina and she helped to found the South Carolina Good Health Association.
Jadwiga Michalska Picado (Krakow, Poland)
Michalska studied in London, where she married Doctor Teodor Picado Morin from Costa Rica. In July 1900 she moved to Geneva from Costa Rica with her child who had been born in January 1900. She finished her studies in 1902 then returned to Costa Rica where she became the first university-trained woman doctor Costa Rican history. In 1910 she visited Paris, Munich, Salzburg, Wien (Vienna), and finally Poland - Piotrkow Trybunalski, Warsaw, and Lodz - her hometown where her parents still lived. In 1911 she was back in Costa Rica. Her older son, Theorodo, was President of Costa Rica from 1944 to 1948.
Bessie Belle Little (? - 24 Sept. 1952)
In 1891 Little graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College, Number 1 and worked there between 1893 and 1894. In 1894 Little persuaded university officials to begin a new program in physical culture in New Haven, Ct and in 1897 became an instructor at the KSAC school of physical education. She held the Chair of Physiology Training at Bryn Mawr College from 1900 to 1904. From 1902 to 1906 she studied at the Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania, taking leave from her position at Bryn Mawr College to complete her degree in 1904. After graduation in 1906 she interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children from 1906 to 1907. After returning home in 1907, Little opened a medical in Manhattan, Kansas, the first women to do so. She also worked as assistant physician in the Department for Student Health in 1922. She was a manager of the Charlotte Swift Hospital until it was sold to the Sisters of St. Joseph, who renamed it St. Mary in 1936.
Ida (Adelaide) Hoff (8 Jan. 1880, Moscow - 5 Aug. 1952)
Hoff's father was German and her mother was from the Baltic. Hoff graduated from Bern University in 1906. After practicing in Berlin with the then well-known Bern Doctor Herman Sahli, Hoff opened her own practice in Bern in 1912 and continued practicing medicine for 40 years. In 1913 was Hoff named as first women in the history as a school doctor in Bern. Although she herself suffered from tuberculosis and back pain, she was active in reform movement, fighting for old age pensions and suffrage for women. She was active in women's club SAFFA. (Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit, Swiss Organization for Women Workers). Throughout her life, she was a friend of the first female professor in Bern University, Anna Turmakin. Turmakin and Hoff traveled together to the USSR in 1927 and again in 1937.
Else Volk Friedland (21 March 1880, Vienna -)
Friedland finished the girls' gymnasium in Vienna and took the graduating exam at Academic gymnasium in Vienna in 1899. Friedland graduated from university in Vienna on 3 March 1905. After February 1907, she practiced as a GP and in June 1908 she married a doctor.
Ionia R. Whipper
After graduating in 1903 from Howard Medical School, Whipper worked a few years in Tuskegee, Alabama treating female students.
Eliza Pelrely Brison ( 15 Nov 1881, West Gore, Hants county- 1 Jan 1974)
Brison began her career as a teacher: she taught school in Rawdon Gold Mines for a year, in Belnan for a year, and in MacKay Section for two years. She entered Dalhousie University for year, then took a year off to return to teaching in MacKay Section. In 1911 Brinson graduated from Dalhousie University. Originaly she wanted be a missionaty but since her twentieswalked only with crutches so that was not possible. In 1929 she became the first female doctor ever to be employed in Victoria General Hospital in Halifax. She retired in August 1951.
Dora Teleky Brücke (5 July 1885, Hinterbrühl near Vienna - )
Daughter of Doctor Herman Teleky, Dora Teleky graduated from a girls' gymnasium, passed secondary finishing school exam at an academic gymnasium in Wien (Vienna). She studied medicine in Strasbourg and Vienna, where she graduated in 1904. She worked one year in General Hospital in Vienna, two years under Professor Eiselsberg at the university clinic, and more than year under Professor Rosthorn at The Second Women's Clinic in Wien. After practicing in Wien, she married university Professor Erns Brücke. In 1919 she founded a female doctor's organization in Vienna and was made chairman. She was also a Corresponding Secretary of International Association of women physicians (Internationalen Ärztinnenverbandes). In 1930s she lived in Vienna iX/2 Dollfusplatz, telephon 4 A 28 -4 - 59
Ivy Keess (27 Nov 1885 ?- 1953 ?)
Keess was baptized in St Thomas's Cathedral, Bombay. She graduated in 1909 from Grant Medical College in Bombay then went to the London Medical School for Women, where she qualified in 1916 (MRCS, LRCP). She subsequently returned to India and served at the Lady Sandeman Zenana Hospital, Quetta, Baluchistan (now in Pakistan), and at the Dufferin Hospitals in Cawnpore and Allahabad. She seems to have spent most, if not all, of her career in the north of India.
