Woman of the Century/Sarah B. Armstrong

2239677Woman of the Century — Sarah B. Armstrong

SARAH B. ARMSTRONG. ARMSTRONG, Miss Sarah B., physician and surgeon, born in Newton, near Cincinnati, Ohio, 31st July, 1857. Her early education was acquired in the schools of Cincinnati. Her family removed to Lebanon, Ohio, in 1865. She took a course of study in the university located in that town. She became a teacher at the age of sixteen years. In 1880 she took the degree of B.S. in the Lebanon University having graduated with the highest honors in a class of sixty-six members. In 1883 she returned to the university as a teacher and took charge of the art department While thus engaged, she completed the classical course taking the degree of D A. in 1887. In 1800 the degree of M. A. was conferred upon her as honorary. In 1886 she took her first degree in regular medicine. She was appointed matron and physician to the college, serving in that capacity while continuing to teach. In 1888 she was appointed assistant to the chair of theory and practice in the Homoepathic College of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. She remained there two years and took a post-graduate degree in 1889. She then returned to Lebanon to serve as a member of the medical faculty of the university. She soon resigned her position and went to New York, where she spent a year in the hospitals, making a special study of surgery. She removed to Bay City, Mich., 1st January, 1891, and has successfully established herself in practice in that city. Dr. Armstrong is a musician and is engaged as a soprano singer in the Baptist Church in Bay City. Her professional duties have not kept her from public work. She was elected a member of the city school board in 1891. She is an active worker in the cause of woman's advancement. Her literary talents are displayed in poetical productions of a high order of merit. Dr. Armstrong inherits her liking for the profession of medicine from her maternal great-grandmother, who was the first woman to practice medicine west of the Alleghany mountains. She was not, of course, permitted to take a degree in those early days, but took her preceptor's certificate and bought her license to practice. Dr. Armstrong has been well received as a physician, and her success is positive.