Reporter Volume 25, No.21 March 17, 1994

"Early in the autumn of 1874 the majority of the faculty of the
medical department of the University of Buffalo decided to favorably
consider an application made some years before by a woman resident of
their own city, to pursue the study of medicine in their classes on
the same footing as the male students."
	Mary Blair-Moody was writing at the turn of the century about
her experiences as the only woman among 34 members of the medical
class and the first woman to graduate from UB.
	In an essay written from New Haven, Conn., Blair-Moody
recalled winning the prize in minor operative surgery after all-night
effort. completing her report of a long course of lectures. When her
prize was announced at graduation ceremonies, "six little pairs of
hands in the gallery" joined in the applause. At the time of her
graduation, Blair-Moody, an active physician and scientist throughout
her career, was 40 and the mother of six children. 
	The contributions of Blair-Moody are recalled in a current
exhibit in the Undergraduate Library, auspices of University Archives.
The exhibit, which marks Women's History Month, complements an exhibit
of other early female medical graduates, in the Health Sciences
Library, organized by Lilli Sentz, curator, History of Medicine
Collection.
	Annie May Cheney-Spofford (Class of 1898) was also the class
poet whose work appears in the 1898 Iris, UB's first yearbook.
Cheney-Spofford began her career as a physician at Detroit's Women and
Children's Hospital, returning to New York State to open her own
office in Batavia. She continued to specialize in the treatment of
women and children throughout her career. Minor surgery, complicated
by a weakened heart, led to her death in April 1932.
	Beatrice A. Todd-Hagen (Class of 1900) served as
editor-in-chief of Iris. In 1900, she also received a license to
practice general medicine in New York. She died in 1929 in
Zainesville, Ohio.
	M. Louise Hurrell (Class of 1902) spent 1918-19 as director of
the American Women's Hospital, Unit 1, at Luzancy, France. Here she
and an all-female staff administered care to 20,000 at the cost of
less than $1 per patient. 
	According to her records, 852 operations were performed in
seven and a half months; these included Cesarean sections,
trephinations and major amputations. She other physicians also
performed what she called the "rapid-fire" work of vaccinating
individuals against typhoid. Hurrell recalled her work in a book, The
Doctor's Duffel Bag, published in 1920 in East Aurora by The
Roycrofters. She died in 1942 after having practiced medicine most of
her life in Rochester, New York.