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International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine 2015; 5: 10504
© Rhazes, LLC.
www.ijhpm.org
doi: 10.18550/ijhpm.072115.0504
FULL ARTICLE
Female Anatomists and Their Biographical
Sketches
Artineh Hayrapetian, M.D.,1 Peter Oakes, B.A.,1
Fred Bertino, M.D.,2 Mohammdali M. Shoja, M.D.,1,3
Margaret Wood Balch, M.L.I.S., M.A.,4
Anthony D’Antoni, Ph.D.,5
Marios Loukas, M.D., Ph.D.,2
R. Shane Tubbs, M.Sc., P.A.-C., Ph.D.1,2,6
1Pediatric
Neurosurgery, Children’s of Alabama,
Birmingham, AL, USA
2Department of Anatomical Sciences, St. George’s
University, Grenada
3Medical Philosophy and History Research Center, Tabriz
University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
4UAB Historical Collections, Lister Hill Library, University
of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
5Department of Pathobiology, City University of New
York, New York, New York, USA
6Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification, University
of Dundee, UK
The rich history of anatomical sciences has been maledominated for various reasons. However, substantial contributions from female anatomists have bolstered this field.
Herein, we present a list of 11 selected female anatomists
from Europe and North America who are important in the
annals of morphological study. Such women have worked
alongside their male counterparts to advance the study of the
human form.
Key words: Anatomy, Europe, History, United States,
Women
Submitted 18 April 2015; Revision received 15 July 2015;
Accepted for publication 21 July 2015; Published online 2
August 2015
“I hope my studies may be an encouragement to other
women, especially to young women, to devote their lives to
the larger interests of the mind. It matters little whether men
Address correspondence to Mohammadali M. Shoja, MD,
1600 7th Avenue South ACC 400, Birmingham, AL 35233,
USA. Phone: 2057670575. Fax: 2059399972. E-mail:
shoja.m@gmail.com
or women have the more brains; all we women need to do to
exert our proper influence is just to use all the brains we
have.”
Florence Rena Sabin (1871–1953)
INTRODUCTION
Until the eighteenth century, it was unheard of for female
students to attend universities,1,2 so there was no opportunity for them to be present in the anatomy theater. In fact,
many anatomists of this period believed that dissection was
disgusting, and women were reluctant to take part in it.1
Were women truly reluctant or was this simply a convenient
excuse for not letting them participate? This raises the question of whether their lack of participation was due to prohibition stemming from an effort to maintain the androcentric
culture of anatomical science. Usually, only men could be
present during dissection.
There is little information about most female anatomists;
therefore, it is the aim of this paper to understand the careers
and contributions of a select few female anatomists as we
know of them today. The history of following women anatomists have been included in the present review:
Alessandra Giliani (1307–1326) of Italy
Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711–1778) of Italy
Angelique du Coudray (c.1714 –1794) of France
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716 –1774) of Italy
Marie Marguerite Biheron (1719 –1795) of France
Maria Magdalena Pettracini (1759 –1791) of Ferrara, Italy
Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke (1859 –1927) of the USA
Florence Rena Sabin (1871–1953) of the USA
Margaret Adaline Reed Lewis (1881–1970) of the USA
Elisabeth Caroline Crosby (1888 –1983) of the USA
Lucja Frey-Gottesman (1889–1942) of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire (presently known as Austria–Hungary)
1. Alessandra Giliani
Alessandra Giliani (1307–1326) was probably the first female
anatomist in the Western Hemisphere. She was born in San
Giovanni in Persiceto, Italy, in 1307. Although it was very
uncommon for women to be educated at higher levels during that time, Giliani attended the University of Bologna
around 1323.3–7 We know nothing concerning the circumstances of her admission to the University of Bologna. Interested in anatomy, she had to study philosophy as a prerequisite. Mondino de Liuzzi, an anatomist and physician, was
one of her instructors at the University of Bologna (Figure 1).
Mondino de Liuzzi believed that to have a complete medical
1
Hayrapetian et al.
