Flora A. Brewster
Flora A. Brewster | |
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Born | Flora Alzora Brewster February 26, 1852 Alfred, New York, U.S. |
Died | February 1919 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
Education |
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Occupation(s) | physician, surgeon, journalist, medical editor, inventor |
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Flora Alzora Brewster (February 26, 1852 – February 1919) was an American physician, surgeon, journalist, medical editor, and inventor. She is remembered as Baltimore, Maryland's first woman surgeon.[1]
In Baltimore, Brewster was a physician in charge of an institution caring for prostitutes and of a women's house of refuge. Later, she was the proprietor and surgeon in charge of a sanitarium.[2][3] She was an ardent advocate of the higher medical education of women.[4]
Early life and education
Flora Alzora Brewster was born in Alfred, New York, February 26, 1852.[2][3] Her family moved to northern Pennsylvania in 1863.[5]
Brewster's parents were Ephraim J. Brewster (d. 1868) and Mary Burdick Brewster. Mary Brewster was a Seventh Day Baptists. On the paternal side of her family, she is descended from the Campbells of Scotland, hence a mixture of English and Scotch heritage. She was a lineal descendant of Elder William Brewster, of the pilgrims, who came to the America on the Mayflower.[4][6]
Her siblings included sisters, Alice Delphine Brewster (b. 1861), Fidelia Adeline Brewster (b. 1865), and Cora Belle Brewster, M.D. (b. 1859), as well as brothers, Luther Palmer Brewster (b. 1858) and Leonard Thorpe Brewster (b. 1868).[6][7]
In 1866, Brewster enrolled in Alfred University, where she studied science. In 1868, her father died suddenly, and she was obliged to leave the university to attend to the finances of her family.[5][8]
Early career and further education
Early in her career, Brewster worked as a
In 1875, Brewster earned a
Maryland
Brewster opened an office and began to practice in Baltimore in 1882. At that time, only one woman had succeeded in establishing a paying practice in Baltimore, and that one was Dr. Emma Stein Wanstall, who died in September 1882. No female physician in the city had been entrusted with surgical cases. Over the next four years, Brewster acquired a large practice and performed charitable work.[5][4]
In 1883, Brewster was physician and surgeon to the
In 1884, Brewster provided a testimonial for Duffy Barley
Brewster formed a partnership with her sister, Dr. Cora Belle Brewster, in 1888. In 1890, the agitation caused by the application for the admission of women to the medical department of
In 1889, the sisters began the publication of The Baltimore Family Health Journal. In 1891, the name of the journal was changed to The Homeopathic Advocate and Health Journal, and was made a hospital journal with ten editors. In 1892, the partnership between Flora and Cora Brewster was dissolved.[8]
In September, 1892, Brewster spent some time with Professor Pratt, of Chicago, studying the principles of orificial surgery, and at once made use of them in her surgical practice in gynecological surgery. She met with success as a skillful and rapid operator, and never lost a surgical case. She invented several instruments for the more convenient and effective use of electricity in gynecological practice, and also an electric belt.[8]
In April, 1893, Brewster purchased a large dwelling with grounds attached, situated at 1221 Madison Avenue, Baltimore, where she opened a sanatorium for the treatment of the medical and surgical diseases of women. She had an assistant, Dr. Donna Anna Waldron, who formerly practiced medicine in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The buildings were well suited for the purpose—heated by steam and fitted with electric, medicated, and vapor baths, and all forms of electrical appliances used in medical practice, apparatus for the Swedish movement cure, and also a training school for nurses. In a short time since the sanatorium was opened, it had proved to be successful.[8] Due to failing health, Brewster discontinued the sanitarium in 1906.[10]
Another one of Brewster's testimonials was published by The Baltimore Sun in 1896, this time regarding the benefits of riding a bicycle. It said in part: "I have been riding a wheel for more than a year and find myself greatly benefited by it. I am confined so much by my professional duties that its use is a means of salvation. Most of the women who come under my care are suffering from lack of exercise. Their troubles are all the result of muscular debility, and it has been my experience that the majority of them are wonderfully benefited and relieved by bicycle riding."[11]
Brewster looked to leave her Baltimore practice in 1902 and move west a few miles to start a new practice in Ellicott City, Maryland. The Maryland Hotel Sanatorium Company expected to begin work on a new first-class hotel and sanatorium in Howard County, Maryland in the spring of that year. The building plan was by Brewster who had made a study of the various noted sanatorium in the U.S. and in Europe. The company officers were Lennox Birckhead (president), Henry D. Rullman (vice-president), Brewster (secretary and treatsure), and the attorneys, James P. Gorter and Ernest M. Gibbons.[12]
