Could Catharine Macfarlane鈥檚 work have lengthened Ada Lovelace鈥檚 life?
by Margaret Graham
One more post , who connects to many women in many different ways. I鈥檓 connecting Ada with Dr. Catherine Macfarlane. Had Ada been born a bit later, or Catherine Macfarlane earlier, Ada鈥檚 life may have lasted longer than her short 36 years.
Ada Lovelace died fairly young of cancer, in 1852. Some sources say and some say she was in treating her illness.
The same year of Ada鈥檚 death, when women had few options for medical training, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (later Woman鈥檚 Med) graduated its first class of eight women physicians. Its 46th class of women physicians graduated in 1898 and included Catherine Macfarlane.
Macfarlane practiced and taught obstetrics and gynecology in Philadelphia and in time turned to research. Her work led to a theory that regular examination of women in apparent good health would be the best method to detect cancer in its early stages when it was most treatable. Initially, her theories were not popular and she had little support for her research.
In 1938 she co-founded the Cancer Control Research Project at Woman鈥檚 Med where women patients came in for regular pelvic examinations. The clinic was planned to run for five years but ultimately covered a fifteen-year period, providing data from over one thousand women. The supported Macfarlane鈥檚 theory and indicated that regular exams could help detect cancer of the uterus early on. Macfarlane then helped establish the first uterine cancer screening in Philadelphia, one of the earliest programs in the country.
Had Catherine Macfarlane been born earlier, would her work have changed the outcome of Ada Lovelace鈥檚 illness? In Lovelace鈥檚 era, women had almost no support for studying medicine; even in Macfarlane鈥檚 time, she was discouraged in pursuing her research. However, perhaps Lovelace鈥檚 passion and interest fanned the development of schools educating women, attitudes about women鈥檚 health, and ultimately, Macfarlane鈥檚 groundbreaking work in early cancer detection.