Born: 1854, Poland
Died: 5 September 1935
Country most active: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Also known as: Teodora Kosmowska, Germanized as Theodora
Dr Teodora Krajewska was a physician, writer and teacher who was one of the first women to practice medicine in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Austria-Hungary. Krajewska mainly treated Bosnian Muslim women, and her detailed notes about the state of women and Muslim customs, published in 1989, demonstrate the patronizing attitude towards Muslims and Orientalist stereotypes that were common for the era, such as claiming that Muslims were less intelligent and less civilized than their Christian neighbours.
As a young woman, Krajewska worked in schools and wrote novels. After her husband died in 1881, Krajewska defied social norms by deciding not to remarry, and moved to Switzerland to study medicine in 1883 at the University of Geneva, where she became the university’s first female teaching assistant. Krajewska completed her doctorate in 1892, but was not allowed to practice in her homeland of Poland. Instead, she was hired by Austro-Hungarian authorities, who were looking for female physicians to work in the newly occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. Women were not allowed to study or practice medicine in Austria-Hungary at the time, but exceptions had to be made for Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Muslim women refused to be treated by male physicians. Seven women were employed to treat Bosnian women; Krajewska succeeded Anna Bayerová, a Czech, who had resigned shortly after her appointment due to frequent disagreements with her military superiors. Bayerová was unwilling to care predominantly for Bosnian Muslim women, as her superiors had expected, but Krajewska embraced the task.
At the 1896 International Congress of Women in Berlin, Krajewska defended colonialism by arguing that Bosnians and Herzegovinians needed “civilization and progress from the outside”, imposed “from above”. This type of imperial feminism was rejected by Austrian women’s movements, which had a liberal outlook.
Krajewska was particularly interested in osteomalacia, though her conclusions were almost completely wrong. She published a detailed article in 1900, claiming, on the basis of only 50 cases, that the disorder was endemic among Muslim women living in the mountains of Tuzla District and that Christian women were never afflicted. She blamed “damp climate”, “lack of sun”, poverty, malnutrition, and “Muslim customs” (chiefly child marriage, seclusion, veiling, excessive libido of Muslim men, overly frequent pregnancies, and prolonged breastfeeding). The one point that she was correct on is the lack of sunlight – the most common cause of osteomalacia is vitamin D deficiency, which is most often a result of limited exposure to sunlight.