Woman of the Century/Mary Putnam Jacobi

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2278768Woman of the Century — Mary Putnam Jacobi

JACOBI, Dr. Mary Putnam, physician, born in London, England, 31st August, 1842. She is a daughter of George P. Putnam, the well-known publisher. She came to the United States in youth. She studied in the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, Pa., afterwards taking the course in the New York College of Pharmacy, of which institution she was the first woman graduate. In 1868 she went to Paris, France, where she was the first woman to be admitted to the Ecole de Medecin. She was graduated in that college in 1871. During the siege of Paris she corresponded for the New York "Medical Journal." In 1871 she became the wife of Dr. Abraham Jacobt, a native of Hartum, Westphalia, Germany, who studied in the universities of Greifswald, Bonn and Gottingen, and, having become involved in the German revolutionary movement, was imprisoned. He came to the United States and settled in New York, where he holds high rank in the medical fraternity. Three children were born to them. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was for twelve years dispensary physician in the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She served as professor of materia medica in the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, and later as professor in the New York post-graduate medical school. In 1876 she was elected president of the Association for the Advancement of the Medical Education of Women. She has written much on medical and scientilic subjects. She is the author of "The Question of Rest During Menstruation," an essay which won the Bovlston prize in Harvard University in 1876; "The Value of Life" (New York, 1879); "Cold Pack and Anaemia" (1880); "Studies in Endometritis" in the "American Journal of Obstetrics" (1885); the articles on "Infantile Paralysis" and "Pseudo-Muscular Hypertrophy" in "Pepper's Archives of Medicine," and "Hysteria, and Other Essays" (1888). She is interested in many reforms and charities. Her knowledge of medicine and all its allied sciences is profound and accurate. Her home is in New York City, where she has acquired an extensive practice. She stands in the front rank in her profession.