Dr. Susan Edson (1823-1897)

Susan Edson was President Garfield’s personal and family physician, caring for him until his death in 1881. Edson took her medical degree from the Cleveland Homeopathic College, one of the first coeducational medical schools in the U.S., at a time when fierce battles raged between traditional medicine and homeopathy. Homeopathic medicine discouraged the use of surgery with its attendant dangers and prescribed herbal remedies instead. By 1900, about 12% of homeopathic physicians were women, including many members of the women’s suffrage movement