Mary Runnells Bird

Mary Adelaide Runnells Bird (August 21, 1870 – August 31, 1961) was a Canadian physician, described as "one of Canada's first women doctors", and a military hospital surgeon in England during World War I.

Early life and education Runnells was born near Granby, Quebec, the daughter of George W. Runnells and Sarah Edmonds Runnells. As a child, she worked in the cotton mills of Ludlow, Massachusetts to help pay the mortgage on her family's farm. She attended a school in Acton Vale, and graduated from Granby Academy. As a young woman she was encouraged by American physician Jane Elizabeth Hoyt-Stevens to pursue a medical education. Hoyt-Stevens also paid her first-year expenses at Bishop's Medical College in Montreal.

Career During World War I, Bird was house surgeon at the private Egginton Hall Hospital in England, established by Ethel Innes Dugdale, where she treated British "wounded men fresh from the trenches." After the war, she was an assistant medical officer in charge of maternal health and child welfare for the City of Derby. She lectured on preventive medicine, vaccinations, and addiction topics.

Personal life Runnells married Englishman Charles Glover Bird in 1905, and moved to England. Her husband died in 1954. She died in Hudson, Quebec in 1961, at the age of 91.