20 she had knowledge of anatomy, natural history, chemistry, algebra, hydraulics, mechanics, logic, geometry, philosophy, Italian, Greek, Latin, and French.13,14 Bassi earned a
doctoral degree in philosophy from Bologna, and, in 1732, at
the age of 21, she was invited to become a professor of
anatomy at the School of Medicine, University of
Bologna.2,3,6,14 Carnival anatomy was an important social
event at the university; it was the public dissection that
attracted many visitors. Bassi was among the people who
attended these events.1 She also held many private classes at
her home. In 1738, she married Giovanni Giuseppe Veratti, a
lecturer and fellow academic at the University of Bologna,
with whom she had 8 children (some sources suggest
12).6,3,13,14,17
The support she received from the church and political officials such as Flaminio Scarselli and Filippo Aldrovandi of
the Roman Senate helped her maintain her place at the
University. Cardinal Prospero Lambertini (became Pope
Benedict XIV in 1740), who had witnessed her doctoral thesis
defense at Bologna years earlier, continued to support her.
As the head of the church, Pope Benedict XIV founded the
Benedettini Academics (a scientific society), and, in 1745, he
appointed Bassi as a member of the society.6,17 Bassi died in
1778 and was buried at Bologna’s Corpus Domini.3,6
Figure 1: Mondino de Liuzzi, seated on a chair with a book in his
hand, instructing Alessandra Giliani, the first woman anatomist
recorded in history (Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London).
The assumption that the long-haired prosector is Alessandra Giliani
was made by Garrison (1929).16
education, his students should know the human body by
means of dissection.4,5,7,8 Alessandra became his assistant and
prepared de Liuzzi’s cadavers for study. She developed a
method for draining blood from vessels and replacing it with
a colored dye, facilitating the observation of cardiovascular
structures.3–5,7,9,10–15 Very little is known about Giliani’s life,
but we know that she never married and died in 1326 from
an infection. A plaque commemorating her work was placed
on the wall of a hospital church in Santa Maria del Mareto in
Florence; the image on the plaque depicts a woman busy
with prosection as de Liuzzi supervises from his chair and
delivers an anatomical lesson.3–5,7,8,11–15
2. Laura Maria Catalina Bassi
Laura Bassi (Figure 2) was born in Bologna in 1711.6,12,13,17
Her father was a wealthy lawyer, which afforded her the
opportunity to connect with the city’s most affluent people.
When Bassi was 13, she was tutored by Gaetano Tacconi, a
professor of biology, natural history, and medicine. By age
2
Figure 2: Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711–1778) of Italy (Image
courtesy of Wellcome Library, London).
International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine 2015; 5: 10504
Female Anatomists
was designed from pink cloth; fabric; and, initially, leather,
with real pelvic bones. In later years, she replaced the cadaveric pelvic bones with wicker.18,21–23 In the new flexible
models, students could see and feel the baby’s descent and
engagement within the birth canal. Sponges were used inside the model to release colored or clear liquids simulating
the blood and amniotic fluid, respectively, observed during
actual delivery.18,22,23 The machine was engineered to be anatomically correct and included a uterus, a fetal model with
fontanelles, intact limbs, and an open mouth with a tongue.
This last design allowed the fingers of the accoucheur to
enter the orifice up to 5 cm in order to make adjustments to
Figure 3: Angelique du Coudray (from Delacoux A. Biographie
des sages-femmes célèbres anciennes, moderns et contemporaines. Paris: Trinquart, 1834).
3. Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray
Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray (Figure 3)
was prominent during the dawn of modern medicine, expanding the knowledge of midwifery and the practice of
obstetrics.15 She was born in Clermont-Ferrand around 1714.
In 1740, she finished a three-year course of education under
Anne Bairsin and Philibet Magin at the École de Chirurgie and
thereafter moved to Paris, where she became the head midwife at Hôtel-Dieu de Paris.3,15 She revised and expanded a
textbook of midwifery published in 1667, and published her
own Abrégé de l’art des accouchements (Abridgment of the Art of
Delivery; Figure 4) in 1759.15,18–22 This textbook contained
color plates with 26 anatomical and surgical illustrations for
illiterate students studying midwifery.18 Among her extensive obstetrical illustrations, du Coudray also included
methods detailing postnatal care of infants, such as the practice of warm-water submersion to prevent hypothermia.19
Angélique du Coudray’s scientific contributions resulted in
an overall decrease in the period’s infant mortality rate. At
the suggestion of Louis XV, she began educating midwives
in rural France in 1759.3,18–22 Between 1760 and 1783, du
Coudray brought her knowledge of surgical obstetrics, midwifery, maternal–fetal medicine, and reproductive and fertility medicine to nearly all of France.21 She lectured on
anatomy and physiology, surgical techniques, and bioethical
principles and detailed the maternal–fetal circulation within
the umbilical cord.22
In order to demonstrate the process of childbirth, du Coudray made an obstetrical mannequin.19–23 This life-sized model
Figure 4: Title page from Abrégé de l’art des accouchements by Angelique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray, 1714 or 5-1794, Delaguette, veuve. A Paris: Chez la veuve Delaguette, imprimeurlibraire, 1759 (Image courtesy of Reynolds Historical Library, the
University of Alabama at Birmingham).
