Barbara Edlinger

In Austria, women were officially granted permission to study philosophy in 1897, and to study medicine in 1900. The first female native of Graz to earn a doctorate from the university was Oktavia Rollett.

May 23, 1877: Oktavia Rollett is born as the eldest of six children of the physiologist and rector of the University of Graz, Alexander Rollett.
1897: After attending the Girls’ Lyceum in Graz, Rollett takes the English teaching qualification exam.
1900: After girls are permitted to take the school leaving exam, she prepares privately for it and graduates as an external student and the first female native of Graz from the Akademisches Gymnasium (then called the First State High School) on Tummelplatz. In return, she receives a school-leaving certificate on which the pre-printed permission clause for attending university is crossed out, in accordance with a ministerial regulation still in force for female high school graduates at the time.
1901–05: After women are admitted to medical school and despite her father’s opposition, Rollett studies at the University of Graz and passes all the colloquia and doctoral viva exams with distinction.
December 9, 1905: Rollett is the second woman to receive a doctorate in medicine in the Auditorium of the University of Graz.
1905: Dr. Rollett is the first woman in Graz to register for a medical practice.
1906: She is the first woman to become a member of the Styrian Medical Chamber and is the first female doctor to work at the General Hospital in Graz at St. Paul’s Gate, but only as an unpaid assistant physician due to a rejection decision by the Styrian State Committee (State Government).
1906/07: Dr. Rollett works as a secondary physician in the surgical department at St. Anne’s Children’s Hospital in Graz. She publishes a paper on knowledge concerning intraperitoneal cholera infection. A doctorate in philosophy (chemistry), which she was also partially working on parallel to her medical studies, was not awarded to her because of the professor’s resistance to a woman receiving a second doctorate.
September 26, 1907: Dr. Rollett opens an independent practice at Humboldtstrasse 17 in Graz, becoming the first female general practitioner in Austria outside of Vienna. She holds this pioneering position for more than a decade in Graz.
1908: After marrying Dr. med. Walter Aigner, an assistant at the Anatomical Institute of the University of Graz, Dr. Oktavia Aigner-Rollett, in addition to her practice, is also the first female school doctor at the Imperial and Royal Teacher Training College, as well as at its training school and kindergarten. She additionally works as medical specialist teacher at the Women’s Trade School, as a resident doctor at a private exercise institute and, towards the end of the Second World War, as an air raid protection doctor.
1935: Dr. Aigner-Rollett receives the honorary title of “Medical Councilor.”
End of 1952: After more than 45 years of uninterrupted professional activity in Graz, Dr. Aigner-Rollett, nearly 76 and ailing for quite some time, stops working as a doctor.
1955: She is the first woman in Graz to receive the Golden Doctor’s Degree.
May 22, 1959: Dr. Aigner-Rollett dies at 82 years of age. She is buried in the Graz Central Cemetery.

Source: Reinhold Aigner, “Die Grazer Ärztinnen aus der Zeit der Monarchie,” Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereines für Steiermark, 70, published by the Historical Association for Styria committee led by Ferdinand Tremel and Paul W. Roth, Graz, 1979, pp. 45–70