Madeleine BRES

Madeleine Brès, born Magdeleine Alexandrine Gebelin on November 26, 1842 à Bouillargues, in the Gard, and died on November 30, 1921 à Montrouge, is a French woman doctor. She was the first woman of French nationality to be admitted to medical school in 1868, but without the right to enter the competitive examination. She obtained her doctorate in medicine, in 1875.

Her thesis dealt with the composition of breast milk, and obtained the mention « extremely well ». She then practiced in childcare, providing advice to private clients and to municipal nurseries. In 1885, it financed the creation of a free crèche.

The crèche was founded in 1885

Parallel to her studies in medicine, she spent four years at the Muséum d’histoire naturelle with Edmond Frémy and three years in the laboratory of Charles Adolphe Wurtz, where she presented a research thesis, defended on June 3, 1875.her thesis is very remarkable in France and abroad. She thus becomes the first French doctor of medicine, but she is not the first to obtain it in France, the British Elizabeth Garrett Anderson having preceded her by five years.

As a widow, she is responsible for three children. She decides to move to the city, rue Boissy-d’Anglas, and to specialize in the relationship between the mother and her baby, as well as in the hygiene of young children. She created a rich bourgeois clientele for herself.

She was entrusted by the prefect of the Seine with teaching (talks and lectures) to the directors and various personnel of the nursery schools, crèches and day care centers of the twenty districts of Paris.

In 1885, she founded her own crèche, 83 rue Nollet in the Batignolles district, where children up to the age of 3 were cared for and nursed free of charge. This institution, which she supported with her own money, was visited by Th&eacute Roussel, and later by the wife of the President of the Republic, Marie-Louise Loubet.in 1891, on a mission for the Minister of the Interior, she left for Switzerland to study the organization and operation of the crèches and asylums.

She directed the journal Hygiène de la femme et de l’enfant and was the author of several books on childcare.