Elisabeth Blackwell
1821 Counterslip
1910 Schottland
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Couterslip in 1821 and moved to the United States in 1832 with her family. Her father died suddenly in 1838; therefore her mother, along with her three daughters, founded a private school. Blackwell wanted to study medicine but was rejected from all the schools on account of her being a woman. She was finally accepted by Geneva College in New York. Blackwell finished her studies in 1849 as the first female American doctor. She published a collection of works on hygiene in 1854 ("The Laws of Life, with Special Reference to the Physical Eduction of Girls"). In 1857, Elizabeth Blackwell, her sister, and Marie Zakrezwska founded the university hospital "Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary". They provided the only opportunity for women to become doctors. Blackwell left the hospital to her successors in 1869 and returned to England, where in 1871 she founded the National Health Society, which is the forerunner of today's National Health Services. Along with Florence Nightingale, she educated young female nurses and doctors at the London School of Medicine for Women. Blackwell began retreating from her practice and devoted herself fully to writing in 1875. Elizabeth Blackwell died in Scotland in 1910.
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