Kate Welton Hogg

Kate Emily Welton Hogg (1869–1951) was an Australian physician and graduate of the Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women. She studied alongside prominent early female physicians Mary Booth, Agnes Bennett, and Eleanor Sproull.

Kate Welton Hogg, c. 1906

Early life and education

Born in London in 1869, Hogg was educated in Croydon, Sydney.[1] She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1894[1][2] and then entered the Sydney Medical School in 1895, but grew frustrated with the discouraging atmosphere fostered by the Dean, Professor Anderson Stuart. Foregoing Sydney, Hogg went on to enroll at the Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women, where she graduated MB ChB in 1900 and MD in 1909.[2]

Career

Hogg worked as a physician in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. At a time when female physicians were uncommen, Hogg frequently encountered resistance and prejudice in the workplace which frustrated her career. In 1901 she was appointed assistant master at the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital, Dublin but resigned in June of that year due to frustration with the behaviour of superior staff toward her and pressure to be ‘agreeable’.[2]

By 1904, Hogg was back in Sydney working in private practice, and as an honorary demonstrator in anatomy alongside Mary Booth at the University of Sydney.[3] However, opportunities for women were severely restricted and none of the boards of the metropolitan general public hospitals would accept women for postgraduate training. Hogg's friend and former classmate Agnes Bennett found Wellington, New Zealand a much more accommodating environment. Hogg followed Bennett to Wellington, apparently working as her locum and sharing a house together.[2]

Hogg was interested in the relationship between mental health and physical symptoms, focusing particularly on women's mental health and pelvic disorders. Whilst working as a junior medical officer at Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, New South Wales, she published a paper An Introduction to the Relation of the Female Pelvic Organs to Insanity in which she determined there to be a limited evidence of a relationship between pelvic disorders and insanity.[4][5][6] However, she went on to research dementia praecox specifically, submitting her PhD thesis Some considerations on the etiology of dementia praecox in 1909.[7] Hogg thought that the majority of cases displayed well-marked anatomical defects in the pelvic organs.[5]

Personal life

Hogg married James Campbell Neill in Wellington on 5 July 1913.[1] She appears to have stopped working as a physician after marrying.

She was the sister of Dr Stanley Welton Hogg (1881-1954) and cousin of Dr Robert Welton-Hogg (d. 1961).[1]

Hogg died in Auckland, New Zealand on 18 February 1951; her ashes are interred at Waikumete Cemetery.[1][8]

References
  1. Wright-St Claire, Rex Earl. Historia nunc vivat : medical practitioners in New Zealand, 1840 to 1930. Wright-St Clair, Elizabeth,, Cotter Medical History Trust. Christchurch. ISBN 978-0-473-24073-8. OCLC 1017488201.
  2. Brookes, Barbara (2008). "A Corresponding Community: Dr Agnes Bennett and her Friends from the Edinburgh Medical College for Women of the 1890s". Medical History. 52 (2): 237–256. doi:10.1017/S0025727300002374. ISSN 2048-8343. PMC 2329860. PMID 18458784.
  3. Calendar of the University of Sydney for the year 1904 (PDF). Sydney: Gibbs, Shallard & Co. 1904. p. 275.
  4. Hogg, Kate (1909). "An introduction to the relation of the female pelvic organs to insanity". Australasian Medical Congress, Transactions of the Eighth Session. 3: 281–284 – via Internet Archive.
  5. Smith, W. Beattie (1909). "Australasian Medical Congress Held in Melbourne, October, 1908". Journal of Mental Science. 55 (228): 205–208. doi:10.1192/bjp.55.228.205. ISSN 0368-315X.
  6. Damousi, Joy (2005). Freud in the Antipodes : a cultural history of psychoanalysis in Australia. Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press. pp. 17. ISBN 0-86840-270-2. OCLC 144650672.
  7. Hogg, Kate (1909). Some considerations on the etiology of dementia praecox. hdl:1842/32428.
  8. Auckland Council. "Find a burial or cremation record: Kate Neill". Auckland Council. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
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