Dorothy Reed

Dorothy Reed was born to a wealthy family and received her first education by tutor. She attended Smith College, a liberal arts college for women in Northampton, Massachusetts, now among the largest privately endowed colleges for women in the United States. Whilst there she wrote to William Henry Welch (1850-1934) to ask whether women were allowed to be to Johns Hopkins Medical School, which had opened in 1893. She was accepted, and commenced her studies in 1896. She graduated in 1900, 5th in the class of 43.

Dorothy Reed was the first to clearly separate tuberculosis from Hodgkin's disease, and maintained that the term Hodgkin disease should be limited to histological findings in which "her" giant cells were present. She later worked in paediatrics and, after raising her family, she campaigned to reduce the death rates of mothers and infants during childbirth. Her report on this, published in 1929, led to the improvement of mother and child care in the United States.