- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Emma Louise Call

Born  1847
Died  1937

Related eponyms

    American physician, 1847-1937.

    Biography of Emma Louise Call

    Emma Louise Call was one of the first woman physicians in the United States. After receiving her medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1873 she went to Vienna as Siegmund Exner’s postgraduate student. She returned to Boston and practiced as an obstetrician for more than 40 years. In 1884 she became the first woman to be elected to membership of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Her description of the Call-Exner bodies was her only publication.

    "I entered the Medical Department of the University the first year that women were admitted. The first class of women...were naturally the objects of much attention critical or otherwise (especially critical) so that in many ways it was quite an ordeal. I believe that only one of the medical faculty was even moderately in favor of the admission of women, so that it speaks well for their conscientiousness when I say (with possibly one exception) we felt that we had [a] square deal from them all."8 Corydon Ford had taught Elizabeth Blackwell at Geneva Medical College and was tolerant of the women students, but not all the professors were so kind. The professor of chemistry, Silas Douglas, did not intervene when the men students stamped their feet and shouted as the women entered the lecture room for the one subject that was taught to mixed classes.”

    We thank Robert H. Young for information submitted.

    Bibliography

    • Janet Tarolli:
      First Ladies in Medicine in Michigan. Five Women Determined to be Doctors and the Role Michigan Played in Helping Them Achieve their Dream.
      A website for the University of Michigan Medical School. 2001.
    • Leon Speroff and Marc A. Fritz:
      Clinical gynecologic endocrinology and infetility.
      7th edition. Lippincott Wiolliams & Wilkins 2004. 1334 pages.

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