Abby Howe Turner (1875 – 1957) was a noted professor of physiology and zoology who founded the department of physiology at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

. She specialized in colloid osmotic pressure and circulatory reactions to gravity.

Life

Turner was born in Nashua, New Hampshire. She was the daughter of Emeline Mehitabel Cogswell and George Turner.Abby Howe Turner
, mtholyoke.edu, Retrieved 28 November 2016 She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke in 1896. She then studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and the Harvard Medical School. She received her Ph.D. from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1926. She did research on students whilst she both taught and worked in a lab at Mount Holyoke from 1896 until her retirement in 1940. She specialized in colloid osmotic pressure and circulatory reactions to gravity. In one of her studies, Turner worked with student majoring in physiology and physical education to study the effects of posture on blood flow on the female body. She was an intimate friend of the psychiatrist and author Esther Loring Richards, and they engaged in a long exchange of written correspondence, which is physically and digitally archived by

. Abby Howe Turner died in 1957.Abby Howe Turner papers
Retrieved November 2016

References

1875 births 1957 deaths American zoologists American physiologists Women physiologists Women zoologists University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Chicago alumni Harvard Medical School alumni Mount Holyoke College alumni Mount Holyoke College faculty Radcliffe College alumni {{US-edu-bio-stub