JACOBI, MARY PUTNAM (1842-1906), American pio neer woman physician and wife of Abraham Jacobi (q.v.), was born at London, England, on Aug. 31, 1842, the daughter of George P. Putnam, American publisher. She was educated at home, studied anatomy with a private instructor, and gained admission, as its first woman student, to the New York College of Pharmacy, at which she graduated in 1863. She then attended the Women's Medical college in Philadelphia and was admitted to practice in 1864. After a year she went to Paris and studied in hospitals for 18 months before she gained entrance to the Ecole de Medicine, as its first woman student, the influence of the Minister of Education being necessary to persuade the school to break its precedent. She graduated with the highest honours of her class. On returning to New York city she entered practice and also lectured on therapeutics at the newly established Medical College for Women of the New York infirmary. When the post
graduate school was founded in 1881 she became professor of children's diseases. She attained note as a writer on medical topics and gave many addresses before learned societies. She died in New York city, on June io, 5906.
Her chief publications were: The Question of Rest for Women dur ing Menstruation (1877) ; Hysteria and Other Essays (188o) ; Prophy laxis of Insanity (1881) ; Physiological Notes on Primary Education (1889) ; Common Sense Applied to Woman Suffrage (1894) ; Stories and Sketches (19o7). See Life and Letters of Mary Putnam Jacobi, Ruth Putnam, ed. (1925), which also contains a bibliography of her publications.