17 Take Your Medicine 1883

One day at university, Augusta Stowe began shouting at her teacher and all the other boy students. They were making her feel bad for studying to be a doctor. No one thought a girl could learn to be a doctor in Canada. Augusta was going to show them that they were wrong.

In 1883, Augusta Stowe became the first woman to graduate as a doctor from a Canadian university. It is not surprising that she knew she could do it. Augusta's mother, Emily Stowe, was the first woman to ever practice medicine in Canada. Emily had graduated from a medical university in the USA though, not one in Canada. It was not possible for women to study medicine in Canada when Emily wanted to be a doctor.

Emily was a good example for her daughter, Augusta, of how strong a woman could be. She fought to change the Canadian law that said women could not be doctors. She was successful in 1880.

Emily's family were Quakers. This religion valued education. Quakers thought it was important for all children, boys and girls, to go to school. After Emily finished public school, she began teaching. In 1852, she wanted to study to be a qualified teacher. She wanted to go to Victoria College in Ontario, but they would not let her study there because she was female. Instead, she studied at a school in Toronto and got first-class honours. After that, Emily became the first woman principal of a public school in Canada.

Emily married and had children. When one of her children got very sick, she became interested in being a doctor. She applied to study at the Toronto School of Medicine in 1865. Emily was told, “The doors of the university are not open to women and I trust they never will be.”

Emily was strong minded so she went to the USA to get her degree from the New York Medical College for Women in 1867. She went back to Toronto and opened a medical office there. At her medical office, she helped to cure people with homeopathic medicine. It was not legal for her to be a medical doctor there, though because her degree was not from Canada. Emily had to study again in Canada.

AUGUSTA STOWE WAS THE FIRST FEMALE TO GRADUATE WITH A CANADIAN MEDICAL DEGREE

The Toronto School of Medicine gave her a special agreement to go to their classes. The all-male teachers and students did not like her and they said bad things to her. Emily was so angry that she walked out of school before she took her exams. She continued to be a doctor in Canada even though it was not legal.

Finally, in 1880, a college in Ontario gave her a license to be a doctor. They said she knew many things and had been using her skills for many years, so she did not need to take exams. The degree meant she was now a legal doctor.

Augusta Stowe followed in her mother's footsteps. She was sent to Toronto as a young girl for her public school education. When she finished, Augusta was accepted into the Toronto School of Medicine. From there Augusta went to study at the Victoria University in Ontario. These two schools were the very same ones that 15 years earlier, had told her mother she could not study there because she was female. It was not easy for Augusta though. The day that she shouted at everyone in her class is a good example of how stressful it was for her. Still, she was strong minded like her mother. In 1883, Augusta Stowe became the first Canadian woman to study medicine and graduate with a medical degree from a Canadian university.

Augusta married Dr John Gullen and became Ann Augusta Stowe-Gullen. It was not usual for a female to keep her family name after she married. Augusta was a strong woman so she used her name and joined it to her husband's name. Augusta became a teacher at her husband's hospital and also a doctor.

Both Augusta and her mother had worked hard to get rights for Canadian women to study medicine. Augusta was one of the females who founded the Women's College Hospital in Toronto. This was a place where women could study medicine in Canada. The hospital at the college let female patients get medical help from women doctors. This was at a time when medicine was mostly controlled by men. One visitor who saw only women at this hospital asked if everyone there was female. Augusta said “Of course not. Half the babies born are male.”

Once they were successful in getting women into medical schools, Emily and Augusta both started looking for a way for women to get the vote. Augusta told the government of Canada “When women have a voice in national and international affairs, wars will cease forever.”

They got other women together and started trying to make the government let women vote in elections. Augusta introduced the suffrage movement into Ontario. This was the idea that women should have the right to vote(see 1889).

Although Emily died in 1903, Augusta lived to see the suffrage group that she and her mother had started become successful in getting the vote for women in Ontario in 1916. Over the years, all the other provinces and territories in Canada also gave women the right to vote.

Today, Emily and Augusta are remembered as heroes by Canadian women.