Kurze Krankengeschichte einer Frau
Why is a female’s surgical history so important to bring up? For centuries, women were denied medical knowledge and technological progress since it was considered a male-dominated field of study.
When plastic surgery took its first steps towards reconstruction practices in the Middle Ages, women were banned from participating in such trials. In 1540, the statute for the “Compagnia dei Barbieri Chirurghi”, the first surgeons’ association, excluded women from any type of practice. In the 14th century, King Henry VIII said, “No carpenter, blacksmith, weaver or women, they will practice surgery.”
However, history has not always been so harsh; the ancient world had welcomed women to participate in scientific knowledge. According to discoveries, female medical students were present in Heliopolis, Egypt, 1500 BC. Aesculapius, son of Apollo, had four daughters who were physicians in Ancient Greece. The Tetrabiblion, written by Atius (150 CE), details the surgical procedures of Aspasia, a Greco-Roman female surgeon. Until the 11th century, this was considered the main surgical text.
And what about the 19th century? Women never made up more than 6% of any medical school class in the United States or Canada before 1970. In those years, the feminist movement, an increase in the number of women graduating from college, and numerous vacancies encouraged women to apply to medical school.
In 1970, women made up around 5% of all physicians in the United States; by 2001, that percentage had risen to 24%. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimated that medical school enrollment is about equal between men and women.
Dr. J.M. Barry, der “bartlose Junge”
Dr J.M. Barry
The history of the female surgeons opens with the fascinating story of Dr James Berry (1795–1865), also known by the name of “beardless lad”.
Dr Barry attended the esteemed Edinburgh Medical School and graduated at the age of 17 in 1812. During the Napoleonic wars, he served in the army as a physician, and in 1820, at the request of a wealthy client whose wife appeared to be in labour, he conducted one of the first successful Caesarean sections.
Although Dr Barry lived his entire adult private and professional life as a man, he was born Margaret Ann and was known as a female throughout his infancy. The choice to change his gender would partly be to gain acceptance as a university student and pursue a career as a surgeon; only after a post-mortem examination was Barry’s biological sex revealed to the public and military colleagues.
A friend commented that “She chose to be a military doctor upon her death. Not to fight for the right of a woman to become one, but simply to be one”.
Alma Dea Morani – Von der Bildhauerei zur plastischen Chirurgie
Dr. Alma Dea Morani
Her father wanted her to be a successful sculptor, but she chose to dedicate her life to medicine and become the world’s first female plastic surgeon.
Alma Dea Morani was born in New York City in 1907 to Amalia Gracci Morani and artist Salvatore Natali Morani, from whom she inherited a strong aesthetic sense.
Morani earned her M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1931. In 1946, she started her training in St. Louis under renowned plastic surgeon “Colonel” J. Barrett Brown, M.D. It took her six years to find a course that would accept women, but her fellowship only permitted her to observe, not operate.
She made the best of these restrictions and used her skills as an artist to observe and make sketches and pictures before and after surgical procedures. Colonel Brown eventually noticed her intense work, and he finally allowed her to assist him in surgery “on Saturdays when everybody else went to play golf,” letting her complete a true clinical fellowship.
Dr Morani returned to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she was appointed clinical professor of general surgery and plastic surgery until 1975.
Helen Octavia Dickens – die erste schwarze Frau, die in das American College of Surgeons aufgenommen wurde
Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens
In 1950, Dr Helen Dickens was the first African American woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons. She often recalled her medical school class, when she opted to sit in the front row to avoid being bothered by her classmates’ racist comments and gestures because she was the daughter of a slave.
Dr Dickens was always motivated and inspired by the achievements of other African American women who had gone before her. Helen Dickens, the only African-American woman in her class, received her M.D. from the same college in 1934 and became associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Office for Minority Affairs in 1969. Within five years, she had boosted minority enrollment from 3 to 64 students.
Dr Dickens educated young women to empower themselves. She used her research to advise schools, parents, and health professionals on intervention strategies to lower the incidence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. She received numerous honours for her work on sexual health for young and adult women.
Dora Richter – Die erste Transfrau, die sich einer geschlechtsangleichenden Operation unterzog
Dora Richter
Die Geschichte der Medizin wird nicht nur von Ärzten und Chirurgen geschrieben, sondern auch von mutigen Patienten, die sich als eine der Ersten einem Eingriff unterziehen.
Heute möchten wir Ihnen von Dora Richter erzählen, der ersten Transgender-Frau der Welt, die sich einer geschlechtsangleichenden Operation unterzog.
Dora wurde 1891 in Deutschland in einer armen Bauernfamilie geboren.
Obwohl sie mit dem Namen Rudolph geboren wurde, erlaubten ihre Eltern ihr, während ihrer gesamten Kindheit frei von ihrer Geschlechtsidentität zu leben.
Sie lebte ihr Erwachsenenleben in Berlin, wo sie gelegentlich wegen des “Verbrechens” des Crossdressing verhaftet und in ein Männergefängnis gesteckt wurde.
Schließlich wurde Dora der Obhut von Magnus Hirschfeld anvertraut, einem deutschen Arzt und frühen Aktivisten für sexuelle Rechte.
Er leitete das Institut für Sexualforschung, in dem Dora mehr als zehn Jahre lang als Haushälterin arbeitete.
Im Jahr 1922 unterzog sie sich einer Orchiektomie und Vaginoplastik.
Soweit wir wissen, war sie damit die erste Person, die sich einer geschlechtsangleichenden Operation unterzog.
Ihr Tod ist wahrscheinlich auf ein Nazi-Attentat in dem Institut im Jahr 1933 zurückzuführen.
Ada Lovelace – Die Mutter der modernen Computerwissenschaft
Ada Lovelace
Als DeepTech-Unternehmen dürfen wir Ada Lovelace nicht vergessen, die Frau, die zur Entwicklung der modernen Computerwissenschaft beigetragen hat.
Heute wird sie offiziell als die erste Computerprogrammiererin der Geschichte anerkannt . Ada Lovelace war die einzige Tochter des Dichters Lord Byron und Anne Isabella Milbanke, einer Mathematikerin.
Ihre mathematischen Fähigkeiten führten zu einer langen Arbeitsbeziehung und Freundschaft mit Charles Babbage, der als“Vater der Computer” gilt. Vor allem Babbages Arbeit an der Analytical Engine weckte ihre Neugierde. Lovelaces Aufzeichnungen sind für die frühe Geschichte des Computers von großer Bedeutung, da sie das enthalten, was weithin als das erste Computerprogramm angesehen wird, d.h. einen Algorithmus, der von einer Maschine ausgeführt werden soll. Ada Lovelace bezeichnete ihre Herangehensweise als“poetische Wissenschaft” und bezeichnete sich selbst als“Analytikerin (und Metaphysikerin)“. Diese Denkweise veranlasste sie dazu, die Analytical Engine zu erforschen und zu untersuchen, wie Individuen und die Gesellschaft mit Technologie als kollaborativem Werkzeug umgehen.
Bibliographie
Wirtzfeld, Debrah A. “Die Geschichte der Frauen in der Chirurgie“. Kanadische Zeitschrift für Chirurgie.
Journal Canadien De Chirurgie Canadian Medical Association, Aug. 2009.
“Dr. James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time Review – eine exquisite Geschichte einer skandalösen List.” The Guardian, Guardian Nachrichten und Medien, 10 Nov. 2016
“DasGesicht der Medizin verändern | Alma Dea Morani“. U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 3. Juni 2015.
