[Rahel Hirsch (1870-1953). The first Prussian woman medical professor]

Dr. Rahel Hirsch was only the second woman to attain a professional medical position at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. For more than 16 years, she worked in Clinic II Internal Medicine. In 1906, she discovered that solid particles are able to pass from the veins and arteries into urine (Hirsch-Effect). The results of her investigation were severely criticized, the result of which was that she had to give up her position. In 1913 however she became the first woman to be named Professor of Medicine in Prussia. Many years later, she gave up her position and established a private practice in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf. Under the Nazis, she found it increasingly difficult to work; in early October 1938 she left Germany head over heals and fled to England, where she remained until her death on October 6th, 1953. Not permitted to practice in London, she underwent a serious crisis. When she died, she was impoverished. More than a decade later, she was posthumously admitted into the "Galerie of famous Jewish scientists." Her discovery, which had been so greatly criticized, was named after her.