science · 10 August 1929 · 95 years ago
death
Died 10 Aug 1929 at age 75 (born 9 Feb 1854).
Dutch physician who pioneered family planning with the world's first birth control clinic. As the first woman to attend university in the Netherlands, she studied medicine, and became the country's first woman doctor. She took over her father's medical practice in Amsterdam. Soon she limited her practice to women and children, also holding a free clinic for the poor twice a week. In 1881, Jacobs undertook the first systematic study of contraception. Many of her patients were worn down from too many pregnancies, and in 1882 she began prescribing diaphragms as birth control, effectively opening the first birth control clinic in the world. She taught hygiene and child care, and strongly campaigned on women's health and safety issue, leading to new laws.
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