MAUDE ABBOTT

By Susan Button on behalf of the Centenary Committee

Maude Abbott
Maude Abbott

In 1918, McGill’s Faculty of Medicine permitted the admission of women. At the 1922 Spring Convocation, five determined young women – Eleanor Percival, Jessie Boyd, Lilian Irwin, Winifred Blampin and Mary Childs – received their M.D.,C.M. degrees alongside their 121 male peers. (By contrast, at the 2022 Spring Convocation, the Medicine Class consisted of 180 students, 56.1% female and 43.9% male.)

To celebrate this milestone in 1922, Dr. Maude Abbott – who had fought her entire career to advance the place of women in medicine – hosted a reception for the five graduates at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Dr. Jessie Boyd Scriver later wrote: “It is difficult to convey the joy and triumph of Dr. Abbott at that graduation in the spring of 1922 when McGill bestowed for the first time her regular medical degree of M.D.,C.M. on five women medical graduates.” (From her chapter on Maude Abbott in The Clear Spirit: Twenty Canadian Women and Their Times, edited by Mary Quayle Innis).

In 1927, Dr. Abbott was among the founding members of the University Women’s Club of Montreal, along with these trailblazing doctors, Jessie Boyd, Mary Childs and Eleanor Percival, the women she had celebrated at their graduation in 1922.

Maude Abbott had not had an easy start to her life. Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott was born on March 18, 1868 in St. Andrews (Saint-André-d’Argenteuil), Quebec. Her father abandoned the family shortly after her birth and her mother died in 1869, so she and her older sister lived with her maternal grandmother. Maude was a cousin to Sir John Abbott, who was the third Prime Minister of Canada. Maude obtained a B.A. in 1890 as a member of the third class of female students to attend McGill University. She was valedictorian and took home the Lord Stanley Gold Medal for academic achievement. Maude wanted to attend McGill’s Faculty of Medicine, but was refused admission as women were not accepted into the program.

This refusal was not only happening in Montreal as there were many obstacles for women wishing to enter the medical profession. In 1865, Emily Stowe was denied entry into the Toronto School of Medicine because she was a woman. She went to the United States and enrolled in the New York Medical School for Women. In 1867, she graduated and returned to Toronto to open a private practice – becoming Canada’s first female physician to practice medicine.

Maude decided to attend Bishop’s College, which had a medical faculty in Montreal, receiving her M.D. in 1894 and winning the prize in senior anatomy and the Chancellor’s award for the best examination results in the subjects studied in the final year.

After graduation, Maude spent three years in Europe, taking postgraduate courses in a variety of subjects and collecting research data. On her return to Montreal in 1897, she accepted the opportunities for research offered by two McGill professors and with these assignments she proved her capacity for research and gained recognition. In 1898, the Chairman of Pathology, Dr. George Adami, appointed her Assistant Curator of the Medical Museum and sent her to Washington to study the methods of the Army Medical Museum. During her trip, she met the renowned William Osler at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Sir William Osler would remain a mentor over the years and in 1905 he invited Abbott to contribute the section on congenital heart abnormalities for his encyclopedic System of Medicine (7v., London, 1907–10).

Dr. Abbott was appointed Curator of McGill’s Medical Museum in 1899 and spent much of her professional career developing it into one of the best such institutions in North America. This museum holds many pathology specimens gathered by William Osler between 1876 and 1884. By learning about museum specimens showing congenital heart abnormalities, she became an expert on the subject and published the influential Atlas of Congenital Cardiac Disease in 1936. The Museum is now named in her honour.

In 1910, the Faculty of Medicine awarded Maude Abbott a McGill M.D., C.M. (honoris causa) “recognizing her work and reputation and there is no doubt that her reputation had some influence on the final decision to admit women to the study of medicine.” (From her chapter on Maude Abbott in The Clear Spirit: Twenty Canadian Women and Their Times, edited by Mary Quayle Innis).

Dr. Abbott’s devotion was acknowledged on her retirement in 1936, when McGill University awarded her an honorary LL.D., recognizing her “as a stimulating teacher, an indefatigable investigator and a champion of higher education for women.” Also in 1936, just before her retirement, Dr. Abbott became the first female member of McGill’s Faculty Club. The Club Lounge on the second floor is named in her honour.

Maude Abbott passed away on September 2, 1940. In 2000, a commemorative stamp was issued (see photo) as part of the Millennium Collection, Medical Innovators.

The history of women in medicine in Canada is one of facing obstacles and challenges, but striving to overcome them. These doctors mentioned are just a few of the remarkable, pioneering women who paved the way for future generations. According to the Canadian Medical Association, it is expected that by 2030 women will make up half of all physicians in Canada.

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