Hedda Andersson. Hedda Albertina Andersson (24 April 1861,

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

- 7 September 1950,

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

), was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

. She was the second female student at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion cunning woman Cunning may refer to: * Cunning (owarai), a Japanese comedy group * Cunning folk, a type of folk magic user * Cunning (surname), a list of people with Cunning as a surname See also * Cunningham * * * Sneak (disambiguation) Sneak or Sneaky m ...

Johanna Andersson. When her father died in 1866, she moved with her mother and three siblings to her grandmother. On her mother's side, she descended from a line of medicine women, known to have practiced traditional

folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...

since at least seven generations, dating back to the 17th-century. Her great grandmother Marna Nilsdotter, as well as her grandmother Elna Hansson, was active in this field. Her mother and grandmother worked together as medical practitioners in

. Her grandmother was famous in all

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

as the ''Lundakvinnan'' ("Woman of Lund"), and had educated herself to a

barber surgeon The barber surgeon, one of the most common European medical practitioners of the Middle Ages, was generally charged with caring for soldiers during and after battle. In this era, surgery was seldom conducted by physicians, but instead by barbers ...

to avoid being accused of

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...

, as did her daughter, the mother of Hedda, for the same reason. When the universities of Sweden were opened to women in 1870, her mother and grandmother decided that she should study medicine at a university and obtain a formal license, to avoid being persecuted and accused of quackery, which had been the case with many women in the history of their family, such as her grandmother and mother. Hedda Andersson was educated at the school of Maria Stenkula, and was admitted to Lund University in 1880. She has been referred to as the first female student there, though actually this was Hildegard Björck only shortly before. She was the only female there until 1882, but she was reportedly treated with respect by her male fellow students. She took her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 1887 and her medical license in 1892. She thereby became the second female physician to have graduated from a Swedish university after

Karolina Widerström Karolina Olivia Widerström (10 December 1856 – 4 March 1949), was a Swedish doctor and gynecologist. She was the first female physician with a university education in her country. She was also a feminist and a politician, and engaged in the qu ...

. She also studied in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

in 1892 and 1895, and under

Max Sänger Max Saenger (german: Max Sänger) (14 March 1853, Bayreuth – 12 January 1903, Prague) was a German obstetrician and gynecologist who was a native of Bayreuth. He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, then continued with graduate stud ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

in 1893. She was active as a doctor in

Ronneby Ronneby is a locality and the seat of Ronneby Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 12,029 inhabitants in 2010. Ronneby is regarded as the heart of "the Garden of Sweden", and in 2005 the park "Brunnsparken" in Ronneby was voted Sweden's m ...

1892–95, in Malmö in 1893–95 and 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 ...

1895-1925, after which she settled in Lund.

Memorials

Visiting scholar In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

Professorship was created at the

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Betty Pettersson Betty Maria Carolina Pettersson (Visby 14 September 1838–7 February Stockholm 1885), was a Swedish teacher. She became the first official female university student in Sweden in 1871. She was also the first female student of Uppsala University ...

Emmy Rappe Emmy Carolina Rappe (14 February 1835 – 19 October 1896) was a Swedish nurse and principal for a nursing school. She was the pioneer and founder of the Swedish nursing education. She was the first trained professional nurse and the first princip ...

References

Margareta Wickström: Medicinska Fackulteten, Lunds universitet
* http://www.ub.gu.se/fasta/laban/erez/kvinnohistoriska/tidskrifter/idun/1896/pdf/1896_4.pdf * Margareta Wickström: Medicinska fakulteten, Lunds universitet * Idun. Nummer 6, 1891 * Idun. Nummer 4, 1896 * Schenlær, Margareta, Malmökvinnor, Malmö kulturhistoriska fören., Malmö, 2003

Memorials

References

Further reading