Alphonse Bertillon was a French police officer and biometrics researcher who applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to law enforcement creating an identification system based on physical measurements. Anthropometry was the first scientific system used by police to identify criminals. Before that time, criminals could only be identified by name or photograph. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting.
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi was an English-American physician, teacher, scientist, writer, and suffragist. She was the first woman admitted to study medicine at the University of Paris and the first woman to graduate from a pharmacy college in the United States.
Matilde Petra Montoya Lafragua was the first female physician in Mexico. Initially working as a midwife, she became one of the first women to attend and graduate Medical School, eventually earning her doctorate in 1887. Later she was a surgeon and obstetrician. Montoya played an important role in the social establishment of women's rights and the movements toward unbiased opportunities for education and occupations for women. There is, however, some evidence that a woman named Zenaida Ucounkoff studied medicine in 1877.
The presence of women in medicine, particularly in the practicing fields of surgery and as physicians, has been traced to the earliest of history. Women have historically had lower participation levels in medical fields compared to men with occupancy rates varying by race, socioeconomic status, and geography.
Madeleine Alexandrine Brès, born Gebelin, was the first French woman to obtain a medical degree in 1875 after her thesis presentation on the topic of breastfeeding and towards a career focused to pediatric care.
Marie-Jeanne-Amélie Le Francais de Lalande, born Marie-Jeanne Harlay, was a French astronomer and mathematician.
Dr. Charlotte Johnson Baker was an American physician who was the first woman to practice medicine in San Diego, California. She practiced obstetrics and gynecology at St. Joseph's Hospital, where her husband, Fred Baker, MD, was a general practitioner. The Bakers were the first husband-and-wife physicians in San Diego.
Varvara Aleksandrova Kashevarova-Rudneva (c.1841–1899), was a Russian Empire medical doctor. Rudneva was the second woman in Russia to become a doctor, after Nadezhda Suslova. She was the first woman in Russia to become a doctor and to have completed their education at a Russian medical school, an event which occurred at a time when women were barred receiving training at such universities. Despite the ban against women studying at medical universities, she was given a unique permission to study for her desire to treat women patients who refused to be treated by male doctors due to their religious beliefs. Her attendance at St. Petersburg Medical Surgical Academy, and later medical practice, were thereby unique in Russia thus garnering attention from both the medical field and general public making her a notoriously controversial figure.
Caroline Still Anderson was an American physician, educator, and activist. She was a pioneering physician in the Philadelphia African-American community and one of the first Black women to become a physician in the United States.
Jeanne Chauvin was the second woman to obtain a degree in law in France, in 1890. Her application to be sworn in as a lawyer was at first rejected, but after the law was changed in 1900 she was the second French woman to be authorized to plead at the bar Nevertheless, certain resources still erroneously identify Chauvin as the first female lawyer in France's history.
Eliska Vincent was a Utopian socialist and militant feminist in France. She argued that women had lost civil rights that existed in the Middle Ages, and these should be restored. In the late 1880s and 1890s she was one of the most influential of the Parisian feminists. She created extensive archives on the feminist movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but these have been lost.
Mary Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer was an English-American writer, both of original works and translations.
Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie is an American historian of science known especially for her work on the history of women in science. She taught at Oklahoma Baptist University before becoming curator of the History of Science Collections and professor at the University of Oklahoma. She is currently Curator Emeritus, History of Science Collections and Professor Emeritus, Department of the History of Science at the university.
Isabelle Stone was an American physicist and educator. She was one of the founders of the American Physical Society. She was among the first women to earn a PhD in physics in the United States.
Sara Elizabeth Branham Matthews (1888–1962) was an American microbiologist and physician best known for her research into the isolation and treatment of Neisseria meningitidis, a causative organism of meningitis.
Mary Adamson Marshall was a physician and a member of the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh.
Céline Renooz was a Belgian feminist writer and activist known for her works on evolution, epistemology, and historiography.
Caroline Wormeley Latimer was an American physiologist known for her studies of rigor mortis and the salivary glands, and her popular science writing, which was widely read by women and girls.
Mélanie Lipinska (1865–1933) was a Polish-French physician and known as a historian of women in medicine. She received recognition for her thesis Histoire des femmes médecins, which she submitted to the Académie de médecine de Paris in 1900.
Anna Hamilton was a French medical doctor, superintendent of the Protestant Hospital in Bordeaux for 34 years, and a proponent of professionalization in nursing.
