Elna Hansson

Elna settled in Malmö after her marriage to farm labourer Hans Månsson[1] in 1833, and established herself as a medical practitioner.

In contrast to most cunning practitioners of her time, she did not use any magic spells during her work, which contributed to her good name as she came to be regarded more as a scientific physician.

She was widely credited for her success in managing to heal severe injuries which would otherwise have caused amputations, and which educated physicians before her had failed to cure, and thus having saved many from becoming invalids.

[1] She was summoned to court in 1856, and appealed to the king for dispensation to practice with reference to her long standing experience, success and content patients.

Elna Hansson and her daughter consequently decided that their granddaughter and daughter Hedda Andersson, the 7th-generation of a family of cunning women, should study medicine openly at the university and be given a medical license, to avoid the history of quackery charges which had affected their family: Hedda Andersson became the second formally-trained women physician in Sweden.