Józefa Joteyko (; 29 January 1866 – 24 April 1928) was a Polish physiologist, psychologist, pedagogue, and researcher. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Geneva, she entered medical school at the Free University of Brussels and completed her Doctor of Medicine in 1896 at the University of Paris. She opened a medical practice in France but decided two years later that she preferred research and moved back to Brussels. Operating as an assistant at the Solvay Institute of Physiology, she lectured and conducted research into muscle and nervous system fatigue.
Convinced that science could solve societal challenges, Joteyko expanded her research in order to study how science could improve the lives of workers while leading to improvements in industrial efficiency and productivity. This led her to conduct investigations on children, examining how educational facilities could optimize the potential of their students by drawing on scientific methodology. She served as president of the Belgian Neurological Society beginning in 1904 and received numerous awards for her research, including the Desmath Prize of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Brussels, the Dieudonnée Prize of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine. In addition, she was frequently recognized with prizes by the French Academy of Sciences. In 1916, Joteyko was appointed as the guest chair of the Collège de France, becoming the first woman to lecture at the institution.
Returning to Poland after the establishment of the Second Republic in 1919, Joteyko had difficulty finding full-time employment. She lectured at the National Pedagogical Institute and the National Institute of the Deaf in Warsaw and was later appointed director of the Pedagogical Institute until it was dissolved in 1926. She continued working, lecturing at the and the Free Polish University, as well as serving on the committees of various governmental ministries as an advisor on employment and education. In 1926, she completed her post-doctoral degree at the medical faculty of the University of Warsaw, but illness curtailed her further involvement in research. She is considered to be one of the people who developed the schooling system in Poland.
Early life Józefa Franciszka Joteykówna was born on 29 January 1866 in , Romanov volost of the Skvyra uezd in Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire (today village of Pochuiky is located in Popilnia Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast). Her parents were Karolina (née Odrowąż-Kurzańska) and Lucjan Joteyko. Her family, which included a sister, Zofia, and two brothers Mieczysław and , was descended from landowning Lithuanian nobility and members of the Polish intellectual elite. She and her siblings grew up on the large family estate, but to improve their opportunities for education, the family moved to Warsaw in 1873, after leasing the property in Poczujki.
Joteyko began her studies with her mother and Madame Perosette, a French tutor. In 1876, the family moved to Smolna Street, near the Sierakowska Boarding School. Joteyko was enrolled there but only attended a for few months because her mother thought the instruction in sciences was inadequate. As the only other schooling option at the time was for Joteyko to attend a government school, which required assimilation of Russian culture, her mother organized private tutoring at home with Polish professors. After seven years of study, Joteyko prepared to take the examination to become a private teacher. Though she spoke four languages and passed her other tests, Joteyko did not pass the Russian language examination. Rather than retake it, she decided to continue her education abroad, as women were banned from studying at the University of Warsaw.
Opting to go to Geneva, where her maternal uncle Zygmunt Miłkowski lived, Joteyko enrolled in the University of Geneva in 1886 to study physical and biological sciences. When she arrived in Switzerland, she cut her hair short, wore tailored dresses with a more masculine style, and was rumored to smoke. She met the former high school teacher, Michalina Stefanowska, with whom she established both a personal and professional relationship. After two years of study, Joteyko graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and briefly returned to Warsaw. In 1889, she and her family moved to Brussels, where Joteyko entered the Faculty of Medicine of the Free University of Brussels.
Her father's illness forced the family to return to Warsaw in 1890. Joteyko did not return with them but instead moved to Paris, where Stefanowska was studying physiology. Within a few months, her father died and the family was threatened with bankruptcy. Joteyko left France briefly and went to Saint Petersburg to take the financial matters in hand. She was able to rescue some of the family capital and with her share, she returned to Paris and rented an apartment with Stefanowska. Enrolling in medical studies under Charles Richet at the University of Paris, Joteyko completed her Doctor of Medicine in 1896, receiving the faculty award for her dissertation "" (Fatigue and elemental muscle respiration).
