[1] Mary Adamson Anderson was born on 17 January 1837, in Boyndie, Banffshire, Scotland.
[1] Marshall began her medical training at the University of Edinburgh, and is considered one of the Edinburgh Seven alongside Emily Bovell, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Sophia Jex-Blake, Edith Pechey and Isabel Thorne.
When in 1872 the University of Edinburgh decided that women medical students would not be awarded a degree, Anderson continued her studies in Paris.
[3] In 1879, she received her medical doctorate from the Faculté de médecine de Paris, where she wrote her thesis on mitral stenosis and its higher frequency in women than in men ("Du rétrécissement mitral : sa fréquence plus grande chez la femme que chez l'homme.").
The degrees were collected on their behalf by a group of current students at Edinburgh Medical School.