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Clara Emilia Smitt (c. 1862 – 13 January 1928) was a Swedish medical doctor and writer. Between 1896 and 1902 she ran Saltsjöbadens sanatorium in
Saltsjöbaden Saltsjöbaden is a locality in Nacka Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 9,491 inhabitants in 2010. It is on the Baltic Sea coast, deep in the Stockholm Archipelago. History Saltsjöbaden () was developed as a resort by Knut Agathon Wa ...
.


Early life and education

Born in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, Clara Smitt grew up as a foster child to Clara Josefina Gustafsson who worked as a maid, and by 1890 she was registered as a student. She trained as a nurse and graduated from her class in 1892. In 1895, she moved to the recently built Saltsjöbaden in Nacka, where on 1 May she opened Saltsjöbadens sanatorium in a villa also called Malmska Villan. She was later a nurse working during the Greco-Turkish War in 1897 and was in 1899 awarded a Red Cross medal in memory of her work during the war. She received the award from the Greek queen. Clara Smitt had passed the exam for
hydrotherapy Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy and also called water cure, is a branch of alternative medicine (particularly naturopathy), occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment. The term ...
and received further training from the Austrian doctor Wilhelm Winternitz. She also studied medicine abroad, where she became interested in modern health methods including water and
light therapy Light therapy, also called phototherapy or bright light therapy is intentional daily exposure to direct sunlight or similar-intensity artificial light in order to treat medical disorders, especially seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and circadi ...
. She wanted to use her knowledge in Sweden, believing that diseases and sickness could be cured not only by medicines, but by healthy living such as diets, exercise and baths in different forms.


Career

She was also one of Sweden's earliest women rights activists and wrote articles on the subject for the magazine '' Idun''. And in 1897 she published a book called (Women's position in society: a few notes about contemporary social questions). In 1898, she published ''Helios'', a magazine for spiritual and material well-being which was released for seven editions. In 1898, she married Erland Dryselius and afterwards changed her name to Clara Smitt-Dryselius. Economic hardship caused her to end her work at Saltsjöbaden in 1902. In December that year the couple moved to
Vingåker Vingåker () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Vingåker Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 4,282 inhabitants in 2010. It is located by road from the nearest larger city Örebro and north-west of county seat Nyköp ...
in
Södermanland County Södermanland County ( sv, Södermanlands län) is a county or '' län'' on the southeast coast of Sweden. In the local Sörmlandic dialects it is virtually universally shortened and pronounced as Sörmlands län, or simply Sörmland, which is t ...
where they started running a water health spa called ''Byle-Wörishofen''. By 1903, she also had started the light therapy institute Helios at
Riddargatan Riddargatan is a street in central Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The Artillery and Engineering College was located at Riddargatan 13 from 1885 to 1926 and the Swedish Army Museum is now based in the same building. References Streets ...
in Stockholm. In 1911, she announced in the magazine ''
Dagny Dagny () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Population Geography The river Aubetin flows northwestward through the commune. See also * Communes of the Seine-et-Marne departme ...
'' that she was a bath/swimming doctor for the Electric Light Institute. By 1918, she was running a massage and light clinic at Råsunda.Stockholmskällans adressböcker för år 1903, 1910 och 1918. She died on 13 January 1928 and was buried on 20 January 1928.


References

{{authority control 19th-century Swedish writers 1864 births 1928 deaths Writers from Stockholm Swedish nurses 19th-century Swedish physicians 20th-century Swedish physicians Burials at Norra begravningsplatsen 20th-century Swedish writers 19th-century Swedish women physicians