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Selected Women Graduates of the Predecessor SchoolsAlice Boyle Higgins, Class of 1877Alice Boyle Higgins was the first woman graduate of what eventually became the Stanford School of Medicine. --- Alice Boyle was born in Massachusetts to Irish parents on February 29, 1836. In 1849, Alice's father, Michael Boyle, was among the earliest California pioneers. Alice came west in 1852, presumably with the rest of the family. On June 26, 1858, at the age of 16, Alice married William Morris Higgins. William was a graduate of Princeton and had received a medical degree from Jefferson College. He came to California around the Horn, serving as a ship's doctor. In California, he worked as a registered pharmacist and as superintendent of San Francisco City and County Hospital. Alice served as a volunteer at the same hospital. William and Alice had three children: Frances, Charles, and Margaret. In 1869 the family moved to Anaheim. In 1876, Medical Department of the University of the Pacific in San Francisco (renamed Cooper Medical College in 1882, and acquired by Stanford in 1908) accepted its first woman, Alice Boyle Higgins, age 40, mother of three. She graduated in 1877. After four years of practice in Anaheim, Alice went to Philadelphia to pursue postgraduate studies at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1881-1882. The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania made Alice an honorary member of their alumnae association and offered her the chair in anatomy, but she declined and returned to her family in Anaheim. There she continued in private practice and is considered a pioneer woman doctor of Orange County. After her return to California, Alice suffered a series of attacks which her husband attributed to overwork. She died in Anaheim on November 23, 1890. 
Anabel McGaughey Stuart, Class of 1878Anabel McGaughey Stuart was the second woman graduate. --- Anabel McGaughey was born May 4, 1840 in West Virginia The family later moved to Illinois. In September 1859, Anabel married Absalom Stuart and followed her doctor husband to war in 1861. Through the war and following, Anabel assisted her husband in his medical work, taking a course of lectures at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1876/7 before the family moved to Santa Barbara, California in search of a more healthful climate for Absalom. In 1878 Anabel graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific and the family moved to Santa Rosa. There the two Dr. Stuarts practiced, Anabel continuing after her husband's death. Her biography in a 1911 history of Sonoma County states that Anabel McGaughey Stuart was the first woman west of the Mississippi to become a member of the American Medical Association. She died on March 19, 1914 in Santa Rosa. 
Catherine Nicholas Post, Class of 1879Kate Post was the first degreed woman known to practice medicine in Nevada. --- In his "Historical Myth a Month, Myth # 77, Eliza Cook: Not Nevada's First Female Doctor," the Nevada State Archivist, Guy Rocha states that "the first woman known to practice medicine in Nevada with a bona fide degree, Catherine Nicholas Post (Van Orden), graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific (later the Cooper Medical School) in 1879, five years before Eliza Cook. Dr. Kate Post practiced in Virginia City in the early 1880s and her office was located at 87a South C Street." See also Eliza Cook below. 
Emilie Lawson, Class of 1879Emilie M. Lawson graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific in 1879 and practiced in Brooklyn, New York. --- Emilie published a poem titled "Arkansaw Jackson: his reminiscences of the Medical College of the Pacific" which includes the following: Now being a carpenter at large, and a farmer sort o' mixed, According to Franklin Walker in San Francisco's Literary Frontier, Emilie was commended by Oliver Wendell Holmes for the poem. Franklin also mentions that Emilie abandoned poetry to support a sick husband. "She took up medicine and found no time for the unremunerative pursuit of writing verse." 
Eliza Cook, Class of 1884Eliza Cook was the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Nevada. --- Eliza Cook was born in 1856 in Salt Lake City. In 1870 her family moved to Carson Valley, Nevada. She graduated from Cooper Medical College in 1884 and returned to pratice in Nevada. She has been erroneously credited as being Nevada's first female doctor perhaps because she was the first woman licensed in Nevada. She was licensed in 1899, the first year that Nevada licensed doctors. She died in Carson Valley on October 2, 1947. See "Historical Myth a Month, Myth # 77, Eliza Cook: Not Nevada's First Female Doctor," by the Nevada State Archivist, Guy Rocha. 
