Women Who Participated in the First International Congress of Neurology

Posted on August 15, 2025

A look back at the contributions of these early neurology pioneers.

By Peter J. Koehler

Table 1. Women participants and speakers at the First International Congress of Neurology.

Early World Congresses of Neurology did not feature many women as participants and speakers. This article explores the females who attended the first congress. In previous articles in World Neurology, I discussed the contents and largely male participants of the First International Neurological Congress in 1931 in Bern, Switzerland. In the last issue of World Neurology, I wrote that I would investigate the female speakers and participants of the 1931 congress.

In an article on French neurologist/neuropathologist Gabrielle Lévy (1886-1934), I reported on the situation of women in neurology at the time. When Dr. Levy studied medicine in the early 20th century, women had been allowed to study medicine for several decades. Cities for early medical schools that admitted female students included Boston (1848, New England Female Medical College), Philadelphia (1850, Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania), Switzerland (Zurich and Bern in the 1860s, soon to be followed by Geneva), and Paris (late 1860s). The latter city attracted several women from abroad.

The time between World War I and World War II was not much better. Even though a growing number of women studied medicine during World War I, this trend was only temporary in some locations. Although St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London opened to women in 1916, no women were admitted in 1925. In her article, Julia S. Garner concluded that “women were admitted to St Mary’s not because it was the right thing to do, but merely because it happened to be useful at the time.”

3% Women

The Proceedings of the 1931 International Neurological Congress provide interesting material, not only about the contents of the meeting, but also about the participants. The total number of participants was 890 active members. These congresses were mainly composed of men, and only 30 (approximately 3%) were women. Conversely, there were about 220 affiliated members, mostly women, who accompanied their husbands. Of the 247 speakers, only six (2%) were women, including two Austrian, two French, and two Polish. (See Table 1.)

Mona Spiegel-Adolf (Source: Kern E [ed.]: Führende Frauen Europas, Neue Fole. Reinhardt, München 1928, p.56; public domain).

Mona Spiegel-Adolf

Two of the women speakers came from Vienna. Mona Spiegel-Adolf (1893-1983) gave a presentation on “Zur physikalischen Chemie der Lipoide (The physical chemistry of lipoids).” She had studied medicine in Vienna, during which time she became acquainted with (and later married) Ernst Adolf Spiegel (1895-1985; pioneer of the stereotaxic apparatus). In 1918, she received her MD, and in 1925, they married.

Spiegel-Adolf took an interest in colloid chemistry. She left Vienna a year after her husband and became professor at the Institute of Physical and Colloid Chemistry of Temple University of Philadelphia. She continued lecturing in Vienna until her venia legendi (authorization to teach) was revoked in 1938, and she was expelled from
the university.

She published a number of books, including Die Globuline (1930, within the series Handbuch der Kolloidwissenschaft in Einzeldarstellungen, in German) and X-Ray Diffraction Studies in Biology and Medicine (1947), co-authored by George Christian Henny (1899-1988). Although her husband was filmed at the congress by Steven Walter Ranson, his wife, Mona, was not.

Dr. Edith Klemperer and Robert Exner with their glass model of the brain (from Popular Science 1931, p. 32. Available online at Popular Science, Google Boeken).

Edith Klemperer

Edith Klemperer (1898-1987) presented on “Das Gehirnmodell, ein plastischer beleuchtbarer Unterrichtsbehelf zur Darstellung der einzelnen Funktionen (The brain model, a plastic, illuminated teaching aid to illustrate the individual functions).” She had studied medicine at the University of Vienna. Upon graduating, she worked under Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940), who received the Nobel Award (1927) for malaria treatment of dementia paralytica.

(Figure 1). Newspaper article in the Australian The Mail from Saturday July 31, 1937, p. 25.

With the cooperation of Robert Exner (1891-1960), Klemperer made a glass model of the brain that she patented at the U.S. Patent Office on March 20, 1934. The model, which had a switchboard to illuminate various fluorescent tubes representing anatomical elements inside the brain, was designed to demonstrate cerebral electrical impulses to medical students. One of the first official appearances of the model was at the Neurological Congress in Bern in 1931., It aroused quite a bit of international public interest. (See Figure 1.)

Still in Vienna, she had published articles on several subjects. Being of Jewish descent, she left Austria for New York in 1938. There, she worked at several hospitals, including Mount Sinai Hospital and Bellevue Hospital. During this time, she directed her attention to hypnosis, about which she published articles and a book, titled Past Ego States Emerging in Hypnoanalysis (1968).

Yvonne Sorrel-Dejerine

Yvonne Dejerine and her husband Etienne Sorrel (film still).

