The Funny Side of Physic Part 15

Perhaps English authors and English readers may be satisfied to allow the above meagre and unenviable array of pretenders to stand on record as the representatives of "female doctors" in their liberal and enlightened country! Americans can boast of a better representative.

While England claims a "Female Medical Society," and one "Female Medical College," the United States has several of the former, and three regularly chartered "Female Medical Colleges." In a recent announcement of the English college, it claims fifty students, "but the aim of the whole movement is at present only to furnish competent midwives."

The "Maternity Hospital," of Paris (which existed long before the late Franco-Prussian war, but which we can learn nothing of since the fall of that once beautiful city), "afforded some opportunity for observation, receiving females nominally as students, but they were not allowed to prescribe in the wards, nor were they instructed in regard to the use and properties of the remedies there prescribed. Indeed, they can hardly rise above the position of proficient nurses," says our informant.

Some few medical colleges of the United States are admitting females on the same footing as the heretofore more favored "lords of creation."

A female college has been in existence in Philadelphia for above twenty years. The "New England Female Medical College" was chartered in 1856; but the "regular" colleges, as Yale, Harvard, etc., refuse all female applicants.

New York has been more liberal towards the gentler s.e.x. At Geneva, Rochester, Syracuse, and elsewhere, as early as 1849-50, medical schools of the more liberal sort, but of undoubted respectability and legal charters, opened their doors to female students. In 1869 the New York Female Medical College was chartered, since which time more than two hundred ladies have therein received medical instruction.

In all the princ.i.p.al cities of the Union may be found from one to a dozen respectably educated and successful female pract.i.tioners, who have attained to some eminence in spite of the opposition of the "faculty," and the ignorant prejudices of the common people.

It is surprising how early and persistently some men forget that they were "born of woman!" Their contempt of the capabilities of womankind would lead one to suppose them to be ashamed of their own mothers. Mark Twain's facetious but instructive speech, once delivered before an editorial gathering in Boston, ought to be rehea.r.s.ed to them daily; yes, and enforced by petticoat government upon their notice till it became stereotyped into their stupid brains. Mark says,

"What, sir, would the peoples of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir,--almighty scarce! (Laughter.) Then let us cherish her; let us protect her; let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy,--our--selves, if we get a chance.

"But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is gracious, lovable, kind of heart, beautiful, worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference.

Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially, for each and every one of us has personally known, and loved, and honored the very best of them all,--_his own mother_!"

Sarah B. Chase, M. D., a respectable and successful female physician of Ohio, gives the following excellent advice:--

"I would not encourage any woman to study medicine, with the expectation of practising, who is not ready and willing--ay, _anxious_ and _determined_--to go through the same severe drill of preparation, the same thorough discipline, as is required of man before he is crowned with the honors of an M. D."

A FEMALE PIONEER.

Among the first successful female physicians of Boston, where she was born in 1805, is Harriot K. Hunt, M. D. Her father was a s.h.i.+pping merchant, who, by honesty and uprightness died comparatively poor, for riches are not always to the upright. Her mother is described by Rev. H. B. Elliot, "as one possessing a mind of remarkable qualities, argumentative, practical, independent, and, withal, abounding in tenderness and genial brightness." In 1830 we find Miss Hunt not only thrown upon her resources for her own livelihood (her father having left but barely the house that gave them shelter to be called their own), but the support and care of an only and invalid sister, somewhat her junior, were also entirely dependent upon her labors. As a school teacher she met the former, as a student and nurse she finally surmounted the latter. "What! more pedagogues turned doctors?"

After nearly three years' employment of various physicians on the part of the elder sister, and the extreme suffering from the "distressing and complicated disease," and, what was worse, the "severest forms of prescriptions of the old school of physic" for the same time by the younger sister, the Misses Hunt were led to investigate for themselves.

They purchased medical works, which they read early and late.

In 1833 Harriot leased her house, and entered the office of a doctress, Mrs. Mott by name, in the double capacity of secretary and student. The younger sister became a patient of Mrs. Mott's. The husband of Mrs. Mott was an English physician, who, with his wife to attend the female portion of his patients, had established himself in Boston. Mrs. Mott was without a thorough medical education. "She made extravagant claims to medical skill in the treatment of cases regarded as hopeless." In 1835 Dr. Mott died, and Mrs. Mott returned to England. Under the treatment of the latter the invalid sister had so much improved in health as to be able to "walk the streets for the first time in three years;" yet where is the "old school doctor," or the veriest charlatan, that would give her the credit she so seemingly deserved in this case. Both were her opponents. Even the students of the neighboring medical school were "pitted against her." The old adage respecting his Satanic majesty having the credit due him, did not seem to apply to her case. But Mrs. Mott was more than a match for their cunning, if not for their scientific theorizings, as the following anecdote will show.

