# American Medical Biographies/Hall-Brown, Lucy

* related authors: Lucy Mabel Hall-Brown.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Wikidata item.
​Hall-Brown, Lucy (1843–1907).
A general practitioner and keen on education. Lucy Hall was born in Holland, Vermont, in November, 1843, a descendant of Gov. Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts.
She passed her early life in the Northwest, and in 1876 entered the University of Michigan for a medical course. Upon graduation in 1878 she served for six months as assistant physician under Dr. Eliza M. Mosher at the Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for Women. She then pursued post-graduate work in New York and London, being the first woman admitted to clinics in St. Thomas's Hospital, London. Later she became interne at the Royal Lying-in and Gynecological Hospital of Prof. Winckel in Dresden. Upon her arrival in Dresden, she knew scarcely any German, but after a month's study she had acquired sufficient knowledge to warrant Dr. Winckel in admitting her to his hospital. On the completion of study and service abroad, in 1879 and while still in Dresden she was appointed by Gov. Talbot, on Dr. Mosher's recommendation, resident-physician to the Massachusetts Reformatory and returned at once to take up the work; later she received but declined the appointment as superintendent. In 1883 Dr. Eliza M. Mosher, being appointed professor of physiology, hygiene and resident physician to Vassar College, asked to have Dr. Hall appointed to share the work, the two at this time starting a partnership, beginning their private work in Brooklyn and serving alternately at college. At the end of three years she gave her entire time to practice in Brooklyn and continued so working until three years before her death.
Dr. Hall was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, member of Kings County Medical Society, and member of the Brooklyn Pathological Society. Her standing in medical jurisprudence was recognized by the courts of justice in New York and she was often, called as an expert by the Supreme Court to take charge of examinations instituted by that tribunal.
In 1891 Lucy Hall married R. G. Brown, electrical engineer. In 1904, her health impaired by an increasing heart weakness, they removed to Los Angeles and afterwards made a visit to Japan, where characteristically she visited hospitals, schools, missions, prisons and police courts. So highly was her interest valued that on leaving she was urged by the officials of medical and public education in that empire to return and lecture on physiology and hygiene. The invitation was a great compliment, and she returned for several months, lecturing in leading institutions in the great cities.
She died in Los Angeles, August 1, 1907, of valvular disease of the heart. She kept always in touch with scientific progress and possessed the courage to readjust opinions, and into her life came honors and responsibilities well earned and vindicated by the use she made of them to humanity.
Some of her most important articles are:
"Unsanitary Condition of Country Houses (Journal of Social Science, December, 1888); "Inebriety in Women (Quarterly Journal for Inebriety, October, 1883); "Prison Experiences" (Medico Legal Journal, March, 1888); "Physical Training for Girls" (Popular Science Monthly, February, 1885); "Wherewithal Shall We Be Clothed" (American Woman's Journal, May, 1895).