DR. EMMY BEHN – FIRST ADVENTIST FEMALE DOCTOR IN GERMANY

women’s history month #7

We owe the discovery of this amazing woman to the research done by Stephan Laub who presented the information at a History Workshop of the Baden-Württemberg Conference, Germany

Dr. Emmy Behn was probably the most important Adventist woman in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Certainly the first female SDA doctor in Europe at that time. She was a pioneer and exception compared with the many doctors of our day.

She was a student at Battle Creek College under Dr. John Haravey Kellog, and was accepted at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia in 1906. It should be noted that women of the time were only grudgingly tolerated in German universities as guest students. Emmy Behn, born in 1872, obtained her medical degree in Philadelphia in 1908 with a dissertation as "Dr. med." She was the first German to graduate from this university. In the U.S., female students like Emmy had access to research, teaching and license to practice medicine and all these possibilities were open to her. However, she went back to Germany, where whe was one of the few female doctors during the time of the German empire.[1]

From 1909 on she worked in the sanatorium in Friedensau and was co-editor of the magazine "Gute Gesundheit" (Good Health) under L.R. Conradi in Hamburg. She was involved in preparing a cookbook “Hygienische Kochrezepte” (Hygienic Cooking Recipes) of the DVG e.V. (German Health Association). Her exercises for gymnastics were printed in major German daily newspapers and women's journals. Furthermore, she participated in health lectures and evangelistic meetings and cooking courses throughout Germany. She then turned to her specialist training in gynecology, including work at the Charité hospital in Berlin, before she settled in private practice in Kassel.

In 1948, probably unaware of the situation in Germany, Emmy Behn, MD, was invited by her alma mater to the Alumni '40 in Philadelphia, PE.[2] In a very touching eight-page handwritten letter, in very good English, she described her life in retrospect. At the time she was over 75 years old, and her post-war situation in Kassel was deplorable: hunger, cold, no roof over her head. Being single she had no close family. In spite of all the sadness about her material loss - her practice and apartment in the Oberer Königstrasse were completely destroyed - her lines still expressed gratitude to God, something that is hard for us to comprehend and deeply impressing. According to her own statement, she worked as a gynecologist in Kassel from 1917. From the end of the 1920s with a license to practice medicine. That was rare even in the Weimar Republic.
Dr. Emmy Behn is one of the forgotten pioneers who followed the example of Jesus in serving others out of her loving heart and faith in God. Her work in the development and success of the Sanitarium in Friedensau has not been recognized or appreciated enough.
Stephan Laub 
[1]geschichte.charite.de/aeik/biografie.php

[2] Archives of Drexel Medical University, PE

 


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