International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine 2015; 5: 10504
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Hayrapetian et al.
sory organs.25 By performing dissections, she discovered the
termination of the oblique muscle of the eye.13 Morandi’s
reputation extended to England and even Russia,14,25 where
Catherine the Great, Empress of all Russia, began to show
interest in her work.2,26 Joseph II of Austria also took notice
of her and her work.12 She became a member of the Italian
Royal Society, the Russian Royal Scientific Association, and
the British Royal Society; the University of Milan offered her
the chair of anatomy, but she declined the position and
decided to remain in Bologna.3,4,13–15,24 She died in 1774 and
was buried in the Saint Proculus Church in Bologna, close to
Giovanni. After her death, the Medical Institute of Bologna
collected all of her models, which are now displayed at the
Institute of Science in Bologna.4,11,15,24 Morandi had made a
self-portrait and a portrait of her husband from wax; there is
also a bust of her at The Pantheon in Rome and at the
University Museum.3,12,14,28
5. Mademoiselle Marie-Catherine Biheron
(1719 –1795)
Mademoiselle Biheron was a French anatomist born in
1719.2,3,12,14 In order to carry out anatomical studies, she hired
people to steal cadavers for dissection.1,14 Her teacher, Basseporte, encouraged her to start making anatomical models.2
She considered making artificial models with wool, feather,
thread, and waxed paper. In 1759, she was invited by the
surgeon Jean Morand to display some of her models to the
Academie Royale des Sciences and the Academie de Chirurgie in
Figure 5: Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716 –1774) of Italy (Image
courtesy of Wellcome Library, London).
aid the delivery of a child’s head.22 Angélique du Coudray
died in 1794 at the age of 79.21
4. Anna Morandi Manzolini
One of the most notable female anatomists in history is Anna
Morandi Manzolini (1716 –1774) (Figure 5). She was born in
1716 in Bologna, Italy. Morandi was a sculptor and a wax
modeler in Bologna. Her husband was a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, where they began to
fabricate wax anatomical models.1,3,4,12–15,24,25 Initially, they
collaborated with Ercole Lelli for the University of Bologna’s
Anatomy Museum. Morandi and her husband then decided
to perform all dissections at home where they could also
make wax models.24,25 Gradually, they began using unclaimed bodies from the hospital for their dissections.25 Their
models (Figure 6) were very accurate and beautiful and were
admired by both domestic and foreign visitors. The couple
began using these models for teaching anatomy classes.4,25 In
her wax models, Morandi included many of the finer parts of
the body, such as capillaries and nerves, and the stages of
fetal development.4,24
When her husband died in 1755, Morandi replaced him as
the professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna,
and, in 1756, she received the title of Professor of
Anatomy.2–4,12–15,24–27 She specialized in the anatomy of the
skeleton, female and male reproductive systems, and sen4
Figure 6: A wax model of Manzolini (Image courtesy of Wellcome
Library, London).
International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine 2015; 5: 10504
Female Anatomists
Figure 7: Klumpke and her husband, Professor Joseph Jules Dejerine, looking at a microscopic sample (Image courtesy of Wellcome
Library, London).
