Franziska Tiburtius (24 January 1843 – 5 May 1927) was a German physician and advocate for women's education.

Life and work

Tiburtius was one of the first two women to qualify as a doctor in imperial

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Born on Rügen Island in Pomerania, Tiburtius was the youngest of nine children and daughter to tenant farmers. Though she had intended to become a teacher, her brother Karl Tiburtius (an army physician) and sister-in-law,

Henriette Hirschfeld-Tiburtius Henriette Hirschfeld-Tiburtius (14 February 1834 – 25 August 1911) was the first female dentist in Germany. She was born at Sylt, a small island on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein. However, as there were no dental schools in Germany when s ...

(the first woman dentist in Germany) encouraged Tiburtius to pursue medicine. Refused entry to German medical programs, Tiburtius studied medicine in Zurich, passing her examinations with distinction in 1876. That year she also completed an internship as a doctor of internal medicine with the gynaecologist and obstetrician,

Franz von Winckel Franz Karl Ludwig Wilhelm von Winckel (5 June 1837 – 31 December 1911) was a German gynecologist and obstetrician who was a native of Berleburg. In 1860 he received his medical doctorate from Berlin, later becoming a professor of gynecology in ...

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. In 1877, Tiburtius established a women's clinic with her fellow student Emilie Lehmus (1841-1932) in

Berlin-Mitte Mitte () (German for "middle" or "center") is a central locality () of Berlin in the eponymous district () of Mitte. Until 2001, it was itself an autonomous district. Mitte proper comprises the historic center of Alt-Berlin centered on the chu ...

at Schönhauser Straße 23/24. Despite sustained opposition, including several court injunctions and slander, their clinic attracted a large clientele. In 1908, Tiburtius opened a Surgery Clinic for Women Doctors with her colleague Agnes Hacker, which deliberately accepted women patients lacking health insurance. The needy were provided medicine free of cost.

Legacy

Tiburtius was a member of the women's movement in Germany. Throughout her career she advocated for women's education and the repeal of extant bans barring women from continued study. In collaboration with

Helene Lange Helene Lange (9 April 1848 in Oldenburg – 13 May 1930 in Berlin) was a pedagogue and feminist. She is a symbolic figure of the international and German civil rights feminist movement. In the years from 1919 to 1921 she was a member of the Hamb ...

and

Minna Cauer Wilhelmine Theodore Marie Cauer, née Schelle, usually known as Minna Cauer (1 November 1841 in Freyenstein – 3 August 1922 in Berlin) was a German pedagogue, activist in the so-called "radical" wing of the German bourgeois feminist movement ...

, Tiburtius helped establish a two-year continuing education program, or

Realschule ''Realschule'' () is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), ...

, in Berlin. Her Berlin-based clinic also dedicated energy to women's medical education. Upon her retirement, Tiburtius traveled to America and North Africa and throughout Europe. She published an autobiography, ''Memories of an Octogenarian'', about her childhood in Rügen. She died in 1927 in Berlin.

References

External links

''Franziska Tiburtius''
a

(database of female physician of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

(1871-1918) compiled and maintained by the institute for medical history of the

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

) 1843 births 1927 deaths German gynaecologists German women physicians 19th-century German physicians 20th-century German physicians 20th-century women physicians 19th-century women physicians 20th-century German women {{Germany-med-bio-stub