Rachel Brooks Gleason

Rachel Brooks Gleason (November 27, 1820 – March 13, 1905) was an American physician, the fourth woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.

Her book on home treatment for invalids, Talks to my Patients: hints on getting well and keeping well (New York, 1870) ran into its eighth edition.

After her graduation in medicine, she gave lectures on physiology and hygiene to women, assisted by the best models and charts to be had at the time.

She assisted eighteen women students through medical colleges, all of whom were dependent upon her for financial support, and most of them rescued from invalidism.

Gleason was a strong anti-slavery worker before the Civil War, and rendered constant assistance to Freedmen's schools thereafter.