Teodora Krajewska, Official Female Doctor of Tuzla and Sarajevo

Author(s)

Brigitte Fuchs, Husref Tahirović

Abstract

A biographical note on Teodora Krajewska (1854-1935) reveals the details of her life and professional activities as an Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav health officer (Amtsärztin) in Tuzla (1893-1899) and in Sarajevo (1899-1923). Teodora Krajewska, née Kosmowska was the third of nine official female doctors employed by the Austro-Hungarian administration in occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH: 1878-1918) and charged with the special task of popularising public health and hygiene, particularly among Muslim women. A Polish intellectual and fervent patriot from Warsaw, Krajewska had left Congress Poland as a young widow in 1883 to study medicine in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1890, she became the first woman in Europe to be employed as an assistant professor at the medical faculty of the University of Geneva but was forced to resign in 1892. In the same year, she was both awarded her doctorate and appointed to the position of an Austro-Hungarian female health officer in Tuzla. After being nationalised in Austria, she reported for duty in Tuzla in March 1893. In 1899, she accepted her transfer to a newly created position in Sarajevo where she was active as an official physician until 1922/23. She contributed to contemporary medical science through her research on leprosy and osteomalacia in Bosnia. She returned to Warsaw in 1928 and devoted herself to the translation of Serbo-Croatian literature and writing her memoirs on her life and activities in BH.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Development Studies

External organisation(s)

Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Journal

Acta Medica Academica

Volume

48

Pages

317-327

No. of pages

11

ISSN

1840-1848

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5644/ama2006-124.274

Publication date

2019

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

305903 History of medicine

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Medicine

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/5ae33dd6-82d3-4c79-aa5e-b26fbea2975d