Dr. Meadora Austin-Derr Fritz, physician, lecturer, author and educator and well known throughout the United States for her success in the treatment of diseases peculiar to women, is a native of New York state and a daughter of Dr. Benjamin Austin, a prominent physician and surgeon of Rome, New York. In early life she was united in marriage to Dr. A. D. Fritz, of Michigan, and under the guidance of her husband studied medicine, afterward practicing with him for some years. During practically her entire life she has been associated with physicians and is herself a competent, able and successful practitioner, as her large and representative clientele plainly shows. Dr. Fritz engaged in professional work in Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston with steadily increasing popularity and at the time she closed her office in the last named city she had seven hundred and eighty-three people under treatment. Her husband died in 1901 and four years later she left the east and came to California, settling in San Francisco, where for some time she was at the head of a large and lucrative practice. She has made her home in Oakland since May, 1913, and has already become well established in practice, her reputation as a skilled and successful physician having preceded her. Dr. Fritz has some original theories regarding the cause and treatment of disease--theories which have been splendidly upheld by the remarkably successful results which have attended her labors. She uses no medicine, curing by purifying mind and body and treating the latter through the medium of the former.
Dr. Fritz is spoken of as a "counsellor to women" and a large proportion of her patients are women. She is an authority on sex hygiene and has studied the subject of marital happiness in its relation to this science. She believes in physical beauty, in body poise and, being a fluent and forceful speaker, promulgates her belief from the platform. She has a large and enthusiastic following in California and her recent lectures in the Scottish Rite Temple in San Francisco were attended by over three thousand women. Dr. Fritz is a well known lecturer and her talks on Sex, its Functions and its Bearing upon Health, Happiness and Longevity, have added greatly to her reputation as a speaker and a thinker. In addition to this she is an author of great power and insight and has published many books of vital interest and significance. Among them may be mentioned "Do Men Understand Women?" "All Motherhood Divine," "Self-hood vs. Success," "Strength in Silence," "Girlhood Ignorance," "The Pirates Who Prey," "The Human Race," "Degenerates, and Why," "Basic Principle of Life," "The Science of Sex," "Self-reliance," "Hope Without Fear," "Mind and Body Poise," "Mind Serene," "Troublesome Nerves are Monitors," "Obesity, its Development," and "A New Interpretation of the Birth of Christ and its Message."
Dr. Fritz is also a composer of merit and ability and has written a number of popular songs, including the campaign song, "Sixteen to One," endorsed by the National Democratic Association and used during William Jennings Bryan's first race for the presidency. Among the sentimental songs she has written are some that have become very popular, her latest being "No Sweeter Then, Than Now," which is classed by leading authority as being equal, if not superior, to "Silver Threads Among the Gold," and the orchestration of which is most beautiful.
However, the Doctor gives most of her time to her professional work and to her lectures, these and her large practice leaving her little leisure for outside interests. However, she is vitally interested in woman's sovereignty and she has confidence in her own sex in their ability, integrity and in that greatest of all understanding--mother consciousness. She is also interested in economics and has spoken most forcefully on this subject. Her address upon "National Referendum" has startled the thinking world, and she is an ardent advocate of municipal and governmental ownership. Her religious belief is clearly outlined in the following: "Do not bow thy head. Stand upright in thy glory. Beest thou what thou wilt be. Glory in thy strength. Bow thy head to no man less divine than spirit and goest thou outward into the all divine." Her religion is also expressed in the following beautiful lines: "Love is the king of the ages; patience is the throne; fidelity and sympathy united make us one. Through love we help each other in life's near race to win; there is no blood to separate, for we are all one kin." To know Dr. Fritz is to love her; to call her friend is to be enriched.
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1914
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 7/01/2008, Pages 385-387
Alameda County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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