Quick Facts
Biography
Maria Kalapothakes (Greek: Mαpéα KαλαΠOθακɳ), (Athens 1859-1941) was a Greek physician. She was the first woman physician i modern Greece, prior toAngélique Panayotatou (Àγγελικɳ ΠαʋαγιωгαгOʊ).
Maria Kalapothakes was the daughter of the American missionary Martha Hooper Blackler (1830-1871) and the Greek surgeon Michail Kalapothakes (1825-1911). She graduated from a Greek high school and then studied at the Harvard Annex (now Radcliffe College) in the US. She studied at the Medical School of Paris in 1886–1894, and returned to Athens in 1894, were she passed the exams for her medical license of the Medical School at the University of Athens.
She was active within the charitable association “Enosis Hellenidon” (“Association of Greek Women”), founded by Kalliroi Parren. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, she was active taking care of the wounded, and she also trained the voluntary nurses, for which she was decorated with a silver medal by Queen Olga. She served as a professor of hygiene in theArsakeion high school for girls, and was secretary of the International Council of Women in Greece in 1906–1909. She also treated the wounded during the First Balkan War.