Category Archives: Science > Medicine

Milestones
1918: Dr. Emily Bacon was the first pediatric specialist in Philadelphia.

1937: Dr. Emily Bacon was the first woman president of the Philadelphia Pediatric Society.

1928: Dr. Emily Bacon was the first woman on the senior staff of Mary J. Drexel Children’s Hospital, Philadelphia.

Biography
Emily Bacon was the first physician in Philadelphia to devote her practice exclusively to pediatrics—the care of children. She introduced numerous innovations in her fifty-year hospital career, including the creation of a “well-baby” clinic, and a counseling service for troubled children. She was also a much-loved teacher and combined her clinical practice with a teaching career at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania for over thirty years.

Born in Moorestown, New Jersey in 1891, Emily Bacon entered Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1908. During her college years, she was very active in the school’s social and athletic life, serving as class president for three of her four years, participating in several literary societies, and playing right halfback on the field hockey team. Apparently, Bacon recalled her college years with great fondness. She maintained a strong relationship with Wilson for much of her life, serving as an alumnae trustee and a member of the Wilson College Board for nearly two decades, from the early 1930s to the 1950s.

After graduating from Wilson in 1912, Emily Bacon earned her doctor of medicine degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1916. She returned to Philadelphia to accept a pediatric residency at Mary J. Drexel Hospital, a position she held until 1928, when she was the first woman appointed to the senior staff at the institution. When the hopsital merged with the nearby Lankenau Hospital a few years later, Dr. Bacon was appointed Lankenau’s first chief of pediatrics.

She remained at Lankenau until 1952, and even after her retirement as chief of pediatrics was a pediatric consultant until 1965. During this same period, she was also affiliated with the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP). Bacon accepted a position as an instructor of pediatrics at WMCP in 1919, becoming a full professor six years later. She became professor emeritus in 1953, and retired from teaching at the age of 62.

By all accounts, Dr. Emily Bacon was a well-loved and much-respected teacher, pediatrician, and colleague. She made many contributions to the practice of pediatrics in Philadelphia, including a pioneering effort to establish a ‘well-baby” clinic at Lankenau as well as a counseling service for traumatized children. Her well-respected skill in the field of pediatrics also made her a frequently requested speaker, and she often appeared before parent-teacher groups, nurses and church and club women to discuss issues of child health, nutrition, and preventive medicine. Routinely described as dedicated, unselfish, and fair, Bacon no doubt had a lasting impact on the health of thousands of Philadelphia children, as a pediatrician and as a teacher, helping to train generations of physicians in pediatrics.

1875: Dr. Emeline Cleveland was one the first American women physicians to perform major gynecological and abdominal surgery.

Biography
Emeline Horton Cleveland entered medicine with strong religious convictions and a desire to minister to the suffering. From her earliest years, she dreamed of service as a foreign missionary, but instead went on to a brilliant career in medicine, becoming a highly respected physician and one of the first American women physicians to perform major gynecological and abdominal surgery. At a time when women’s entry into the profession faced serious opposition, Dr. Cleveland was a striking example of women’s capabilities.

Born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1829, Emeline Horton was third in a family of nine children. When she was 2 years old, the family moved to a farm in Madison County, New York, where the children were educated at local schools and by private tutors. Determined to realize her dreams of becoming a missionary, she taught school for a number of years, saving her wages to pay for entry to Ohio’s Oberlin College in 1850.

Her future husband and longtime friend, Giles Butler Cleveland, entered Oberlin’s Theological Seminary around the same time and the pair began to plan their missionary career together. After graduating from Oberlin, Emeline Horton registered at the Female (later Woman’s) Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1853. The couple married in 1854, a year before Emeline Horton Cleveland received her medical degree. Her husband’s poor health stifled any plans to enter missionary service and Dr. Cleveland set up a private practice in Oneida Valley, New York, to support them both.

In the autumn of 1856, Dr. Cleveland was invited back to the Female Medical College to teach anatomy. The couple moved back to Philadelphia, where Giles Cleveland found work as a teacher. But another illness during the winter of 1857-1858 left him partially paralyzed, making Emeline Cleveland fully responsible for supporting the family. Cleveland remained at the Female Medical College until 1860.

Since Philadelphia hospitals refused to allow women medical students into wards or clinics at this time, it was difficult for them to receive instruction with patients. Dr. Ann Preston, a colleague of Cleveland’s at the Medical College, along with several Quaker women who lived in the area, were firmly committed to both adequate training for female physicians and to a woman’s right to be treated by a woman doctor. They were determined to establish their own hospital and offer Cleveland the post of chief resident. They set out to secure Cleveland the best available training and paid for her to study abroad. In August 1860, Cleveland went to Paris to study obstetrics and gynecological surgery. She earned a diploma and toured the lecture halls and hospitals of Paris and London, studying surgery and hospital administration.

