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    M. BELLE BROWN, M.D.

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    M. Belle Brown, M.D. The professional career of M. Belle Brown, M.D., continued over a period of nearly forty years, all of which were passed in New York, although she is now one of the greatly respected residents of Troy, having retired from professional activities. Her active life possessed features of intense interest, inasmuch as it assisted in breaking through the barriers of professional bigotry which sought to bar women from practicing the healing art as a vocation. To her example, winning, by assiduous attention to her calls and by profound knowledge of the art and skill in its practice, a high place among the reputable practitioners of medicine and surgery, no less than by her persistent efforts to open the doors of professional preferment to deserving and properly trained women, has been due largely the rapid advance which the last quarter of a century has shone in giving women the privilege accorded to the other sex, of ministering to the ills and accidents of humanity. Doctor Brown was born in Staunton township, Miami county, Ohio, in 1848, a daughter of Daniel and Eliza (Telford) Brown, the latter being a daughter of Andrew Telford, a pioneer of Miami county. Daniel Brown was born at Providence, R.I., his father being Arnold Brown and his Grandfather being Rev. Chad Brown, who came from England in 1638 and settled in Rhode Island and who was ordained a minister of the Baptist church in 1642. The great-grandsons of Rev. Chad Brown, John and James Brown, bought and presented land to the State for the site of Brown University, the cornerstone for which was laid in 1770 by John Brown. In the family of Daniel and Eliza Brown there were six children: Cyrus Telford, Cornelia, M. Belle, Rebecca, Arnold and Harry. The early education of M. Belle Brown was acquired in the public schools of Troy, and in 1876 she entered the New York College of Medicine for Women, from which she w as duly graduated in 1879. At that time she commenced practice at her office on West Thirty-fourth street, New York City, but in a short time purchased property at No. 30, West Fifty-first street, New York City, and there practiced from 1890 until her retirement. Doctor Brown began her practice among strangers and with no social prestige, in the face of prejudice and among a community intensely devoted to material pursuits she sought employment as a physician, relying upon her own ability and skill to win a way to employment and recognition. Her subsequent experience, during the earlier years, was not free from embarrassment or annoyance, but her thorough knowledge commended her to all with whom she came into contact, and she received the kindly aid and encouragement of some of the most eminent New York physicians and surgeons of the day. During the earlier years her practice took her frequently to the poorer quarters of the metropolis, and she possesses a large fund of interesting experiences to relate of this period of her career. One of the few practicing women physicians of her time, her calls often came at night, and, armed with a physician's badge, her medical and surgical case, she would grope her way through dark tenement hallways, lighted only by the candle which she carried, to the bedside of some unfortunate fellow-creature. At no time during her practice in New York did she refuse to respond to a call, even though there was little or no financial return forthcoming. Later, Doctor Brown decided to take up surgery, and studied with a number of noted surgeons, including the noted Doctor Bull, also attending clinics at New York City and Chicago. Thereafter she gave special attention to surgery, and for various years performed operations in abdominal and pelvic surgery with skill and more than average success. Indeed her reputation for skill passed beyond the boundaries of her city and state, and she was summoned from distant points to perform major operations of a difficult and delicate character. She rose to influence and obtained recognition through solid merit, founded upon good natural abilities, ripened by liberal scholastic training and matured by thorough scientific study and long, continuous and assiduous practice. With all these acquisitions, Doctor Brown fully preserved the innate delicacy of her womanly nature, and was none the less a lady because she was a physician, surgeon and professor. Doctor Brown became, a member of the faculty of the New York Medical College for Women, and eventually was made the dean of that institution, succeeding in that post the brilliant Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier, pioneer physician and surgeon of her sex, the founder of the first medical college for women in New York, a prominent woman suffragist and active in reform and philanthropic movements. Doctor Brown was also a member of the consulting staff of Memorial Hospital, Brooklyn. In 1911, she was forced to undergo an operation at Battle Creek Sanitarium, and this she underwent without the use of anesthetics, she herself directing the operation, which proved a decided success. Doctor Brown is also the discoverer of a remedy for mal-de-mere, or sea-sickness, and train-nausea. Ship-shape, the trade name for this medicine, has been widely recognized, is endorsed not only by sea and land travelers of experience and reliability but also by eminent members of the medical profession, and enjoys an excellent sale. After a long and distinguished career, characterized by high attainment, Doctor Brown retired to her old home in Miami county, and in 1917 came to Troy. Here, during the war period, she was intensely active in raising funds for the American Hospital in France, as well as for the Red Cross, working indefatigably in the cause and giving the best of her strength and talents. In her efforts to procure the recognition of women in the higher departments of employment, she has claimed for them nothing on the score of gallantry or sympathy, realizing that the only path to genuine and lasting success is through preparation and fitness for any and all callings to which women may aspire. She has only claimed for them equality underline conditions; and her own example is a stimulating one. Doctor Brown is very proud of the fact that she never lost a patient.

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