Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott (March 18, 1868 – September 2, 1940) was a Canadian physician, among Canada's earliest female medical graduates, and an internationally known expert on congenital heart disease. She was one of the first women to obtain a BA from McGill University. Early life and education Maude Elizabeth Seymour Babin was born in St. Andrews East, on 18 March 1868. Both of her parents were absent during infancy, as her mother had died of tuberculosis when Abbott was 7 months old and her father had abandoned her and her older sister, Alice. The two sisters were legally adopted and raised by their maternal grandmother, Mrs. William Abbott, who was then 62. She was a cousin of John Abbott, Canada's third Prime Minister. Abbott was home schooled until she was 15 years old. In 1885, she graduated from a private Montreal seminary high school. Abbott was admitted to McGill University's Faculty of Arts, with a scholarship, even though she had previously been rejected, and received her BA in 1890, graduating as class valedictorian and receiving the Lord Stanley Gold Medal. She subsequently applied to study medicine at McGill University. Admission was refused despite petitioning the faculty first privately and then publicly as the medical school administration was adamant in their refusal to accept a woman. She was then accepted into medical school at Bishop's University and while there, was able to undertake clinical training at the Montreal General Hospital alongside medical students from McGill. In 1894, she received her M.D., C.M. with honours, and the only woman in her class. She received the Chancellor's Prize, and Senior Anatomy Prize for having the best final examination. Career Later in 1894, she opened her own practice in Montreal, worked with the Royal Victoria hospital, and was nominated and elected as the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society's first female member. Some time afterwards, she did her post-graduate medical studies in Vienna. In 1897, she opened an independent clinic dedicated to treating women and children. There, she did much first-hand research in pathology. Much of Abbott's work concerned the nature of heart disease, especially in newborn babies. This would cause her to be recognized as a world authority on heart defects. In 1898, she was appointed Assistant Curator at the McGill Pathological Museum, becoming curator 1901. In 1905, she was invited to write the chapter on 'Congenital Heart Disease' for William Osler's System of Modern