Mary Runnells Bird
Canadian physician (1870–1961)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Adelaide Runnells Bird (August 21, 1870 – August 31, 1961) was a Canadian physician, described as "one of Canada's first women doctors",[1] and a military hospital surgeon in England during World War I.
August 21, 1870
Mary Runnells Bird | |
|---|---|
Mary Runnells Bird, from a 1960 newspaper profile | |
| Born | Mary Adelaide Runnells August 21, 1870 near Granby, Quebec |
| Died | August 31, 1961 (aged 91) Hudson, Quebec |
| Occupation | Physician |
Early life and education
Runnells was born near Granby, Quebec,[2] the daughter of George W. Runnells and Sarah Edmonds Runnells.[3] As a child, she worked in the cotton mills of Ludlow, Massachusetts to help pay the mortgage on her family's farm. She attended a school in Acton Vale, and graduated from Granby Academy. As a young woman she was encouraged by American physician Jane Elizabeth Hoyt-Stevens to pursue a medical education. Hoyt-Stevens also paid her first-year expenses at Bishop's Medical College in Montreal.[4] Runnells completed her medical degree in 1900. She later held an ad eundum medical degree from McGill University, when her medical school became part of McGill.[1][4]
Career
During World War I, Bird was house surgeon at the private Egginton Hall Hospital in England, established by Ethel Innes Dugdale,[5] where she treated British "wounded men fresh from the trenches."[6] After the war, she was an assistant medical officer in charge of maternal health and child welfare for the City of Derby.[6] In 1923, the Birds moved back to Canada, where she was on the staff of Montreal General Hospital, and an attendant doctor for the YWCA.[7] She lectured on preventive medicine, vaccinations, and addiction topics.[8][9][10]
Personal life
Runnells married Englishman Charles Glover Bird in 1905, and moved to England.[11] Her husband died in 1954. She died in Hudson, Quebec in 1961, at the age of 91.[12]