The relationship between Rose Anna Shedlock (c1850-1878) and Emile Roux (1853-1933).

Abstract

The famous French scientist, Emile Roux, was previously discovered to have been secretly married to an English woman, Rose Anna Shedlock, one of the first women medical school students in Britain and Europe. Emile and Rose most likely met while in medical school in Paris, although for very different reasons, neither graduated. It was previously suggested that Rose left medical school after only a few years, although we present new evidence that that she was still a medical student four years later when she would have been near completion. Regardless, Rose moved back to England prior to taking her qualifying exams, where we found she lived at a girl's boarding school where one of her sisters was head mistress. In the following year, Emile travelled to London where he and Rose were married in a quiet civil ceremony. Soon after the wedding, Emile returned to Paris where he began working as an assistant to Louis Pasteur. In a tragic twist of fate, Rose died a year later in Madeira, which we have now noted was within days of when Emile performed his breakthrough experiments that led to the creation of vaccines in the laboratory.