Marie Zakrzewska, an influential New England physician, played an important role in opening the field of medicine to women. After receiving her M.D. from Cleveland Medical College in 1856, Zakrzewska worked with other female physicians to establish women's hospitals in the United States. She founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1862 and became a well-known physician in New England. Throughout her life she lobbied for the equal treatment of women in medicine. She was also active in the woman's rights movement and, in the antebellum years, the antislavery movement, where she became close friends with William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and other radical abolitionists.

Medical Studies in Germany.

Of Polish ancestry but born in Berlin, Germany, in 1829, Zakrzewska was no stranger to medicine: her maternal grandmother had been a veterinary surgeon, and her mother practiced midwifery in Berlin. At...