Mary Bennett Ritter, Class of 1886Mary Bennett Ritter's motto was "I shall keep going until I drop." --- Mary Bennett was born June 7, 1859 to William and Abigail Noble Bennett in Salinas, California. William Bennett had come with his father to California from Connecticut in 1849 at the age of 19. His father returned east, but William stayed on in Sonora and was joined by two brothers. Abigail Noble had come to California from Ohio in 1852 with relatives. William and Abigail married on March 26, 1854. The Bennett family left gold country and eventually settled in the Salinas valley as farmers. Mary taught school at Peachtree, San Juan, and Fresno from 1877-1883. In 1883-4, she was engaged in pre-medical work and studies in San Jose under the guidance of Dr. Euthanasia S. Meade and Professor Norton. In the spring of 1884, Mary Bennett entered the Cooper Medical College of San Francisco which later became the Stanford School of Medicine. She was one of only two women in the class; the other woman, Mary Delano Fletcher (see below), remained a close, lifetime friend. Together they made their way through times that were sometimes made difficult. Mary Bennett's thesis was entitled Influence of Heredity upon Disease. After graduation in 1886, the two Marys then served as internes and externes at Children's Hospital in San Francisco. Before the end of her year of internship, Mary had the opportunity to take over a practice in Berkeley where she practiced. While in practice in Berkeley she served as the first regular medical examiner for women at the University of California and worked unofficially as the first dean of women. On June 23, 1891, Mary Ritter married William Emerson Ritter who later founded the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Scientific enterprises determined the course of their life together. In 1909, Mary resigned her practice in Berkeley and the Ritters moved to La Jolla. Mary gave lectures in social hygiene to local schools and, during the first World War, to soldiers and sailors in San Diego under the auspices of the Interdepartmental Commission of the federal government. In 1923, William retired and they returned to Berkeley. In 1933 Mary's eyesight failed and she learned Braille; that same year she published an autobiography, More than gold in California, which included much family, local, and medical history. In 1944 William died and Mary moved to Palo Alto to be near her nephew. She died in Mountain View, California, March 17, 1949. "... [I]f my almost pioneer days as a woman physician form a background to the great advance of modern medicine; and if the pioneering of my life-comrade in his biological undertakings is a stimulus to others of his kind, I shall be content." 
Mary Delano Fletcher, Class of 1886Mary Delano Fletcher was the other woman in the Class of 1886. --- In 1940 Mary Bennett Ritter wrote an account of the Class of 1886. In it she states "There was only one other woman student in the class of 1886, Mary Delano Fletcher, who is still one of my closest friends. Not one of the men is left." As the only women in their medical class, the two Marys faced some difficulties mostly caused by a single ungentlemanly classmate. Mary Ritter recalls "the first few days in the dissecting room, when the two girls were plagued with jibes and vulgar stories which persisted until our utter indifference, together with some squelching on the part of the gentlemen, put an end to these minor persecutions." Mary Delano Fletcher's thesis was entitled Diseases of the optic nerve and retina. After graduation in 1886, the two Marys then served alternately as internes and externes at Children's Hospital in San Francisco. The externe had "charge of the outpatients in the clinic and dispensary and occasionally in their homes." The interne "alternated among the various wards and private rooms for women." They were on call night and day. Mary Delano Fletcher went on to serve as resident physician of the Children's Hospital in San Francisco, and later practiced in New York, Fresno, and Alameda. Born in 1863, Mary Delano Fletcher died in the King's Daughters' Home, Oakland on September 16, 1944. Adelaide Brown, Class of 1892Adelaide Brown was an active leader in San Francisco public health. --- Adelaide Brown was born in 1868 in Napa, California to pioneer physician Charlotte Blake Brown. She graduated from Smith College in 1888 and from Cooper Medical College in 1892. Her thesis was entitled Inaugural thesis on malignant tumors of the mammary gland. After graduation Adelaide spent several years in leading European gynecological clinics. She then returned to California and was a "pioneer in the development of preventative medicine as well as a champion of child welfare and better homes for children in the state." Among her cause were clean milk, sanitary garbage disposal, maternal and child welfare, visiting nurse services, and clinics offering cardiac care and birth control. She was an organizer of the California Milk Commission and was appointed by Gov. Hiram Johnson to the State Board of Health which she served for 16 years. As expressed in her Stanford Medical Alumni obituary, she "never lost sight of the younger people in the medical field--people who in their turn would also have the responsibility of carrying forward the torch of medicine. She was not only a guardian angel to needy medical students but also active and interested in the creation and organization of the Stanford Medical Alumni Association." She died on July 29, 1940. Her papers are available in Lane's Special Collections and Archives (MSS 12). Margaret Josephine Mahoney, Class of 1895Margaret Mahoney walked all over San Francisco to assist patients in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fire. --- Margaret Mahoney was born in San Francisco on February 20, 1858. Her father had come to California as part of the gold rush. She entered Cooper Medical College in 1892 though she continued working as a teacher in San Francisco schools. Her thesis was entitled Inaugural dissertation upon malignant growths and graduated with the class of 1895. She then served an internship at the Children's Hospital and later went into practice. An essay available on Calisphere written by Margaret about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire makes mention of a "small medical center [that she and colleagues] were establishing in the southern section of the city" where she was the morning of the quake. In the aftermath Margaret visited patients throughout the city. An obituary tells us that she provided care for patients at the old Mechanics' Pavilion until it was evacuated in advance of the fire. Once, on her way to relief accommodations in the Presidio Golf Links, she stopped at Lane Hospital. The bustle of the move was there. The fire threatened. The sound of the nurses trunks could be heard as they dragged them down the concrete walks. They were sending the sick to the Presidio General Hospital. Two hours I remained with my patient until an ambulance came for her. Then strapping my blankets on my back again and taking a bag containing the most necessary articles of a doctor's kit. I walked out over the hills [to the Presidio]. In 1920 Margaret helped organize and served as the first president of the Society for the Advancement of Women in Medicine. "Her ideals in medicine were high; she was a conscientous student and deeply interested in women medical students, encouraging them to enter the general practice instead of devoting their energies to technical work." She died on December 7, 1931. General References
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