Putting Science to Work: Women Healers and the Pursuit of Medical Knowledge in Early Pennsylvania

Sylvan E. Stool Memorial Lecture

Susan H. Brandt, PhD
Lecturer in the Department of History
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Abstract: The history of women physicians in the United States often begins with the 1850 founding of the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. However, mid-19th-century women physicians merely continued the legacies of other women healers from earlier centuries. In this talk based on her book, Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia (2022), Susan Brandt will argue that these early women practitioners were not only essential health care providers but also were on the frontlines of scientific knowledge production.

CF Reynolds History of Medicine Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Center for Bioethics & Health Law

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