The first vaginal smear

Abstract

Alexander Donne (1801-1878), French lawyer, physician, and pioneer microscopist, entered medical school after he graduated from law school because he was driven by his curiosity about the cause of diseases. Donne was different from his fellow students. He was older, married, and independently wealthy. It was known, for example, that he went to the university by hired horse carriage when all other students and the majority of his professors walked to the medical school. He was well dressed, flamboyant, and drew his inner circle of friends from the society who could afford to be different. After graduating from medical school, his inquisitive mind, and to be different from the prevailing trend in organized medicine that opposed the use of microscopes, led him to buy the best available microscopes. He installed the microscopes in his house and his wife became his assistant. Donne was incredibly focused, persistent, and determined. He decided early that his future lay in microscopy, and he let nothing stand in his way. He was a maverick. Soon, his activities with the microscope came to the attention of the professors at the university who viewed working with the microscope undignified, and they denounced Donne’s private teaching of microscopy. Despite indifference, hectoring, and hostility by some of the university professors, or because of it, students and a coterie of