With two famous neurologists as parents — Jules Dejerine (1849-1917) and Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke (1859-1927) — it is no surprise that Yvonne Dejerine (1891-1986) also became a neurologist. After she earned a degree in natural sciences, she studied medicine and published her doctorate thesis on tuberculous paraplegia in 1925: Contribution à L’étude des Paraplegies Pottiques. Essai Sur L’évolution et le Prognostic Basé Sur 40 Observations Personnelles (Contribution to the Study of Paraplegia by Pott’s Disease. Essay on Evolution and Prognosis Based on 40 Personal Observations).

Her presentation at the congress was done in cooperation with her husband, the surgeon Étienne Sorrel (1882-1965), whom she married in 1921. Titled “Du Role de la Compression Osseuse Dans les Paraplegies Pottiques. Etudes Anatomique et Clinique (The Role of Bone Compression in Pottic Paraplegia. Anatomical and Clinical Studies),” it
was obviously associated with her doctoral studies.

Her name became eponymously associated with the obstetric lower brachial plexus lesion. This is rarer than the upper brachial plexus lesion associated with Guillaume Benjamin Duchenne (1806-1875) and Wilhelm Erb (1840-1921).

Andrée Feyeux

Andrée Feyeux (1898-1982), from the French city of Lyon, presented a paper in cooperation with Jules Froment (1878-1946) on du tonus musculaire de l’homme. Multiplicité, polymorphie et indépendance de ses réactions toniques (Human muscle tone. Multiplicity, polymorphy and independence of tonic reactions).

Jeanne Clemence Noemi Andrée Feyeux was born in Cormoranche-sur-Saône, which is about 70 km north of Lyon. She published several articles in cooperation with Froment, who is well-known from the eponym “Froment’s Sign.” She also published articles on parkinsonian rigidity. In 1941, she coauthored a book, titled Leçons de Psychologie de L’Enfant (Lessons in Child Psychology). A second edition was published in 1948.

Nathalie Zand

Nathalie Zylberlast-Zand (1883-1942), from Warsaw, presented a study on la barrière protectrice méningée et le système réticulo-endothélial (the protective meningeal barrier and the reticuloendothelial system). She studied medicine at the University of Geneva, earning her MD with a dissertation on “un cas de leucémie myéloïde chez un enfant de neuf mois (a case of myeloid leukemia in a 9-month-old child).”

She was married to the industrialist Maximillian Zand (1876-1932). Beginning in 1907, she was associated with the neurological department of the well-known neurologist Edward Flatau (1868-1932) at the Jewish Hospital in Czyste (now a part of Warsaw). After his death, she was one of the founders of the Edward Flatau Neurobiological Institute. She published many articles and a monograph on the choroid plexus, which was also published in French. During the war, she lived in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she acted as a physician. She was murdered by the Nazis in August 1942.

Stanislawa Adam-Falkiewiczowa

Stanislawa Adam-Falkiewiczowa (1900-1992), from Lwów, Poland (the present Lviv, Ukraine), presented a study on Eine ungewöhnlich Entwicklungsstörung des Occipitale-basilare mit dem klinische Bilde eines doppelseitigen Kleinhirnbrückenwinkeltumors (an unusual developmental disorder of the occipitale-basilare with the clinical picture of a bilateral cerebellopontine angle tumor).

Her coauthor was the pathologist Prof. Witold Nowicki (1878-1941). The article was published in a German journal. She later worked at the Wrocław Neurology Clinic, which she directed several times between 1946 and 1971.

Other Female Participants

Marthe Halff (1905-1974) was interne des hôpitaux in Strasbourg, where she received her MD in 1931. She survived the holocaust in southern France.

Marthe Henry graduated in Paris with a 1922 dissertation, titled “Les Origines de L’élimination des Anti-Sociaux et de L’assistance Aux Aliénés Chroniques: La Salpêtrière Sous L’ancien Régime (The Origins of Eliminating Antisocials and Assisting the Chronically Insane: La Salpêtrière Under the Ancient Regime).”

Gabrielle Lévy (courtesy Dominique Weil).

Gabrielle Lévy (1886-1934) was one of the subjects of a 2017 article in World Neurology. Her name became associated a hereditary polyneuropathy, notably the Roussy-Lévy syndrome.1

Marie Long-Landry (1877-1968) worked under Jules Dejerine at the Salpêtrière in Paris and wrote her dissertation on Little’s disease (spastic diplegia). She was married to Prof. Edouard André Long (1868-1929). She worked at the neuropsychiatry department in Genève. At the end of World War II, she was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance for her assistance to Jews and Allied soldiers.

