Added by you! Dr. Emily Stowe

Dr. Emily Howard Stowe was the first woman to practice medicine in Canada. Born in 1831 in Norwich County, in current-day Ontario, she was forced to earn her degree at the New York Medical College for Women because no Canadian medical school accepted woman students. Dr. Stowe opened a practice in homeopathic medicine in Toronto in 1867, but due to changes in the medical profession she was required to take further courses to obtain a Canadian license. It was only in 1871 that she was finally admitted to the Toronto Medical School, although constant harassment led her to leave before graduating. Her experiences in the medical world transformed Dr. Stowe into a feminist crusader who in 1877 helped found the influential Toronto Women’s Literary Guild (renamed the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association in 1883) and later the Ontario Medical College for Women. In 1883, Augusta Stowe, Emily’s daughter, became the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school.