Early Life
Growing up in Camden, New Jersey, Mary Ellen Avery’s interest in medicine and babies was perhaps sparked by her next-door neighbor, Emily Bacon, M.D., who took her to see a premature baby.
She expressed an interest in medical school early on; in fact, she had her sights set on Dr. Bacon’s alma mater, Johns Hopkins. She applied to Harvard Medical School as well, though she later said in an interview for Leaders in American Medicine, “Harvard didn’t take women at that time but I didn’t know it, and Johns Hopkins did." At Johns Hopkins, she was one of four women a class of ninety.
Avery’s interest in the lung was perhaps heightened when, shortly after earning her medical degree at Johns Hopkins, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The letter displayed below from Emily Bacon reveals Bacon’s initial reaction to Avery’s diagnosis: “I can hardly bear the thought of it – you with your energy and enthusiasm and ability and dependability, should not be slowed up by a ‘lesion.’”
In her letter, Bacon also refers Avery to the work of fellow female medical pioneer Edith M. Lincoln, who was interested in tuberculosis treatment in children.
After a brief stay at the Trudeau Sanitarium in New York, Avery decided to take her treatment into her own hands. She packed up her pills and traveled to Europe, where she spent 12 hours in bed every night and took walks and visited museums each day.