In 1862, Dr. Cleveland took up the position of chief resident at the newly established Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia, established by Dr. Preston. During the next seven years, Dr. Cleveland developed some of the first training programs for nurses and nurses’ aides in the United States. She also gave birth to a son, who would later follow her into a medical career. She continued teaching at the Female Medical College as well as running a private practice until 1878.

When Dr. Preston died in 1872, Dr. Cleveland succeeded her as dean of the Woman’s Medical College, where she remained until ill health forced her to resign in 1874. In 1878, Cleveland was appointed gynecologist at Pennsylvania Hospital’s Department for the Insane, becoming one of the country’s first woman physicians to be hired by a major public medical institution. That same year, she died of tuberculosis at age forty-nine. Described as a woman of great charm and intellect, Cleveland helped to establish the legitimacy of women’s surgical roles in the face of immense opposition. She also did much for the development of the Woman’s Medical College at a critical stage in its development. Illustrating her commitment to this institution and to her colleagues there, her final request was to be buried beside her friend and fellow physician, Dr. Preston.

Milestones
1932: Dr. Macfarlane was the first woman fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
1938: Dr. Macfarlane started a Cancer Control Research Project at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and established the first uterine cancer screening program in Philadelphia, one of the first in the nation.
1943: Dr. Macfarlane was the first woman president of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia.
1951: Dr. Macfarlane received the Lasker Award for Medical Research.

Inspiration
Catharine Macfarlane’s mother suggested a career in medicine. At 16 she began studying at the School of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania and after two years was admitted to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Biography
Dr. Catharine MacFarlane helped to bring better care to women when she established one of the nation’s first uterine cancer screening programs and actively promoted cancer-screening for women. She was also the first woman fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the first woman president of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia.

Born in 1877 near Philadelphia, Catharine MacFarlane was an only child. She credited her mother with inspiring her choice of profession, describing her as woman of “rare wisdom and judgment.” Dr. MacFarlane lived with and cared for her mother until she died in 1957 at age 101.

In 1936, Dr. MacFarlane was appointed to head the Medical Women’s National Association (renamed the American Medical Women’s Association in 1937), and was the first woman president of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia in 1943. After co-founding the Cancer Control Research Project at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1938, she went on to help establish the first uterine cancer screening program in Philadelphia—one of the earliest such programs in the nation. Combining her research career with teaching, during Dr. MacFarlane’s extraordinarily long tenure at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania she advanced from instructor in obstetrics in 1898 to professor of gynecology in 1922 and in 1942, research professor of gynecology.

Catharine MacFarlane, affectionately known as “Doctor Kitty Mac,” dedicated her life to medicine as a physician, educator, and medical researcher. In 1893, at the age of 16, she entered the University of Pennsylvania, where she completed a two-year course in biology. Four years later, at age 23, she earned her M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She did postgraduate work in gynecological urology at Johns Hopkins University, and during several European tours studied with some of the world’s leading experts in obstetrics and gynecology. Often described as a dignified woman with a formidable intellect and temper, she was a pioneer in the detection and treatment of uterine cancer. Always one to speak her mind, Catharine MacFarlane also strongly advocated women’s right to vote and to obtain birth control, often supporting these controversial causes in public, including an appearance with Margaret Sanger at the first Pennsylvania State Conference on Birth Control in 1922. The central aspect of Dr. MacFarlane’s professional life, however, was her commitment to research and to medical treatment and training for women.

Throughout her career, Dr. MacFarlane was tenacious in her support of medical treatment and education of women. While attending the Medical Women’s International Association meeting in Scotland in 1937, for example, she suggested to a colleague that a periodic pelvic exam for asymptomatic women would be the best way to discover pelvic cancer in its earliest and most curable phase. But her suggestion was discouraged. According to, Dr. Louisa Martindale, the association’s president, few women would consent to be examined for a disease for which they had no symptoms. In her memoirs, recorded in Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Dr. MacFarlane returned home determined to prove that women would participate in the preventive care programs she advocated.

In 1942, at age 65, Dr. MacFarlane turned down an emeritus position and instead accepted the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania’s offer to become a research professor, a position she held until her death in 1969.

Recognizing her later success in establishing cancer screening programs for women, Dr. MacFarlane received the Gimbel Award for humanitarian service in 1949 as well as the coveted Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1951—one of the world’s most distinguished medical research awards.

Dr. MacFarlane managed to find the time to practice medicine, maintain a gynecological practice in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and make house calls on her patients. She even continued to perform surgery into her 90s. In the words of a former student and colleague, she was a woman with “a keen mind, a tremendous sense of duty, a delightful sense of humor, and a superb self-confidence.”

1980: Dr. Sternberg was the first to describe the L-Tryptophan Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome in relation to ingestion of the amino acid food supplement, L-Tryptophan.