Wilhelmine Schwenter-Trachsler

Wilhelmine Albertina Magdalena Schwenter-Trachsler , b. Wilhelmine Neumann (born June 26, 1857 in Husum ; † May 12, 1916 ) was a Swiss doctor. She was the first Swiss dermatologist and one of the first private lecturers.

Life and study

Wilhelmine Schwenter-Trachsler matriculated in the summer of 1879 at the Bern medical faculty as "Willy Neumann". In 1880 Wilhelmine became an assistant to the Bern physiologist Gustav Valentin . This professor had chosen her because she - in contrast to the competing gentlemen - showed great manual dexterity in the preparation of specimens. In 1881 Willy Neumann received his doctorate in natural sciences, and in 1883 in medicine. At the age of 26, Dr. phil. Dr. med. Neumann in 1883 with the 63-year-old "factotum" of the Bern medical faculty, Johann Jakob Trachsler.

After the death of her first husband, Wilhelmine Trachsler-Neumann worked from 1894 to the end of 1898 in Paul Gerson Unna's famous dermatological laboratory in Hamburg. Here, too, her "excellent hand" was praised. In 1898 she married her former fellow student in Bern, Jakob Schwenter, who - also widowed - had spent the summer months in Unna's laboratory. While her husband then continued his education in Paris, Wilhelmine Schwenter took the Swiss state examination as a doctor in Geneva. From 1899 the couple worked together as specialists for skin diseases on the Berner Marktgasse and in the New Bümpliz Castle and as spa doctors in Leukerbad. With Charles & Henriette Saloz-de Joudra in Geneva, they were among the very first married couples to run a doctor's practice in Switzerland.

Career and profession

After her husband Jakob Schwenter had received the venia docendi in 1903, the license to teach dermatology and radiology, Wilhelmine Schwenter-Trachsler also wanted to complete her habilitation. The Bern faculty refused her application. She had just issued new regulations for habilitation in order to curb the “swarm of private lecturers”. Wilhelmine Schwenter invoked the old, still valid law and hired a lawyer. In January 1905 she earned her habilitation . After Anna Tumarkin and before Gertrud Woker, she was the second female private lecturer in Bern. Wilhelmine Schwenter-Trachsler published, among other things, in the archive for dermatology and syphilis and in the Swiss women's calendar . Here she dealt specifically with the ailments and diseases of women and children.

Fonts

• Neumann Willy, On quantitative determination of uric acid and the sources of error to be taken into account. Diss. Phil. II Bern, Bern 1883.
• Neumann Willy, On toxicological differences of functionally different muscle groups, a contribution to the theory of muscle toxins. Diss. Med. Bern, Bern 1983
• Unna PG and Schwenter-Trachsler Ms. Dr. med. et phil., Impetigo vulgaris. In: Monthly notebooks for practical dermatology, 1899.

Literature and archival material

• Franziska Rogger : The doctoral hat in the broom cupboard. Bern 1999, p. 175.178
• The lecturers of the Bern University of Applied Sciences, supplementary volume on the university history of Bern, 1528-1984: for the 150th anniversary of the University of Bern 1984, Bern 1984.
• Bachmann Barbara and Elke Bradenahl, women studying medicine in Bern, 1871-1914, Bern 1990.
• University of Bern, Album Universitatis Bernensis, Vol. II, 1846–1877, in: Staatsarchiv Bern BB III b 1158. (Database: http://apps.uniarchiv.unibe.ch/syscomm/images/mata/3728_3739.gif )
• University of Bern, directories of authorities, teachers and students.
• University of Bern, Faculty of Human Medicine, lecturers, in: Bern State Archives BB III b 557.