Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Women in Medicine

  • Dr. Rebecca Cole and racial health disparities in nineteenth-century Philadelphia

    Meg Vigil-Fowler Grand Junction, Colorado   The anatomy lecture room at the Woman’s Medical College of New York Infirmary. Published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.  April 16, 1870. Library of Congress. From the beginning of black women’s professional involvement in medicine, public health marked a central component of the scope of their practice. Rebecca Cole,…

  • The book that galvanized a health care transformation

    Sherrie Dulworth New York, United States   Dulworth, Sherrie. On Death and Dying Changed the Health Care Conversation. March 22, 2019. Mount Kisco, New York. One of the major health care sea changes of the past half-century did not originate from the usual sources of scientific research, technological development, or even clinical trial-and-error. Instead, a…

  • Alice Hamilton: Physician and scientist of the dangerous trades

    Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States   Alice Hamilton in 1919 It is a gritty, frozen day in winter-weary Chicago, one that does little to inspire action; perhaps least of all a frigid walk around the salty, potholed neighborhood. In a month or two a lunchtime walk would be a welcome idea; university students…

  • Clara Maass, yellow fever, and the early days of ethical medical testing

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Clara Louise Maass portrait. Credit: National Museum of Health and Medicine. CC BY 2.0. Clara Maass was born on June 28, 1876, in the quiet New Jersey township of East Orange. The oldest daughter of Hedwig and Robert E. Maass, she grew up helping to raise and provide…

  • Medical history on the silver screen: Hollywood’s ten-minute films about medical heroes

    Bert Hansen New York, New York, United States   Figure 1. Frame of Christiaan Eijkman in Java considering the dietary difference between polished and unpolished rice, from The Magic Alphabet © MGM 1942. All rights reserved. Some of us are old enough to remember long Saturday afternoons in neighborhood movie theaters, where we were entertained…

  • Katherine Anne Porter and the 1918 influenza epidemic

    Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States   Fig 1. Katherine Anne Porter. Photograph taken in Mexico, 1930. In Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter weaves the horrors of the Great War, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the near-death experience of a young woman in love with a doomed American soldier into…

  • Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska: immigrant, physician, teacher

    Cynthia Kramer Waianae, Hawaii, United States   Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska was a female physician and teacher, at a time when women were not taken seriously in the field of medicine by their male counterparts. She served as head midwife at the Royal Charite Hospital in Berlin, Germany, then moved to the United States and received…

  • Frances Oldham Kelsey: A medical profile in courage

    Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States   Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey.3 Her name has disappeared into the vault of medical history and her dedication to scientific rigor and patient safety has been largely forgotten. Yet her silent but tangible legacy continues to this day. Born in Canada in 1914, Frances Oldham Kelsey received a…

  • One woman’s journey for a tuberculosis cure

    Terri Sinnott Chicago, Illinois, United States   Edmund and Theresa Brouillette c. 1900, Sinnott Family Collection “By 1900 . . . one-third of the new-comers to Colorado had come in search of health benefits.”1 My great-grandmother Theresa Brouillette became the “one in three” on October 31, 1902 when she boarded the train in Vincennes, Indiana…

  • Ida Sophia Scudder

    Angela JosephNew Delhi, India This article is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother, Dr. A.C. Ammini. Born in India in 1870, Ida Sophia Scudder belonged to a missionary family. Her grandfather, Dr. John Scudder, was the first medical missionary from the United States to work overseas; and each of his seven sons contributed…