Elizabeth Garrett AndersonDied 17 Dec 1917 at age 81 (born 9 Jun 1836).English physician who sought the admission of women to professional education, especially in medicine. She become the first woman to qualify as a medical practitioner in Britain (1865), despite being refused admission by the medical schools because it was their policy not to train women as doctors. She had to study medicine privately, under some of the country's leading physicians; at times she was forced to dissect cadavers in her own room because she was forbidden to use hospital facilities. In 1865 she qualified as a medical practitioner by examination of the Society of Apothecaries. The following year, she founded the St. Mary's Dispensary for Women in London. She was also the first female member of the British Medical Association (1873-92). |
