Rachel Brooks Gleason (November 27, 1820 – March 13, 1905) was an American physician, the fourth woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.

Early life

Rachel Ingall Brooks was born in the village of

Winhall, Vermont Winhall is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,182 at the 2020 census. In the southeastern corner of the town is the unincorporated village of Bondville. Half of the community of Stratton Mountain, part of S ...

, on November 27, 1820, the daughter of Rueben Brooks and Lucy Musey. She had two siblings: John Quincy Brooks and Lucy Zipporah Brooks. No colleges were open for women during her girlhood, but Gleason gave herself a fair collegiate education from college text-books studied at home. Her husband, Dr. Silas O. Gleason, when he became professor of hygiene in the Central Medical College in Rochester, New York, succeeded in persuading the faculty and trustees to open the college doors to women. Rachel Brooks Gleason studied with her husband and was graduated in medicine in 1851. She was the fourth woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.

Career

After graduation, Gleason practiced three years in a sanitarium in

Glen Haven, New York Near the southern end (the head end) of Skaneateles Lake, the hamlet of Glen Haven is situated in a splendidly scenic valley in the Town of Scott, Cortland County and the Town of Niles, Cayuga County. Nearby Spafford Landing is in the Town of S ...

, and one year in Ithaca, New York. She was at the head of the Elmira Water Cure, opened in 1852, later known as Gleason Sanitarium, in

Elmira, New York Elmira () is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 cens ...

, for more than forty years. The hydropathic health resort catered to women of the upper class, their specialty was "lady troubles". The Gleasons sold the business in 1899, and all the buildings were demolished in 1959. She had a large consulting practice, extending to most of the towns in the State. Her book on home treatment for invalids, ''Talks to my Patients: hints on getting well and keeping well'' (New York, 1870) ran into its eighth edition. After her graduation in medicine, she gave lectures on physiology and hygiene to women, assisted by the best models and charts to be had at the time. She held bible and prayer classes every Saturday for twenty-five years. She was an advocate of dress reform and women's freedom from early girlhood. She assisted eighteen women students through medical colleges, all of whom were dependent upon her for financial support, and most of them rescued from invalidism. Many of these students became prominent, and all were competent physicians. Gleason was a strong anti-slavery worker before the Civil War, and rendered constant assistance to Freedmen's schools thereafter.

Personal life

Gleason was a teacher from choice, not from necessity, much of the time up to her marriage on July 3, 1844, to Dr. Silas Oresmus Gleason (1818–1899). They had two children: E.B. Gleason and Adele Amelia Gleason (died in 1930). Gleason died on March 13, 1905, and is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gleason, Rachel Brooks 1820 births 1905 deaths American educators American feminists Hydrotherapists Physicians from Vermont History of women's rights in the United States American women physicians People from Winhall, Vermont Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century