Marie Heim-Vögtlin

Marie Heim-Vögtlin (1845 to 1916) was the first woman in Switzerland to qualify as a physician. The daughter of a village pastor in Bözen, she entered medical study at the University of Zürich in 1867 after her fiancé, a medical student, broke off their engagement, and her admission caused a national scandal because only a few foreign women had matriculated there before. She passed her examinations with honours, trained further in gynaecology in Leipzig and in a Dresden maternity ward, and took her doctorate at Zürich in 1874 with a dissertation on the state of the female genitalia in labour. Her father had to intervene before she received official permission to practise in Zürich. Her practice began slowly but she became known as a capable and well-liked doctor, especially generous toward poor women. In 1875 she married the geologist Albert Heim, whose consent the law then required for her to keep working. She was a co-founder of the Schweizerische Pflegerinnenschule mit Spital, the first Swiss gynaecological hospital, which opened in 1901 with a maternity ward and a nursing school, and she served as its bursar. She also took part in the women's suffrage and temperance movements and wrote popular works for women and children.