Paris.1,2,14 Biheron became one of the pioneering wax modelers of her day.2,22
She published an advertisement “artificial anatomy” in Paris
in 1761.1 The flyer stated that artificial anatomy was the
trunk of the body without limbs, with the relationships
among parts exactly represented. Her gallery was at her
residence on the Vielle Estrapade.1 In 1770, Biheron was
invited again to demonstrate a pregnant woman model with
movable parts and fetuses. In 1771, she presented her models
for the third time to Gustavus, the visiting Crown Prince of
Sweden.3,13,15 Biheron lived by teaching and selling her models. As women were not allowed to teach in France, she
moved to England. Many students, including Scottish surgeon John Hunter, were influenced by her work.2,12–15,26
ment initially in London, but her family were not happy
with the care they received there, so they traveled to Paris
and then Germany. They stayed 18 months in Berlin while
Anna underwent treatment. In 1868, they returned to the
USA. Klumpke’s parents separated in 1871, and she, along
with her mother and five siblings, moved permanently to
Europe, first to Germany and then to Geneva.30,32,33 Klumpke
studied chemistry and natural sciences at an academy of
Lausanne.32 In 1875, hearing that a woman named Madeleine
Brès has become the first medical doctor in France, she was
encouraged to go to Paris.30,32,33 She was admitted to a medical school in Paris in 1877.32 Her anatomy professor during
her second year encouraged her to attend a selective externship program in Parisian hospitals, a requirement for
graduation.33 Klumpke became one of the first women externs
in a Paris hospital. During her externship years, she discovered a paper by Professor Wilhelm Erb concerning superior
brachial plexus palsy as a result of trauma, known today as
Erb’s palsy.32,33 This ignited her interest in injuries to the
brachial plexus. She later identified a case of total brachial
plexus radicular paralysis with oculopupillary involvement
(Horner’s syndrome).30,33 This observation became the basis
for her thesis.30 Her work was published in 1885 in the Revue
de Médecine and was awarded the Godard Prize by the
6. Maria Magdalena Petraccini (or Pettracini)
Maria Magdalena Petraccini was an Italian anatomist and
physician, and a strong advocate of women’s involvement in
medical education. Born in 1759 in Florence, Tuscany,3 she
studied at the University of Ferrara and majored in surgery.
Her husband, Francesco Ferretti (a popular physician in
Bagnacavallo), had ties with the university, which allowed
his wife the opportunity to study surgery and obstetrics.28,29
Her commissioned work, “Memoria per servire alla fisica educazione dei bambini,” co-authored with her husband, detailed
the practice and experience she had accumulated in managing the lives of children and newborns. Maria and her
daughter, Zaffira Peretti, were anatomy instructors at the
University of Ferrara and University of Bologna, respectively.
7. Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke
Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke (Figure 7), a neurologist, neuroanatomist, and pathologist, was the first American female
student to intern in a Parisian hospital. She was born in San
Francisco on October 15, 1859.30–33 Her sister, Anna, suffered
from a femoral fracture that resulted in osteomyelitis, forcing them to seek treatment in Europe.32 Anna received treat-
Figure 8: Florence Rena Sabin’s bronze statue by Joy Buba (Image
courtesy of Architect of the Capitol).
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Hayrapetian et al.
Figure 9: An intriguing depiction of the dorsal surface of the brainstem in Sabin’s atlas (from An Atlas of the Medulla and Midbrain: a Laboratory
Manual, by Florence R. Sabin; Friedenwald Co. Baltimore, Md.: Friedenwald Company, 1901; Image courtesy of Reynolds Historical Library,
the University of Alabama at Birmingham). The illustration was created by Max Brödel.
