Mary Putnam Jacobi

Jacobi was born Mary Corinna Putnam on August 31, 1842, in London, England. She was the daughter of an American father, George Palmer Putnam and British mother, Victorine Haven Putnam, originally from New York City. She was the oldest of eleven children. At the time of Jacobi's birth, the family lived in London because her father George was establishing a branch office for his New York City publishing company, Wiley & Putnam. In 1848, at the age of six, Jacobi moved with her family from London to New York, where she spent the rest of her childhood and adolescence. Mary was educated at home by her mother before attending a private school in Yonkers. Later, she attended a public school for girls on 12th Street in Manhattan, from which she graduated in 1859. After graduating, she studied Greek, science, and medicine privately with Elizabeth Blackwell and others. As a teenager, Jacobi published short stories in The Atlantic Monthly from the age of fifteen, and later in the New York Evening Post. == Career ==

Medical education Although George Putnam believed a career in medicine was a "repulsive pursuit," he reluctantly agreed to financially support his daughter's decision to pursue medicine, an ambition she had held since childhood. During a short internship in which she studied clinical medicine at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, Jacobi decided to further her study of medicine and apply to École de Médecine of the University of Paris. Jacobi also received a bronze medal for her thesis. Her studies in Paris coincided with the Franco-Prussian War. In ''Scribner's Monthly'' of August 1871, she published an account of the new French political leadership that came to power following the war. Medical practice and marriage After five years of studying in Paris, Jacobi returned to the United States in the fall of 1871. Moving back to New York City, Jacobi established her own private medical practice. Jacobi also participated in research and became a professor in the new Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary and Mount Sinai Hospital. Jacobi's essay was a response to Dr. Edward H. Clarke's earlier publication, Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls (1875), a book claiming that any physical or mental exertion during menstruation could lead to women becoming infertile. Jacobi wrote more than 120 medical articles and nine books, In 1894, she wrote ''Common Sense Applied to Women's Suffrage'', which was later reprinted and used to support the women's suffrage movement in the United States. ==Death and legacy==

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Jacobi documented her symptoms and published a paper on the subject titled Descriptions of the Early Symptoms of the Meningeal Tumor Compressing the Cerebellum. From Which the Writer Died. Written by Herself. == Selected works ==

• De la graisse neutre et des acides gras (Paris thesis, 1871) • The Question of Rest for Women during Menstruation (1876) • Acute Fatty Degeneration of New Born (1878) • The Value of Life (New York, 1879) • Cold Pack and Anæmia (1880) • The Prophylaxis of Insanity (1881) • "Some Considerations on the Moral and on the Non Asylum Treatment of Insanity". In: Putnam Jacobi, Harris, Cleaves, et al. The Prevention of Insanity and the Early and Proper Treatment of the Insane (1882) • "Studies in Endometritis" in the American Journal of Obstetrics (1885) • Articles on "Infantile Paralysis" and "Pseudo-Muscular Hypertrophy" in Pepper's Archives of Medicine (1888) • Hysteria, and other Essays (1888) • Physiological Notes on Primary Education and the Study of Language (1889) • ''"Common Sense" Applied to Women's Suffrage'' (1894) This expanded on an address she made that same year before a constitutional convention in Albany. It was reprinted in 1915 and contributed to the final successful push for women's suffrage. • Found and Lost (1894) • From Massachusetts to Turkey (1896) • Description of the Early Symptoms of the Meningeal Tumor Compressing the Cerebellum. From Which the Writer Died. Written by Herself. (1906) == References ==