Hope Bridges Adams

1855–1916

Hope Bridges Adams, whose life was made into a film, was one of Germany’s first scientifically trained female doctors. Despite many bureaucratic hurdles, in 1880 she became the first woman in Germany to sit and pass the state exam in medicine in Leipzig. Hope Bridges Adams was born on 16 December 1855 in Halliford near London. After graduating from Bedford College, in 1873 she moved to Dresden with her mother. Three years later, she applied to study medicine in Leipzig, but was only accepted as a guest student, for women weren’t yet allowed to enter higher education. Taking the state examination initially seemed impossible, but she was finally allowed to do so following the intercession of her professors. Even so, she was refused permission to exercise the profession of doctor. Her application to study for a PhD was also turned down by Leipzig University, which is why she took her doctoral degree in Bern. Only 20 years later was her Leipzig exam officially recognized in the German Empire in 1904. By this time, she had spent many years working as a doctor in the surgery shared by her husband and her Leipzig classmate Otto Walther in Frankfurt, albeit without a licence. When Hope Bridges Adams caught tuberculosis in 1886, she moved with her husband and two children to the Black Forest, where after convalescence she opened a sanatorium for lung patients in Nordrach. It was there that she met her second husband, a doctor called Carl Lehmann, with whom she opened a surgery in Munich. The Lehmanns became very politically active and were in touch with the likes of August Bebel, Clara Zetkin and Wilhelm Liebknecht. Hope Bridges Adams wrote many educational books devoted to women’s health. She campaigned to reform the health system and to liberalize the ban on abortions. After the outbreak of war in 1914, she became an outspoken pacifist. On 10 October 1916, she died in Munich aged 60.

Hope Bridge Adams

Hope Bridges Adams

Renate Lieckfeldt

Presse

Cornelia Zanger

Beate A. Schücking