Maudie of McGill: Dr. Maude Abbott and the Foundations of Heart Surgery

Cynthia R. Comacchio is an assistant professor of History at Wilfrid
Laurier University in Waterloo.

This latest issue in the Canadian Medical Lives series details the story
of Maude Abbott, born in 1869, who was one of the first generation of
women to attend McGill University; one of the first women physicians to
practice in Canada; and later a widely respected researcher on heart
disease.

As the author describes it, Abbott’s early life was the stuff of
Gothic romance. Nor did the rest of her life follow any pattern that
could be called typical of women in her time. When McGill refused her
entrance to its medical college, she pursued a medical degree at
Bishop’s and postgraduate studies in Vienna. She returned to Montreal
to set up her medical practice at the age of 28.

In 1898, Abbott was appointed assistant curator at McGill’s medical
museum, a position of low pay and lowly status. Undeterred, she made the
best of this “foothold” at McGill. Under the tutelage of Sir William
Osler, foremost clinician of his time, she became a recognized
international authority on congenital heart disease. Among her
achievements—considerable by any historical standard, but particularly
in view of the restrictions placed on women at the turn of the
century—Abbott also founded the International Association of Medical
Museums, predecessor of the International Academy of Pathology.

Physician Douglas Waugh has written a lively and readable account of
Abbott’s life and work. What comes through clearly are her
intelligence, character, and energy, as well as her determination to
succeed at a time when women were largely excluded from or tolerated
only at the lowest ranks of medical research and practice. Although this
biography follows in the “great doctors” mode of traditional medical
history, the narrative is sensitive to the wider social context, and
Waugh has also provided a valuable bibliography of Abbott’s own
research studies. While the author declares that “Maudie,” as she
was widely known, was “neither a leader nor a feminist,” it is
difficult to see how she could have been otherwise, given her courage,
perseverance, and obvious intelligence, and the inroads she made in a
field that, for all intents and purposes, remained resolutely closed to
women of her time.