Elisabeth Cowper Eaves (1884-1947) was a neuropathologist and lecturer at the University of Sheffield, England. She was associated with the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital. She published articles in Brain, including “A Contribution to the Study of Deposits Containing Calcium and Iron in the Brain” (1926), “Diabetes Insipidus” (1930), and “The Pituitary and Hypothalamic Region in Chronic Epidemic Encephalitis” (1930).

Ruby O. Stern (1902-1958) was a neuropathologist at the National Hospital, Queen Square, in London. Among her publications were papers in Brain, titled “A Study of the Histopathology of Tabes Dorsalis With Special Reference to Richter’s Theory of its Pathogenesis” (1929) and “Certain Pathological Aspects of Neurosyphilis” (1932).

Yvonne Dejerine and her husband Etienne Sorrel (film still).20

Mrs. Brouwer-Frommann (1883-1966) was a pediatrician in Amsterdam. She was married to professor of neurology Bernardus Brouwer (1881-1949), who was chair of the committee that made the Proceedings of the Congress.

Lea Rossi del Bò (1903-1978) studied medicine at the University of Pavia, Italy, and received her MD in 1925. She worked under Nobel Laureate Camillo Golgi (1843-1926) and became a neuropathologist.

Aurelja Sikorska (1886-1966) was a Polish psychiatrist who studied medicine at the universities of St. Petersburg and Krakow, graduating from Krakow in 1918. She worked at the neurology and psychiatry clinic there and in other Polish cities afterward. She returned to Krakow to work at the Department of Pediatric Neuropsychiatry at the Hospital in Kobierzyn, Krakow.

Vera Strasser-Eppelbaum (1884-1941) studied medicine in Dorpat (Estonia, the present Tartu) and St. Petersburg, and then in Bern and Zurich, Switzerland. She graduated with a dissertation, “Zur Psychologie der Aussage bei der Dementia Praecox (The Psychology of the Statement in Dementia Praecox),” which was guided by Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939).

In 1914, Strasser-Eppelbaum published a monograph, titled “Zur Psychologie des Alkoholismus. Ergebnisse Experimenteller und Individualpsychologischer Untersuchungen (The Psychology of Alcoholism. Results of Experimental and Individual Psychological Studies).”

Lucile Dooley (1884-1968) received her Master of Arts degree at the University of Tennessee and her MD from Johns Hopkins University. She worked at the psychiatric St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she returned later as director (1938-1942). In the early 1930s, she spent time at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. She later returned to Knoxville, Tennessee, where she worked as consultant in psychiatry.

Lucie G. Forrer, MD, was a resident officer at the Monson State Hospital in Massachusetts.

Anita M. Mühl.21

Anita M. Mühl (1886-1952) received her MD from Indiana University in 1920 and specialized in psychiatry. She received a PhD from George Washington University and started a private practice in the late 1920s in San Diego. She spent some time in Vienna to study psychoanalysis, returning to the U.S. in 1931. During that year, she survived an attack by one of her female patients. She published two books, notably Automatic Writing (1930) and The ABC of Criminology (1941).

Esther Loring-Richards (1885-1956) received her MD from Johns Hopkins University in 1915 and became a psychiatrist at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic. She also served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She was particularly interested in pediatric psychiatry and mental hygiene. She published several books, including The Elementary School and the Individual Child (1923) and Behavior Aspects of Child Conduct (1934, with a foreword by Adolf Meyer).

Discussion

Most of the women who attended the congress were from France, Great Britain, Poland, and the United States. In two of the abstracts of the six women speakers, they were not mentioned as first author (Feyeux was second of three, and Sorrel-Dejerine was second of two). We do not know whether they presented the papers. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the women were listed as second authors to the head of the department even though they did most of the research.1

Several of the women (and men) mentioned in the previous World Neurology article were of Jewish descent and left Europe in the 1930s, in particular Mona Spiegel-Adolf and Edith Klemperer. They were among the hundreds of neuroscientists and thousands of researchers and professors who underwent the forced migration from fascist and Nazi-occupied European countries in the first half of the 20th century. This was discussed recently in the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. As mentioned above, Nathalie Zand was murdered by the Nazis in 1942.

Not all of these women were working in clinical neurology. Several were neuropathologists or working as psychiatrists. However, as mentioned in the earlier article on the First International Congress of Neurology, neuropsychiatry was practiced as one specialty for a long period in many countries.

Since the First International Congress of Neurology in Bern, the number of women in neurology has gradually increased. In 2018, women comprised 45% of neurology and neurological subspecialty residents.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Emmanuel Broussolle for providing information about Andrée Feyeux. •

Peter J. Koehler is a member of the faculty of health, medicine, and life sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

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