Susan Parry volumes, 1849-circa 1890, come to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Susan Parry (circa 1833-circa 1895) of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, taught school in Lumberville, Pennsylvania in 1849. In 1858, she graduated from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first medical school in the world established to train women and offer them the M.D., which was founded in 1850. She practiced medicine in Bucks County until her death in the 1890s. There are two volumes in this collection. The first is a notebook, entitled “S. Parry’s Book of Recipes” and started in 1873, in which she described diseases, prescription recipes, treatment procedures, and a few homeopathic remedies. There are sections on Obstetrics and Diseases of Women, among others. Tucked into the volume is an 1849 letter from the Lumberville School where Parry taught as a young woman. The second volume is a scrapbook of clippings, mostly poetry and printed illustrations, which also includes several loose sheets, notably manuscript essays by Parry on Robert Burns, Shakespeare, and other authors. The clippings appear to date from around the late 1800s. This collection is open for research at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.