Sept. 28, 1865: England Gets Its First Woman Physician, the Hard Way

1865: Elizabeth Garrett becomes the first woman in England to receive a medical license.

It didn?t come easy.

Bound by the restrictions on sex and class that prevailed in Victorian England, Garrett, the daughter of a London pawnbroker, was inspired to enter medicine after meeting Elizabeth Blackwell, the first practicing woman physician in the United States. First, though, Garrett had to overcome the opposition of her parents. Compared to what lay ahead, that was easy.

She tried applying to medical school. Several ? actually all ? turned her down. With the conventional path blocked, Garrett enrolled as a nursing student at Middlesex Hospital. While there, she sat in on some medical classes but was booted after the male students complained.

Nevertheless, she hung in there and continued studying independently. Because the Society of Apothecaries had no rule specifically barring women from taking its medical examination, Garrett took the exam on this day in 1865 and, lo, was one of three candidates (from a field of seven) to pass. It enabled her to obtain a certificate to begin practicing medicine.

(It should be noted that the Society of Apothecaries immediately changed its rules to prevent other women from pulling the same stunt. Not cricket, you know.)

Garrett opened a dispensary for women, and later became a visiting physician to the East London Hospital. Still lacking a formal medical degree, Garrett learned French and slipped across the Channel to the University of Paris, where more enlightened attitudes prevailed. She earned her degree, which the British Medical Register refused to recognize.

Undaunted, Garrett (now Elizabeth Garrett Anderson by marriage) opened the New Hospital for Women in London, which was staffed entirely by women. Elizabeth Blackwell came on staff as a professor of gynecology.

Garrett?s persistence, and subsequent success, shook the British medical establishment to its foundations. The old-boy network finally cracked in 1876, and from then on, women were admitted to British medical schools.

Source: BBC

Image: Elizabeth Garrett/Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

This article originally appeared on Wired.com Sept. 28, 2007.

See Also:

• May 5, 1809: Hats Off to First U.S. Woman Patent-Holder
• March 6, 1937: Birth of a Soviet Hero, First Woman Into Space
• June 18, 1983: Sally Ride, the First American Woman Into Space
• July 25: Four Women Who Made a Difference
• Feb. 8, 1865: Mendel Reads Paper Founding Genetics
• April 9, 1865: War Ends, But the Horror's Just Beginning
• Sept. 28, 1998: Internet Explorer Leaves Netscape in Its Wake

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