Mary Scharlieb

Dame Mary Ann Dacomb Scharlieb, DBE (née Bird; 18 June 1845 – 21 November 1930) was a pioneer British female physician and gynaecologist in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. She had worked in India. She was the first female student of medicine at Madras Medical College. After her graduation and work in India, she went to England to do her Postgraduation in Medicine (gynecology) and by her persistence she returned to the UK to become a qualified doctor. She returned to Madras and eventually lectured in London. She was the first woman to be elected to the honorary visiting staff of a hospital in the UK

Biography

Mary Dacomb Bird was born the daughter of William Chandler Bird and his wife Mary Dacomb; her mother died 10 days after she was born. Raised by her grandparents in a strict Evangelical Christian household, she attended a boarding school in Manchester, then to one in New Brighton, and finally at Mrs Tyndall's School at 16 Upper Hamilton Terrace in London. Hers was a conventional middle-class upbringing. Aged 19, she met William Scharlieb, "who was engaged in eating his dinners at the Middle Temple, preparatory to his call to the Bar and subsequent practice in Madras as a barrister". His initial marriage proposal in February 1865 was met with prompt parental opposition. Mary persisted and eventually the marriage took place in December 1865, and the couple sailed for India almost at once.

While in Madras, Scharlieb learned about the lack of medical services for women's gynaecological health and during childbirth, making the birth process dangerous. This situation motivated her to gain medical experience, and she was allowed to train as a pupil midwife. and in 1879, in company with three other candidates for the first medical examination, she passed.

In November 1882, aged 37, she received a degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery with Honours in all subjects, the Gold Medal and the Scholarship in Obstetrics; From 1887 to 1902 was surgeon at the New Hospital for Women (now the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, Euston Road) initially assisting Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and being senior surgeon from 1889.

In 1887, she was appointed lecturer on forensic medicine to the Royal Free Hospital, in 1889 lecturer on midwifery (until 1913), and in 1902 chief gynæcologist. Her assistant was Ethel Vaughan-Sawyer. At the London School of Medicine for Women, she was the first woman to lecture in medical jurisprudence.

She began her private practice after returning again to England, on 21 May 1887, with five patients in the morning, at 75 Park Street, where she shared an office with her medical student son. Five months later they moved to number 149 Harley Street, where she lived and practiced for nearly forty years.

In 1919 she was invited to give the eighth Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture by The Society for the Study of Inebriety, choosing as her topic, "The Relation of Alcohol and Alcoholism to Maternity and Child Welfare".

Honours In 1926, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was a member of the royal commission on Venereal Diseases 1913–16. She became Chairman of the Midwifery Committee of the Council of War Relief, and spent much of her time and remaining energies in its Maternity Hospital. She stated that "artificial contraceptives are wrong, morally, medically, rationally". She put in a powerful plea for the exercise of natural means of spacing the family. She spoke of divorce and her belief that it is unjust even to the guilty party, who, if a second union is contracted by the innocent partner, is "thereby prevented from making reparation and by this debarred from full repentance". She pleaded for the Church of England to strengthen and expand its own school system:Among the queerest heresies is that which teaches that children ought not to be biassed, or, as they say, 'prejudiced' in their spiritual outlook ... uch parents and guardians are, indeed, biassing and prejudicing their children's choice, because it is inevitable that children left without religious instruction must grow up in the belief that the truths of religion and the practice of religion cannot be of much importance to their parents.

Writings A Woman's Words to Women (1895) The Mother's Guide to the Health and Care of her Children (1905) Womanhood and Race-regeneration (1912) The Seven Ages of Woman (1915) The Hope of the Future (1916) The Welfare of the Expectant Mother (1919) What Mothers must tell their Children (National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases. N.C.25.) (1925) Yet a More Excellent Way (novel) (1929)

Dr Scharlieb wrote an autobiography late in life. Reminiscences, Dr Mary Scharlieb C.B.E., J.P. (1924). London:Williams and Norgate

Family The Scharliebs had three children, two sons (born 1866 and 1870) and a daughter (born 1868).

Legacy In 1930, it was decided that a ward in the Royal Free Hospital would be named after her following construction of a new gynaecological and obstetrical unit at the hospital.