Dr Agnes Savill: Pioneer, polymath and dermatology's renaissance woman.

Abstract

Dr Agnes Savill was the UK's first female consultant dermatologist with a career journey which was, by any standards, extraordinary. She was awarded her MA in 1893 making her the first female graduate from St Andrews University. She then trained as a doctor in Glasgow in the earliest cohort of women granted the opportunity to study medicine. Following qualification, and during her early professional years, she maintained an involvement in the women's suffrage movement by publicly indicting the government for its brutal treatment of women suffrage prisoners in the 'Votes for Women' campaign. During World War 1 Dr Agnes Savill was one of a handful of women doctors who served at the Scottish Women's Hospital, a combat hospital in France. Dr Savill worked as the radiologist for the unit and developed expertise in the radiographic appearances of gas gangrene. After the war she returned to her dermatology practice, becoming the UK's leading expert in disorders of the hair and scalp and publishing widely on the subject. However, Agnes Savill had interests which extended into the humanities, particularly music. She was advocate for the use of music as treatment for psychological and physical disorders and wrote a book on this subject which helped promote music therapy as a para-clinical discipline. In her latter years she became fascinated by the history of classical antiquity and, at the age of 79, published a biography of Alexander the Great, an account praised for being both lucid and authoritative. Agnes Savill was a remarkable pioneering doctor: she was a ground-breaking dermatologist, she fought for women's rights and served in France as a combat doctor. Her work in music therapy and her writings on ancient history brought acclaim beyond the realm of medicine. Dr Agnes Savill is Dermatology's Renaissance Woman.