Adaline Melinda Willis Weed (1837–1910), known as Ada Weed, was an American

hydropathic Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy and also called water cure, is a branch of alternative medicine (particularly naturopathy), occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment. The ter ...

medicine practitioner and lectured on women's issues while advocating for women's rights.

Biography

She was born Adaline Melinda Willis in

Marion, Illinois The city of Marion is the county seat of Williamson County, Illinois, United States. The population in Marion, IL was 16,855 according to the 2020 census. It is part of a dispersed urban area that developed out of early 20th-century coal fields ...

in 1837. She started at the New York Hygeio-Therapeutic college in 1856, and while there she met

Gideon A. Weed Gideon Allen Weed (March 7, 1833 – April 22, 1905) born in New Jersey, Weed was a two-time mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1876 to 1878, first elected in 1875, and serving as an independent. Biography Weed took part in the anti-Northern Pa ...

whom she married in 1857. The wedding description in ''Water-Cure Journal'' indicates they both graduated and had their M.D. degrees, and they were "now united in hands, hearts, fortunes, and diplomas". Following the wedding they moved to California where they planned to practice hydropathic medicine. Weed would go on to publish about her experience with water-cures and travel. Ada Weed would become the first female physician in Oregon. Weed was also known as an advocate for women's rights, lecturing about the possibility of women being doctors and lawyers in 1858, though the news about her lectures also raised comments from her as she did not agree with the portrayal of her words. She also lectured on diseases specific to women. With her husband, they recruited patients in Sacramento, California and Oregon. The Weeds moved to Seattle in 1870, where he would twice be elected mayor. She stopped practicing medicine, became the director of the Library Association, and started hosting charitable events as a society lady. She died on September 8, 1910, in Berkeley, California.

Selected publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weed, Adaline 1837 births 1910 deaths American women physicians Women's rights activists American women's rights activists American physicians Oregon pioneers Washington (state) pioneers