The Helpful Thought Publishing Company was incorporated in April 1903 by Brewster, Alice D. Brewster (Flora's sister), George J. Weiss, Belle S. Weiss, and Geneva S. Conradt.[13] Brewster's book, Mother's Manual, was published by the Helpful Thought later that year.[14]
In December 1905, it was announced that Brewster had moved her equipment from her Baltimore sanatorium to the Brewster Park Sanatorium in Laurel, Maryland, located at "The Keeley", which featured 52 rooms heated with hot water and lit with electricity. This sanatorium, Brewster being the medical director, was advertised as having the most modern appliances for the treatment of rheumatism, gout, neurasthenia, and other chronic diseases.[15] The enterprise failed in less than a year and Brewster filed bankruptcy in May 1906.[16]
Pacific Northwest
Brewster arrived in Salem, Oregon in 1914 and began advertising in November of that year for her chiropractic practice, "limited to spinal adjustment".[17] In July 1916, she was charged with practicing chiropractic profession without a license,[18] but was pronounced not guilty by the jury after a few minutes' deliberation.[19]
In December 1915, Brewster filed
She died in February 1919, burned to death as a result of an explosion of an oil stove at her home in Seattle, Washington.[21]
Affiliations
Brewster was a member of several societies:
Selected works
- Mother's Manual (1903)
References
- ^ "Baltimore's First Woman Surgeon". The Baltimore Sun. 1 June 1952. p. 132. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Herringshaw 1914, p. 130.
- ^ a b Herringshaw 1919, p. 68.
- ^ a b c d e f g Ridenbaugh 1897, pp. 152–56.
- ^ a b c d e Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 119.
- ^ a b "Woman Dead on Tracks – Miss Fidelia Brewster Crushed Under North Avenue Bridge". The Baltimore Sun. 2 January 1903. p. 12. Retrieved 11 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Jones 1908, p. 412.
- ^ a b c d Ridenbaugh 1897, p. 152-56.
- ^ "Read What the People Think of the Duffy Barley Malt Whisky!". The Baltimore Sun. 27 May 1884. p. 1. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Founds School of Neurology". Statesman Journal. Salem, Oregon. 30 December 1915. p. 5. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Woman in the Saddle". The Baltimore Sun. 9 July 1896. p. 10. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "New Hotel and Sanatorium". The Baltimore Sun. 17 March 1902. p. 10. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Notes From The Courts". The Baltimore Sun. 26 April 1903. p. 14. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Mother's Manual". The Baltimore Sun. 29 October 1903. p. 8. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Brewster Park Sanatorium, Laurel, Maryland". The Aegis & Intelligencer. 15 December 1905. p. 2. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Receiver's sale of the entire furniture and furnishings, also galvanic battery, static electric machine, sprague hot-air machines, surgical instruments, medical and miscellaneous books, etc., by public auction on the premises of the Dr. Flora A. Brewster Sanitarium, situate at Laurel, Prince George's County, MD., on Thursday, May 10, 1906, at 10 A. M." The Baltimore Sun. 9 May 1906. p. 12. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Chiropractic". Statesman Journal. 4 November 1914. p. 7. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Dr. Flora Brewster SAys Not Guilty". Statesman Journal. 12 July 1916. p. 5. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Dr. Brewster Cleared". Statesman Journal. 30 July 1916. p. 5. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "School of Neurology is in prospect for Salem. Dr. Flora A. Brewster Will Conduct New Enterprise in the Hubbard Building". Statesman Journal. 1 January 1916. p. 3. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Burns Kill Woman Physician. Dr. Flora A. Brewster Was A Pioneer In Her Profession". The Baltimore Sun. 11 February 1919. p. 16. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
Attribution
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Herringshaw, Thomas William (1914). Herringshaw's American Blue Book Of Biography (Public domain ed.). American Publishers' Association.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Herringshaw, Thomas William (1919). The American Physician and Surgeon Blue Book: A Distinct Cyclopedia of ... Medical Biographies (Public domain ed.). American Blue Book Publishers.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the ISBN 978-5-87093-940-7.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Ridenbaugh, Mary Young (1897). Biography of Ephraim McDowell, M.D. v. 2 (Public domain ed.). McDowell Publishing Company.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "Flora A. Brewster". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Charles Wells Moulton.
External links
- Works related to Woman of the Century/Flora A. Brewster at Wikisource