Catalogue description Martindale, Louisa (1872-1966)

Diaries, casebooks and notebooks describing Martindale's travels, as follows: MS.3470, list of people met on world tour, 1900-1901; MS.3471, diary of motor tour in England, 1912; MS.3472, diary describing visit as locum to Scottish Women's Hospital in the Abbey of Royaumont, France, 1915, plus notes on visits to German hospitals, 1921; MS.3473, notebook of clinical observations etc. on visit to U.S.A. and Canada, 1919; MS.3474, diary of motor tour in England, 1920; MSS.3475-3476, notes on visit to Germany to acquire deep X-ray therapy apparatus and learn its use, 1922; MS.3477, notes of cases in Dublin and at Middlesex Hospital, London, 1924; MS.3478, diary of journey to U.S.A. when guest of honour at the American Medical Association conference in Chicago, 1924; MS.3479, diary and notes on visit to Germany, 1925; MS.3480, diary of visits to Germany, Italy and Prague, the latter two to attend congresses of the Medical Women's International Association, 1928; MS.3481, notes of visits to hospitals and of cases, in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and France, 1929; MS.3482, notes on patients and treatments in London, plus visits to Belgium and Austria, 1931; MS.3483, diary of a holiday in Italy, 1931-1932; MS.3484, notes of cases and treatments, and addresses of doctors in Germany and Scandinavia, 1934; MS.3485, notes on a tour to Germany, Switzerland and Austria, 1936; MS.3486, diary of visits to Stockholm and Paris, 1946; MS.3487, diary of visit to U.S.A. and Canada, 1950.

The items are held in chronological order of composition.

Wellcome Library collection GC/25 comprises some personal papers of Louisa Martindale (correspondence, speeches, articles, etc.) and papers relating to the Medical Women's International Association while Martindale was President during 1937 to 1947; the collection spans the period 1872-1960.

Martindale, Louisa, 1872-1966, surgeon

Presented 1967, donor not noted but presumably her executor(s) (accession number 313873).

Louisa Martindale, A Woman Surgeon (London: Gollancz, 1951), draws on some of the material in these papers.

• United States of America
• Canada
• Germany
• France
• Austria
• Belgium
• Switzerland
• Netherlands
• Northern Europe
• Medical treatment
• Medical technology
• Surgery
• Medical profession
• Travel abroad

Described in: S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

Louisa Martindale was born in 1872 and studied at the London School of Medicine for Women and in Vienna, Berlin and Freiburg, obtaining her M.D. in London in 1906. She practised in Brighton and was founder of the New Sussex Hospital here in 1918, where she was Senior Honorary Surgeon. In 1921 she moved to London as a Consultant Surgeon and was Honorary Surgeon to the Marie Curie Hospital at Hampstead. During a visit to New York in 1919 she was a moving force behind the foundation of the Medical Women's Federation and in 1931 she was elected President of that body. She was a pioneer in the treatment of uterine cancer and fibroid growths in women through deep X-ray therapy. She died in 1966.