Florence Widney Austin (Jan. 7, 1887 ,Omaha, NE - Jan. 8, 1948)
Florence Widney Austin, MD, graduated from Southwestern Medical College, Dallas in 1908, completed a residency in Dallas, and later moved her practice to Oklahoma for a few years. Dr Austin returned to Texas in 1913. Her brother, H.S. Widney, was a doctor in Dallas.
Bessie Angela Bober Houston (1889 - ?)
Bober's father was a professor of German at King's College where she received her BA. In 1910 Bober graduated from Dalhousie University. She took a course of psychiatry in New York and she was on the staff of the Northamton State Hospital in Massachusetts for eighteen years. Eventually she married her boss John Houston. After his death she was a consultant at Dickenson Hospital and later she had part-time job in the Veterans Hospital in Springfield.
Euphemia Bessie Balcom (Aylesford)
Daughter of Dr. Parker Baslcom (not spelled the same as above, which is correct?), who was president of Nova Scotia Medical Society, Balcom graduated from Arcadia Ladies` Seminary in 1907 and from Dalhouise University 1911. Balcom and her brother Paul practiced in Berwick. She also practiced also for a short time in Petite Riviere, Lunenburg County. In 1919 she married physician Dr. Frank Davies and moved to Bridgewater. Balcom and Davies had a practice together: she administered anesthetic while he operated. In 1930s he was elected Mayor Bridgewater and later he was a minister of health in Nova Scotia. After Davies' death in 1948, Balcom built retirement home in Bridgewater then moved to nursing home in Turo. Balcom and Davies had a son Paul.
Jean Augusta MacLean (1889 -1943)
Jean MacLean was the eldest daughter of physician J. W. MacLean, who supported her choice of profession. She graduated from Dalhousie University in 1914. Following her graduation she went to Boston to study psychiatry. In 1918 she received a MD from Edinburgh University. MacLean and her husband (and fellow physician), Joseph Hunter, had three children: Ruth, Frances and Joseph. MacLean sang in the St. Giles Cathedral choir in Edinburgh. Hunter practiced in Dumfries until 1927, when he was elected to the Parliament. In 1935 Hunter died of a heart attack and MacLean returned to Edinburgh University and received a diploma in public health. MacLean worked as a psychiatrist in Chricton Royal Institute until September 1946 (note: we have her working at least 3 years after she was dead). Thereafter she worked in Dumfries until her death from cancer.
Luba Esther Heller Anigstein (Feb 14, 1891, Wolkowysk Country - April 14, 1957)
She graduated from the University of Dorphat Faculty of Medicine, in 1915. She was a pediatrician. She married Ludwik Anigstein (1891-1975), a medical scientist from Warsaw, Poland, graduated from University of Heidelberg, the University of Dorpat (Tartu, Estonia), and the University of Poznan in Poland. Between 1915 and 1939, he served the Thai and Liberian governments and the League of Nations as an expert in tropical medicine.
Elizabeth Kilpatrick (27 Feb 1892, Sydney Mines - 11 Nov 1968)
Kilpatrick graduated in 1915 from Dalhousie University. After receiving her MD in 1925 from the Long Island College of Medicine in Brooklyn, NY, Kilpatrick practiced in Women's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan and in the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Between 1916 and 1918 she worked in Northampton State Hospital and from 1918 until 1920 as assistant physician in a Nova Scotia hospital. She was also a physician at Vanderbilt Hospital in New York and at the Payne Whitney Clinic. Kilpatrick was a life member of American Psychiatric Association and a charter fellow of the Academy of Psychoanalysis. In 1960 she returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia where she lived with her sister and taught psychoanalysis and child psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University. She retired on June 1, 1968. She bequeathed $500,000 (Canadian dollars) to the Dalhouise Medical School.
Louise Alberta Pennington (? - 1974)
Pennington graduated from Dalhousie University in 1916. In 1917 she was appointed the house surgeon in the Wolverhamton and Staffordshire General Hospital in Woverhampton, Britain. She married F. C. Collier. In 1950s Pennington lived in Ottawa, Canada and spent 1960s and 1970s in Florida.
Margaret Ker (1892 -)
Born the older daughter in the family of Edward and Alice Ker, Margaret Ker joined the WSPU in 1909 when her mother joined. In 1912 she was caught trying to set a fire in a pillar box in Liverpool, a crime for which she was sentenced to three months in jail. She was also threatened with expulsion from Liverpool University where she studied medicine. In the end, she only lost her 30 £ bursary from the Birkenhead educational society.
During WWI, she worked for the war office. She was a member of the theosophical society and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Her younger sister Mary studied at Girton College in Cambridge from 1915 to 1918.
Anna M. Broomall
A daughter of Hon. John M. Broomall from Delaware County, Anna Broomall graduated in 1871 from the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, allopath.
Reference: In the Delaware County Historical Society research resources are notebooks of photos, information and news clippings of local historic places and important people (compiled 1900-1922)
sunshine@pinn.net
Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
last updated June 2003