Career France and Belgium For the next two years, Joteyko practiced medicine in Paris but found she disliked the routine. In 1898, she accepted an offer to move to Belgium, as an assistant at the Solvay Institute of Physiology. She also lectured on experimental psychology at the Casimir Laboratory of the New University of Brussels. In 1903, she became the director of the Casimir Laboratory and a protégée of . She published papers on physiology and her research into the effects of anesthesia by means of ether or chloroform on muscles, nerves, and the nervous system. Joteyko was particularly interested in muscle and central nervous system fatigue and increasingly worked on methods to quantitatively measure fatigue. Her scientific works were recognized with numerous honors, including a joint award in 1900 with Casimir Radzikowski for the Desmath Prize of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Brussels; a co-honor in 1901 with Stefanowska for the Dieudonnée Prize of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine and with Victor Pachon for the Montyon Prize of the French Academy of Sciences; and in 1903 co-honors with Paul-Émile Garnier and for the Lallemand Prize of the French Academy of Sciences and the Monyton Prize with Stefanowska and Radzikowski.
In 1904, Joteyko became president of the Belgian Neurological Society and chaired the organization's congress in Liège the following year. In 1906, Stefanowska left Paris and returned to Poland, becoming headmistress of a girl's secondary school. Joteyko strongly objected to her partner leaving, but Stefanowska was tired of research and wanted to return to teaching. She convinced Joteyko, whom she referred to as her (life companion), with the promise that they could write letters and visit each other. Though she continued to research physiology, Joteyko began lecturing on pedagogical psychology at teacher's seminars in Charleroi and Mons. In 1908, she founded and became editor of the Revue Psychologique, a journal which explored developments in the field of psychology from a scientific and educational perspective. Through her work there, she met and began collaborating with a young, Georgian scientist, Varia Kipiani, who served as a secretary to the Revue. The two women carried out joint research on vegetarianism, to which they both adhered and were awarded the 1908 Vernois Prize of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. Joteyko organized summer Paedological Seminars inviting international scholars to participate. Joteyko and Stefanowska published their last joint paper, "Psychophysiology of Pain", a synthesis of their studies on pain, in 1909.
Joteyko, along with social reformers in France and Belgium, believed that science could solve societal issues. She was a staunch feminist and believed that all fields of employment should be open to both men and women. Collaborating with Charles Henry, she sought to use scientific study and instruments to graph social phenomena and draw comparisons with biological data. By measuring and graphing, for example, physical and intellectual fatigue, Joteyko argued that military training would produce better results if limited to six months. In studies on workers, she concluded that industry could improve on efficiency and production, as well as the lives of workers, by evaluating the mental and physical fatigue factors involved in various tasks. She suggested basing pay on the effort required to accomplish a job, as a means of equalizing wages for various tasks, rather than basing pay on factors like gender. These studies led her to investigations on children and how educational facilities could apply scientific methods to improve and optimize the potential of their students.
In 1911, Joteyko organized and chaired an international Paedological Congress hosted in Brussels. The following year, she founded and developed the curricula for the International Paedological Faculty of Brussels. Kipiani came to work at the Faculty as a laboratory assistant. Learning of the work Joteyko was doing, Maria Grzegorzewska came to Brussels to study in 1913. Joteyko, who led the Faculty until World War I broke out, became a mentor to Grzegorzewska and was a significant influence on her scientific development. The two women developed a special friendship of mutual admiration and respect for each other and would remain life-long companions. The war interrupted her ability to continue with research and she turned instead to humanitarian work. Though she founded the Committee of Assistance for Poles Residing in Belgium, Joteyko left the country in 1915. She first joined Grzegorzewska in London and the two soon migrated together to Paris.
In 1916, Joteyko was appointed as the guest chair of the Collège de France. Her appointment marked the first time a woman had been allowed to lecture at the 386-year-old institution. Her first lecture was delivered on 24 January 1916. She also began lecturing at the Sorbonne and in 1918 lectured at the University of Lyon. She was awarded the Gagner Prize in 1916 and the Bellion Prize in 1918, both from the French Academy of Sciences; the Vernois Prize of the in 1917 and the Grand Prize Saintour by the in 1918. As many Polish intellectuals and political figures had fled the country to avoid Germanization and Russification programs during the 123 years of the Partitions of Poland, the war offered a chance to Polish nationals to restore their state as an independent nation. These exiled Poles began gathering materials abroad that they would need to develop institutions in an independent Poland. In 1918, she and Grzegorzewska founded the Polish Teaching League (Ligue Polonaise d'Enseignement, Polska Liga Nauczania) with the purpose of helping collect materials on education and teaching methodology.
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