Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner

Who was Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner?

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner was an American physician.

Lydia Rabinowitsch was born at Kovno, Russian Empire. She was educated at the girls' gymnasium of her native city, and privately in Latin and Greek, subsequently studying natural sciences at the universities of Zurich and Bern. After graduation she went to Berlin, where Professor Robert Koch permitted her to pursue her bacteriological studies at the Institute for Infectious Diseases. She became the second woman in Prussia employed as a professor, and the first in Berlin. In 1895 she went to Philadelphia, where she was appointed lecturer and, subsequently, professor at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. There she founded a bacteriological institute, though still continuing her studies every summer under Professor Koch.

In 1896 she delivered before the International Congress of Women at Berlin a lecture on the study of medicine by women in various countries. At the congress of scientists held at Breslau in 1904 she presided over the section for hygiene and bacteriology.