6
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Female Anatomists
French Academy of Medicine in 1886; the inferior brachial
plexus palsy she described was named Klumpke’s palsy.30–33
In 1880, Klumpke met her future husband, Joseph Jules
Dejerine, at the Charité Hospital. With him, she wrote a
book on the anatomy of the central nervous system.31–33
She continued her work in neurology, studying secondary
degeneration following lesions of the cerebral cortex,
connections of Reil’s ribbon (lemnisci), aberrant fibers of
the pyramidal tract, the red nucleus, and fibers in the
corpus callosum.31 She was one of the first physicians to
perform rehabilitation therapy for spinal cord diseases.31
She helped found the French Neurological Society in 1914
and became its first female president.31–33 Klumpke published more than 56 papers on neuroanatomy and neurology, and wrote an autobiography that was translated into
English by Bogousslavsky30; she died in 1927 and was
buried in the Père Lachaise churchyard next to her
husband.32,33
8. Florence Rena Sabin
Florence Rena Sabin (Figure 8) was an anatomist, a pioneering medical researcher, a writer, and a physician. She was
born in 1871 in Central City, Colorado, and studied zoology
at Smith College where she earned her bachelor’s degree in
1893.3–5,7,13,15,24,34–36 Sabin entered The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1896. Here, Franklin Paine Mall, a
renowned anatomy professor and embryologist, became her
mentor and role model. One project suggested by Mall was
to create a three-dimensional pattern of a newborn baby’s
brainstem. This was one of the most important sections of
Sabin’s Atlas of the Medulla and Midbrain, published in 1901
(Figure 9). Another of her research interests was the embryology of the lymphatic system. She received her medical
degree in 1900, and, in 1902, she became the first female
faculty member at Johns Hopkins. She also studied hematopoiesis and angiogenesis in developing organisms and developed methods for studying the origin of the fetal heartbeat. She became the first female president of the American
Association of Anatomists in 1924. In 1923, Simon Flexner,
director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
invited her to work with him at the Cellular Studies Department; she started her work there in 1925 and became the first
full female member of the Rockefeller Institute.3–5,7,13–15,24,34–37
Sabin retired from the Rockefeller Institute in 1938 and went
back to Colorado. In Denver, she was involved in community health and became chair of the Health Committee of
Colorado’s Post-War Planning Committee in 1944.4,5,13,35–37
She influenced several reform bills, named “The Sabin
Health Laws”,3,7 the goal of which was to protect the residents of Colorado from preventable diseases.15,24 She improved the sewage system and prohibited the import of
unpasteurized milk to the city.7 Subsequently, she became
chair of the Interim Board of Health and Hospitals of Denver
and then Manager of the Denver Department of Health and
Charities until 1951.3,13,35,36
In 1925, she became the first woman elected to the National
Academy of Science in the USA.3,4,24 When Marie Curie vis-
Figure 10: Margaret Adaline Reed Lewis (Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, image # SIA2008-5298).
ited the USA, Sabin welcomed her as a representative of
American women scientists.3,24 In 1931, a Good Housekeeping poll rated her one of the 12 most eminent American
women. During her life, she authored over 100 scientific
papers and two books. She died on October 3, 1953; Sabin’s
statue was erected by the state of Colorado in the National
Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.3–5,7,13,14,24,35–38
9. Margaret Adaline Reed Lewis
Margaret Adaline Reed Lewis (Figure 10) was an anatomist
and physiologist born in 1881 in Kittanning,
Pennsylvania.3,5,7,14,39,40 She studied biology and zoology at
Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania (1902–1903 and 1908 –1909), Columbia University (1903–1906), Zurich (1906), and various
other universities in Paris and Berlin (1908). She never received a postgraduate degree. From 1904 to 1907, Lewis
worked at the New York Medical College for Women as an
instructor in physiology, and simultaneously at Barnard College as a lecturer in zoology and at Columbia University as
a lecturer in biology. In 1915, she moved to the Department
of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in
Baltimore as a collaborator and then a research associate
until 1946, whereupon she became a member of that Institute. She retired in 1958 but continued her membership until
1964.3–5,7,14,40
One of Lewis’s first projects was on the regeneration of
crayfish and amphibian embryology. She cultured cells in
vitro, a new biological technique at the time. In 1908, in
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Hayrapetian et al.
10. Elizabeth Caroline Crosby
Figure 11: Elizabeth Caroline Crosby at a young age (© UAB Archives, University of Alabama at Birmingham; reproduced with
written permission).
Berlin, she worked with Rhoda Erdmann and cultured
guinea pig spleen cells and bone marrow in salt solution,
performing the first mammalian tissue culture.7,14 In her later
studies, she focused on oncology and immunology and the
genetics of malignant cells. She discovered that abnormal
chromosomes were not the basis of cancer etiology; cancer
cells sometimes had normal chromosomes. Her work also
led to the discovery of cytotoxic therapies that decreased
tumor size. During her life, Lewis published 150 papers. She
died in July 1970.3–5,7,14,40
Elizabeth Caroline Crosby (Figure 11) was born in October
1888 in Petersburg, Michigan.3,14 She graduated from Petersburg Union High School in 1907 and from Adrian College
with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 1910. She entered the University of Chicago and began training in neuroanatomy. In 1915, she received a Ph.D. in anatomy.3,4,7,14,41
Her dissertation concerned the forebrain of the American
alligator, Alligator mississippiensis. In 1918, she published
A Laboratory Outline of Neurology, which described brain
dissection with precise instructions.14,35 In 1923, after her
father’s death, she left to study at the University of London and at the Central Institute for Brain Research in
Amsterdam.14 During 1939 and 1940, she traveled to the
Marischal College of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, to organize their courses in histology and
neuroanatomy.4,14,39 She received honorary doctorates
from Adrian College.
