Madeleine Brès (Bouillargues, 1842 – Montrouge, 1921) was the first French woman to obtain a medical degree. With her husband’s consent, she applied to study medicine but the Dean of the faculty forced her to first study a degree in Arts and Sciences. Finally, with the approval of the French Council of Ministers and the Empress Eugénie de Montijo, she was able to study medicine in Paris. She was a pediatrician and hygiene teacher in nurseries in France and Switzerland, directed the journal Hygiène de la femme et de l’enfant and was the author of several books on childcare.