Ellen Sandelin


Ellen Beata Elisabeth Sandelin was a Swedish physician.

Biography

She was the daughter of physician Carl Henrik Sandelin and Beda Collett.
Sandelin graduated from the Wallinska girls school in Stockholm in 1881. Sandelin went on to teach at a girls' school in Karlstad, Sweden, and then attended the University of Kristiania, later renamed University of Oslo, Norway.
Sandelin came of age just as the study of medicine was being made available to Swedish women. As she wrote in 1899,
"... a Royal Ordinance was issued, in 1870, by which women obtained a right to matriculate to pursue medical studies, graduate in medical degrees at the universities, and practise as physicians.... In 1873 Upsala University admitted its first female student of medicine..."
In 1885, Sandelin began her medical studies in Uppsala, Sweden. There, she earned a bachelor's degree in medicine in 1891 and in 1897 received her medical license at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
In that same year, Sandelin became a practicing physician in Stockholm and was also a teacher in physiology and health education in several educational institutes for women as well as doctors at city schools. To disseminate knowledge in physiology and hygiene in wide circles, she held public lectures that proved popular. According to Levin, "Ellen Sandelin called for teaching that taught the child to 'see and understand nature,' the traits of nature, and thus also learn to respect them..."

Later years

Sandelin also participated actively in the women's movement, was a member of the first committee on women's political voting rights and gave lectures at the women's congresses in London 1899 and in Berlin 1904.
She died 7 August 1907 in Stockholm at 45 years of age and is buried in Northern Cemetery there.

Selected published works