Selma Meyer (doctor)

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Selma Meyer (born June 9, 1881 in Essen , † November 11, 1958 in Kew Gardens, Queens , New York City ) was a German pediatrician and Germany's first professor of paediatrics.

Life

Infection clinic on the premises of the municipal hospitals (1908)

As the daughter of the Jewish businessman Gustav Meyer and Lina Stern, Selma Meyer attended a secondary school for girls. She was supposed to become a music teacher and in 1908 did her music teacher exam at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin.

In 1908, after a decree by the Prussian Minister of Culture, women were first admitted to study medicine in Prussia . The then 27-year-old Meyer caught up with her Abitur and studied medicine in Berlin from 1910 . She finished her studies with the grade “very good”. After graduating in 1916, she was among them Karl Bonhoeffer with a thesis about the prognosis of birth paralysis of the brachial plexus , which she wrote to the Department of Nervous Diseases in Berlin, PhD . After the practical year with Adalbert Czerny at the children's clinic of the Charité Berlin, which he directed, which had already begun before her doctorate , Meyer went to Arthur Schloßmann at the Düsseldorf children's clinic in 1917 , where she became senior physician at the infection clinic in 1921 .

In 1922 Selma Meyer was the first woman to be qualified as a professor in the field of paediatrics (pediatrics) and the second woman at a German medical faculty . In 1927 she became the first woman in Germany to become an adjunct professor of paediatrics at the Medical Academy in Düsseldorf . She dealt scientifically with infectious diseases and immunology in childhood, the morphology of blood in humans and animals and with social pediatrics.

In addition to working in the clinic, she managed the Auguste Victoria House for babies and toddlers and was a lecturer at the West German Social Hygiene Academy in Düsseldorf (headed by Ludwig Teleky ), the Niederrheinische Frauenakademie and two sister schools in Düsseldorf. Meyer achieved international recognition with numerous publications and lectures, especially on the subject of scarlet fever . Schlossmann attested her “excellent teaching talent”, she was “an excellent, generally recognized speaker” and knew how to guide the doctors working under her to scientific work. In 1929 Meyer opened her own practice for childhood diseases and radiology in Düsseldorf at Jägerhofstrasse 3 , for which she did not interrupt her teaching activities at the academy.

After the seizure of power of the Nazis , the Jewish doctor had in September 1933 her teaching at the Academy quit, she lost in 1938 its approval and was allowed as so-called Krankenbehandlerin treat only Jewish patients. Her property was confiscated and she had to move. From 1934 to 1938 she worked as a school doctor for the Jewish community in Düsseldorf. In 1939 Selma Meyer emigrated to England on one of the last transports. In 1940 she moved to the USA, practically penniless, and never returned to Germany.

At the age of 58, Meyer passed the American state examination and was able to open a pediatric practice in New York , where she practiced until her death. She was a member of the Rudolf Virchow Society in New York. Only shortly before her death in 1958 did she receive a reparation payment from Germany .

Selma Meyer remained unmarried and had no children. Her brother Arthur (1883-1949) was a surgeon in Cologne and New York.

Meaning and honors

Selma Meyer's importance lies less in her scientific work with 45 publications with a focus on infectious diseases, especially scarlet fever, but rather in her role as a pioneer in the emancipation of women . Meyer was a German delegate at the International Congress of Women Doctors in Bologna in 1928 . It was able to assert itself both in professional bodies , for example the board of the Rhine Medical Association and in the medical faculty in Düsseldorf. For her activities as a scientist and lecturer, she consciously renounced marriage and family. It deserves admiration that she managed to build a new life after emigrating.

The German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ) has been awarding a dissertation prize named after Selma Meyer since 2008 . He pays tribute to “the special lifetime achievement and fate of Selma Meyer” as the first German professor of paediatrics.

The Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf leads the Selma Meyer mentoring program to promote women scientists. "Her role model stands for the achievement of goals with high technical standards and for the straightforwardness with which she set out on her way in a completely male-dominated world."

Publications (selection)

  • About the prognosis of paralysis of the brachial plexus. Karger, Berlin 1917.
  • Critical evaluation of the Friedmann means. Ulrici, Helmuth. - Leipzig: Joh. Ambr. Barth, 1921.
  • Evaluation of the child's life in the thinking and feeling of the peoples. In: Journal for Infant and Young Child Protection. Volume 12, 1922, pp. 421-431.
  • with A. Schloßmann: Scharlach. In: Meinhard von Pfaundler , Arthur Schloßmann (ed.): Handbuch der Kinderheilkunde, II. Leipzig 1923, pp. 81–184.
  • Blood morphology of some domestic and laboratory animals. In: Folia haematologica. 30/40, 1924, pp. 195-229.
  • Protection of children and young people in Germany. In: Monthly for German Doctors. Volume 4, 1928 pp. 166-169.
  • About blood changes in the event of commercial damage. In: Archives for tissue pathology and industrial hygiene. Volume 2, 1931, pp. 526-557.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meyer, Selma, Prof., specialist doctor f. Childhood illnesses, Jägerhofstrasse 3U. In the address book of the city of Düsseldorf 1930 , p. 368 ( uni-duesseldorf.de )
  2. ^ Peter Voswinckel: Meyer, Selma. In: New German Biography (NDB). Vol. 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, p. 372 f.
  3. ^ Selma Meyer mentoring program
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Selma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pediatrician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1958
Place of death Kew Gardens, Queens , New York City