Margaret Cleaves
Margaret A. Cleaves | |
---|---|
Born | Columbus City, Iowa, U.S. | November 25, 1848
Died | November 7, 1917 Mobile, Alabama, U.S. | (aged 68)
Nationality | American |
Education | M.D. |
Alma mater | University of Iowa Medical Department |
Known for | pioneer of electrotherapy and brachytherapy |
Margaret Abigail Cleaves (November 25, 1848 – November 7, 1917),
Cleaves was licensed to practice medicine in Iowa (1873),
Cleaves was a prolific author on topics concerning the use of radiation and electricity to treat illnesses. Cleaves also invented a variety of instruments for such treatments. Having an interest in the welfare and advancement of women, She organized the Des Moines Women's Club and served as its first president.
Early life and education
Margaret Abigail Cleaves was born in
Cleaves was the third of seven children. She inherited her father's taste for the medical profession, and as a child, sometimes accompanied him on patient visits.[4]
Cleaves was educated at public schools and eventually enrolled in the University of Iowa, but was unable to complete her undergraduate degree due to financial difficulty. After she was sixteen, she alternately attended and taught school for some years. In 1868, Cleaves and her family moved to Davenport, Iowa. There, Cleaves reportedly resolved to become a doctor. Her choice of a profession disapproved of by various members of her family. In 1870, Cleaves began to study medicine and enrolled in Medical Department of the University of Iowa against her family's wishes. In 1871, she entered the office of her preceptor, Dr. W. F. Peck, who was dean of the faculty and professor of surgery in the university. She graduated on March 5, 1873, at the head of the class.[4]
Career
Physician
Shortly after graduating, Cleaves was appointed second assistant physician in the State Hospital for the Insane in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. There, she was a veritable pioneer, for up to that time, only one other woman in the world had occupied the position of physician in a public insane asylum. She remained in the asylum for three years and then resigned her position to commence private practice in Davenport, She was subsequently appointed one of the trustees of the asylum.[4]
While practicing medicine in Davenport, she became a member of the Scott County Medical Society, being the second woman to gain admission to that body. For several years, she was the secretary of the society. She also joined the State Medical Society, where she was again the second woman to gain admission. She was the first woman to become a member of the Iowa and Illinois Central District Medical Association. During her residence in Davenport she was an active member of the Davenport Academy of Sciences.[5]
In 1879, the board of trustees of the State Asylum for the Insane chose her their delegate to the National Conference of Charities, which that year met in
She went abroad in 1883, remaining nearly two years, visiting insane hospitals in Scotland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium, everywhere receiving courtesies from men of recognized eminence in the treatment of insanity. She witnessed operations in general hospitals in England, France, and Germany, and in
In the medical fields of radiation oncology and gynaecology, Margaret Cleaves is remembered as the first physician to successfully apply radium in the treatment of cancer of the uterine cervix.[6] In her seminal paper of October 1903, she wrote:
"...an inoperable primary pelvic case of epithelioma, involving the cervix, anterior and posterior vaginal walls, almost to the introitus; rectum, bladder, and both broad ligaments." (page 605)
The patient was treated first by a combination of x-rays and ultraviolet light, followed by intravaginal insertion of one gram of bromide of radium in a sealed glass tube. On September 15, 1903, the patient had radium brachytherapy for five minutes to the posterior wall of the vagina, followed by five minutes to the anterior surface, because of the vesical involvement. A second application of five minutes was given on September 16, 1903.
"September 21, 1903. Five days subsequent to the use of radium, no bleeding, no odor, no discharge, no ulceration, and vaginal and cervical mucous membrane normal in appearance." (page 605)
"September 28. Is looking and feeling well. No symptoms; still no bleeding from rectum since radium first used, two weeks since."
Since then, brachytherapy is a pivotal part of the curative treatment for women with inoperable cervical cancer. Cleaves introduced a technique that has saved the lives of millions of women with cancer.
Activist and writer
Her work was not confined to medicine alone. She took a deep interest in all that pertained to the welfare and advancement of women. She organized the
Cleaves died in a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, November 7, 1917.[7]
Selected works
- Asylum Notes, 1891
- Commitment of the insane, 1891
- Electro-Therapeutical Notes, 1892
- Murray Royal Academy, Perth, Scotland, 1892
- Franklinization as a Therapeutic Measure in Neurasthenia, 1896
- The Expenditure of Electric Energy, 1898
- American Electro-Therapeutic Association, 1899
- The Rontgen ray and ultraviolet light in the treatment of malignant diseases of the uterus, with report of an inoperable case, 1902
- Radium: With a preliminary note on Radium rays in the treatment of cancer, 1903
- Light Energy: Its Physics, Physiological Action, and Therapeutic Applications, 1904
- The Autobiography of a Neurasthene: As Told By One of Them and Recorded by Margaret A. Cleaves, M.D., 1910
References
- ^ JAMA. 1898;XXX(21):1219-1226 and Woman's Who's Who of America, 1914-5 (New York).
- ^ Classics in Brachytherapy, Margaret Cleaves Introduces Gynecologic Brachytherapy, by Jesse N. Aronowitz, Shoshana V. Aronowitz, Roger F. Robinson (No. 6 2007 p 293-297)
- ^ Margaret A. Cleaves, "Franklinization as a Therapeutic Measure in Neurasthenia," Journal of the American Medical Association 27 (1896): 1049-052.
- ^ a b c Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 181.
- ^ a b c d Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 182.
- ^ Cleaves, Margaret A. (October 17, 1903). "Radium: With a preliminary note on Radium rays in the treatment of cancer". Medical Record. 64 (16): 601–606.
- ^ a b Kelly & Burrage 1920, p. 228.
Attribution
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Kelly, Howard Atwood; Burrage, Walter Lincoln (1920). American Medical Biographies (Public domain ed.). Norman, Remington Company. p. 228.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). 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.). Moulton. p. 500.
External links
- Media related to Margaret Cleaves at Wikimedia Commons
- Works related to Woman of the Century/Margaret Abigail Cleaves at Wikisource
- Works by or about Margaret Cleaves at Internet Archive