Marie Josefina Mathilde Durocher (6 January 1809 – 25 December 1893) was a Brazilian

obstetrician Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgi ...

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...

and physician. She was the first female doctor in Latin America.

Biography

Durocher was the daughter of French immigrants. She was born in Paris and moved to Brazil with her parents at the age of eight. Widowed young with two children, she was the first to be granted a medical degree from the newly founded Medical School of Rio de Janeiro in 1834. Durocher was active in her profession for sixty years. She aroused attention with her habit of dressing in men's clothes, as she considered them more practical in her profession than the contemporary women's clothes. Midwife of the grandchildren of Emperor

Pedro II of Brazil Don (honorific), Dom PedroII (2 December 1825 – 5 December 1891), nicknamed "the Magnanimity, Magnanimous" ( pt, O Magnânimo), was the List of monarchs of Brazil, second and last monarch of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years. ...

, Durocher became the first female member of the

Academia Nacional de Medicina The Academia Nacional de Medicina (ANM) is the Brazilian national academy of medicine. The academy was founded during the Brazilian imperial period on 30 June 1829, under the name of ''Sociedade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro''. On 8 May ...

in 1871, and was the only woman in the Academy for 50 years.

References

Bibliography

* Jennifer S. Uglow : The Macmillan dictionary of women's biography (1982) * Laura Lynn Windsor : Women in medicine: an encyclopedia 1809 births 1893 deaths French emigrants to Brazil Naturalized citizens of Brazil Brazilian women physicians Brazilian obstetricians 19th-century Brazilian physicians 19th-century women physicians {{Brazil-med-bio-stub