In 1936, she co-authored The Comparative Anatomy of the
Nervous System of Vertebrates. She edited the Journal of Comparative Neurology (Figure 12). In 1955, she cooperated with
Edgar A. Kahn, Richard C. Schneider, and James A. Taren on
a textbook entitled Correlative Neurosurgery.14,41 In 1962, she
co-authored a neuroanatomy textbook with Edward Lauer
and Tryphena Humphrey entitled Correlative Anatomy of the
Nervous System.3,7,35,41 She retired from the University of
Michigan in 1958 to become the first Professor Emerita in this
school’s history. In 1963, one of her graduate students, Humphrey, received a position in the anatomy department of the
University of Alabama, and Crosby would later teach there
Figure 12: Elizabeth Crosby with other active editorial board members of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, 1948 (© UAB Archives,
University of Alabama at Birmingham; reproduced with written permission).
8
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Female Anatomists
as well. Between 1920 and 1958, she taught neuroanatomy to
8,500 students, prepared 38 –39 students for Ph.D., and
instructed 30 postgraduate students. Fifteen of these became heads of various departments at the University of
Michigan.4,7,14,41 In 1980, at the age of 91, she received the
National Medal of Science from President Jimmy Carter for
comparative and human neuroanatomy.4,14 In 1982, she published her final book, entitled Comparative Correlative Neuroanatomy of the Vertebrate Telencephalon, which she co-edited
with H.N. Schnitzlein of the University of South Florida.
During her career, Crosby received 10 honorary doctorates,
including an honorary medical degree from the University
of Groningen in The Netherlands.41 In 1950, she received the
Achievement Award of the American Association of University Women. She was the first non-neurosurgeon to become
an honorary member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.14,41 Crosby died on July 28, 1983, at the
age of 94.
11. Lucja Frey-Gottesman
Lucja Frey-Gottesman (Figure 13) was born in November
1889 in Lwów, Eastern Poland, then a part of the AustroHungarian Empire.42 She studied philosophy and mathematics at Lwów University. In 1917, she began medical studies
in Lwów, but owing to the Polish–Ukrainian War, she had to
stop studying in 1918 and went to work in the neuropsychiatric department of the Lwów State Hospital under the supervision and tutelage of Kazimierz Orzechowski, who became head of the neurology clinic in Warsaw in 1920.38,42–46
Frey then moved to Warsaw for her medical education and
graduated in 1923.38,42,46–48
In 1923, she published a paper on auriculotemporal nerve
syndrome, now referred to as Frey’s syndrome.44–46 Frey
noticed that many post-parotidectomy patients had skin
flushing and sweating when they ate. She authored other
papers concerning spinal cord degeneration, brain topography, anatomical problems surrounding a Charcot joint, brain
cysts and tumors, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. During
her career, she wrote approximately 43 articles; she was
deported to Belzec extermination camp in 1942, and, in the
late summer of that year, she was killed by the Nazis during
the mass extermination of the ghetto.38,42–44,46–48
CONCLUSIONS
Throughout history, little recognition has been given to the
brilliant women behind some of the most influential discoveries and contributions to modern anatomical science. Although this review merely scratches the surface of the efforts
of these scientists, no accurate history of medical achievement would be complete without the recognition these
women deserve. In detailing their work, we hope that future
medical and anatomical historians will actively search to
expand our knowledge of the women who have influenced
anatomical science so that they will be remembered and
respected. We hope these unsung heroines will influence a
new generation of female anatomists.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The author has no conflict of interest to disclose.
SOURCE OF SUPPORT
There is no funding source to report for this manuscript.
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Figure 13: Lucja Frey (from Maciejewska et al. © 2007 Wiley-Liss,
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