MOWRY, Miss Martha H., physician, born in Providence, R. Martha H. Mowry, M.D., was born in Providence, June 7th, 1818. She was the daughter of Thomas Mowry, a merchant, and Martha Harris Mowry. Her mother died when she was eight weeks old, but her father lived to the good old age of 86. Miss Martha in her infant years was an attendant of the girls' schools of two excellent teachers - Miss Sterry and Miss Chace. When nearly seven years of age she was sent to an academy in care of a Methodist minister's widow, Mrs. Walker, and in the spring before she was nine year old she was sent to the the Friends' Yearly Meeting Boarding School in Providence, where she remained four or five years. She then attended boarding schools for young ladies kept by Latham and Winsor. While at the latter school she was prostrated by fright and over exertion, being pursued by strange men so that she and two other girls were obliged to run a distance of a mile and a quarter to reach the school. Heart debility, aggravated by this, retarded her progress four years. Later she was a student in the Green Street Select School when Margaret Fuller, afterward 'Countess Ossili', was a prominent teacher. She pursued her studies after leaving school and while engaged in overseeing the domestic work of the household composed of her father and herself. In 1844, chiefly heeding suggestions of physicians who at different times had noticed her manifest interest in anatomy and physiology and cognate branches, she began to study in these directions, with a purpose. At this time no woman was admitted into medical colleges, and a strong current of professional prejudice opposed the admission of the sex into practice. Against this tide Miss Mowry and the few women who dared to face it were obliged to press their way. But even at the time of which we speak she had not formed the intention of publicly practicing medicine. She improved such opportunities as were within her reach, having access to the libraries of practicing physicians, and reviewing with them, at different times with Doctors Briggs, Fabyan, Fowler and Mauran, until they told her that she only needed opportunities for dissection beyond what skeleton or manakin could show. She then studied under the direction of Doctor De Bonneville and his wife, who were professors in magnetism, and he in homeopathy, and when, in 1849, they removed from the city they gave her a testimonial expressing their confidence in her ability to treat diseases. About 1850 she spent six months in close study in Boston, under the supervision of Doctor Cornell, a physician of good standing there. About that time Doctor Paige came to Providence as a lecturer and instructor in electropathy, and formed a class for instruction. She joined that class, also took private lessons, and in due time received a diploma for faithful study and attainment. By special requests of friends she subsequently gave many lectures before physiological societies and in different villages. In recognition of such services and their appreciation she received, in 1851, a silver sup from the Providence Physiological Society, and later mementoes from other societies. Her superior attainments thus became known and her reputation extended throughout a wider sphere than she knew. In 1853 she was visited by a committee from Philadelphia Female Medical College, then an institution of three or four years growth, and without making known their purpose to her, in the course of an informal interview with her, investigated her knowledge of kindred subjects until they were abundantly satisfied of her attainments, and on their return she received from the college a diploma conferring upon her the degree of M.D., with signatures of the college faculty, which was of the allopathic school. This was followed, a week later, by an appointment to a professorship of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. With great reluctance her father consented that she should go to Philadelphia to occupy the position offered, and she did so in 1853-4, but returned to Providence at the wish of her father. She then began regular practice here. Her father presented her with a horse and chaise, and since then, for nearly 40 years, she has constantly kept one or two horse in use in her rounds of practice. In 1880 she partially retired from practice, but the demands upon her seemed so pressing that she consented in 1882 to resume work under limitations absolving her from going out nights except in extreme cases. She is still doing all the professional work it is well for one her age to do, and is especially interested in educating mothers to a knowledge of the laws of life, physical, mental and spiritual.