Josephina Theresia Zürcher (1866–1932) was a Swiss medic and known for being one of the first woman who served as a medic in the Ottoman Empire. She served as a doctor in several cities of the Ottoman Empire such as Aleppo, Marash, Antakya and Haifa.
Early life and education
She was born on 1 October 1866 as the fourth child to the Chief Bedel of the ETH Zurich Karl Joseph Eduard Zürcher and Anna-Barbara Hirt. Her parents had a close relationship to Gottfried Keller, who attended her baptism ceremony. After her father became ill in 1874 and a medic advised the family to move to the countryside, the family bought a farm in Urdorf. In Urdorf her father became a breeder of gooses and her mother took care of children in the summer months. Her father didn't recover fully and died in 1876. Being a half-orphan, she and her brother came into the care of a legal guardian who sent them into an orphanage as her mother couldn't be the head of the family as a woman. In the orphanage she graduated from school at the age of fifteen. After some discussions between herself, her mother and the orphanages authority she eventually was allowed to enter the vocational school. By 1886, she began to study medicine at the University of Zurich and was the fifth woman who registered for the state exam to become a medic in 1891. But even though she was allowed to work as a medic in Switzerland, the clinics refused to employ her. She went to Davos where she absolved the military service. From December 1891 to April 1894 she was able to act as a substitute for a female medic in her practice in Bern. She returned to focus on her studies and obtained her Doctorate with a dissertation on Joan d'Arc from a psychological and psychopathological point of view in 1895. She was the 13. Swiss woman to obtain a doctorate in medicine. Her doctoral advisor was the Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel, who also suggested the theme of the dissertation.
Professional life
After her graduation, she went to Dresden where she was employed in the Gynaecology department the Lahmann Sanatorium "White Deer" for some time. It was in Dresden, where she came into contact with Alfred Ilg, a Swiss advisor to the Abyssinian King Menilek who wanted to recruit Zürcher as a medic for the noblewomen of Addis Abeba. Zürcher declined after she learned that Menilek would reward her services only in territory but not in money. At about the same time she received a call of the German Orientalist Johannes Lepsius who encouraged her to set up a clinic for the Armenians in Urfa. After some negotiations, she was allowed to enter the Ottoman Empire as a doctor under the precondition, that she would dress as a man for as long she was not in an exclusively female environment, after she had passed Aleppo on her way to Urfa.
In the Ottoman Empire
In May 1897 she left Switzerland and travelled from Trieste to Beirut on a ship of the Austrian Lloyd. Over Alexandretta and Aleppo, she reached Urfa on the 3 July 1897. During her journey within a caravan from Alexandretta to Urfa, she stayed in several Kurdish villages and treated the Kurdish tribal leader Ibrahim Pasha. In Urfa she established a clinic for the Armenian Charity (later the German Oriental Mission) in which she was assisted by the Armenian Abraham Attarian. In the clinic surgeries and ophthalmological treatments were performed. The treatments were usually for free, but with the wealthy, terms on a just remuneration was agreed upon. Her stay in Urfa was cut short, as she was prohibited to continue her work as a medic in Urfa by the Ottoman authorities. In March 1898, Zürcher was provided with a permit to practice as a medic in the Vilayet of Aleppo following which she and her husband settled into Aleppo where they established a practice. She was the only European medic in the region, which gave her a valuable status by the local population as well as in the European circles. During a Cholera epidemic she opened a pharmacy. Shortly after the local Government official demanded a renovation of the license for the clinic. Later he also demanded that pharmacies are only allowed to provide services with an Ottoman license. After more obstacles, she decided to move on.