Maria Kalapothakes

Maria Kalapothakes (Greek: Μαρία Καλαποθάκη, Athens 1859-1941) was a Greek physician. She was the first woman physician in modern Greece, prior to Angélique Panayotatou.

Maria Kalapothakes was the daughter of the American missionary Martha Hooper Blackler (1830-1871) and the Greek surgeon Michail Kalapothakes (1825-1911). She graduated from a Greek high school and then studied at the Harvard Annex (now Radcliffe College) in the US. She studied at the Medical School of Paris in 1886–1894, and returned to Athens in 1894, were she passed the exams for her medical license of the Medical School at the University of Athens.

She was active within the charitable “Association of Greek Women”, founded by Kalliroi Parren. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, she was active taking care of the wounded, and she also trained the voluntary nurses, for which she was decorated with a silver medal by Queen Olga. She served as a professor of hygiene in the Arsakeion high school for girls, and was secretary of the International Council of Women in Greece in 1906–1909. She also treated the wounded during the First Balkan War.

References

• Geropeppa, Maria; Altis, Dimitris; Dedes, Nikos; Karamanou, Marianna: The First Women Physicians in the History of Modern Greek Medicine, Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica . 2019, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p55-64. 10p.