"Three wise men of Gotham," that amiable lady, Mrs. Goose, tells us, "went to sea in a bowl; and had the bowl been stronger, my song would have been longer." This has its parallel in the three wise students of H----, who laid their wise heads together, and went to _see_--Mrs. Mott, the doctress, of Hanover Street. One was to pretend that he had some peculiar disease, for which he, with his anxious friends, wished to consult the "wise woman." They entered the doctor's office, and demanded to see the doctress. This was an open insult to the woman, as she only gave her attention to females and children. Nevertheless, Mrs. Mott, whose olfactory nerves were not so obtuse as to prevent her from distinguis.h.i.+ng the aroma of that peculiar little animal quadruped of the genus _Mus_, obeyed the summons, and entered the presence of the three wise aesculapians.

Now the fun began. Not the fun that _was to be_ at the expense of the "ignorant old female quack," however.

One of the gentlemen arose, and after a profound bow, began, with some embarra.s.sment, to state his case.

"But wait just a moment," the doctress interrupted. "You intimate that it is a _peculiar_ case. My fee for consultation in such cases is _three dollars_. Please hand over the money, and proceed."

This was an unexpected demand. They had thought to have a little fun, expose the woman's ignorance, and have a "huge thing" to tell to their cla.s.s-fellows, _and not pay for it_! Mrs. Mott was a woman, but she possessed powerful magnetic influence, and held fast to the point, viz., her fee for consultation; and to the chagrin of the patient (?), and the astonishment of his chums, the three dollars were paid over to the doctress.

"Now, sir, you will please state your case," said the lady, pocketing the fee, adjusting her eye-gla.s.ses, and seating herself for a consultation.

"Yes. Well--it is a--a peculiar case," stammered the patient.

"You have informed me of that point before. Please proceed," remarked the doctress with great complacency to the embarra.s.sed fellow.

"It's a delicate case," he blus.h.i.+ngly replied.

"O, indeed; then step into this private consulting room;" and arising, she led the way to an inner office, where the young man involuntarily followed, greatly to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the two remaining students, who remarked, "It is getting blamed hot for us here."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THREE WISE STUDENTS CONSULTING A DOCTRESS.]

In a moment, the invalid--greatly improved, one might judge, from his agility,--rushed from the private sanctum with a bound, grasped his hat from the table, exclaiming, "Come on, for G.o.d's sake!" and rushed from the house, followed by his now thoroughly affrighted companions.

"What's the matter? What did the old tarantula say to you?" demanded the young man's chums, when well outside of the web into which they had so impudently intruded themselves.

"Don't you ever ask me," he vociferated. "A ---- pretty mess you got me into. But if either of you ever again mistake that old woman for a fool, I hope to G.o.d she'll take you into her private consulting room."

But to return to Miss Hunt and her sister. In 1855 or '56 the sisters opened an office in Boston. As with all young physicians without "dead men's shoes," professional support, or wealthy and influential friends to back them, patients gathered slowly at first, but with a steady increase, the care of whom soon devolved entirely upon Harriot, as her sister married, and retired from practice.

In 1847 she had an extensive practice among a wealthy and influential cla.s.s of people, which many an older physician of the sterner s.e.x might envy. With a large practical knowledge, acquired in twelve years'

experience, she applied to Harvard College for permission to attend a course of medical lectures. She was refused admission. In 1850 she again applied. The officers consented this time, but the students offered such objections to the admission of females into their presence, that Miss Hunt generously declined to avail herself of the long-coveted opportunity.

"The Female Medical College," at Philadelphia, in 1853, granted Miss Hunt an honorary degree.... She is now in the midst of an extensive practice.

Miss Hunt has lived a glorious, self-denying life, upholding her sister co-laborers, and the "dignity of the profession," never demeaning herself by stooping to sell her knowledge, by any of those disreputable practices that mark the avaricious M. D., the charlatan, the parasites, and the leeches of the profession, both male and female.

Among eighty-five "female physicians" (?) of Boston, eighteen claim to be graduates of some college. We know of several who deserve a favorable mention here, but present limits will not admit.

NEW YORK FEMALE DOCTORS.

In New York city there are upwards of two hundred so-called "female physicians," about eighty per cent. of whom, according to the best authority,--police reports, etc.,--subsist by _vampirism_! Here, in this chapter, I shall mention a few of the really meritorious ones, reserving the large majority to be "shown up" under the various chapters as "fortune-tellers," "clairvoyants," and "astrologers."

The subject of the following imperfect, because brief, sketch,--MRS. C. S.

LOZIER, M. D.,--late of New York city, was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1813. Her maiden name was Clemence S. Harned. Her father was a farmer by occupation, and a member of the Methodist church. Her amiable and excellent mother was a Quakeress. "Why should Mrs. Lozier, a gentle, modest, unambitious, home-loving woman, have chosen the calling of a physician?" asks her biographer. My answer would be, "She was a creature of circ.u.mstances." Another, in view of the facts to be related, would say, "_It was her destiny_."

The valuable information which Mrs. Lozier gained, as a Quakeress, amongst that herbalistic people with which she was early a.s.sociated, with study and practical observation enabled her to "act efficiently as a nurse and attendant upon the sick and afflicted of the neighborhood."

The elder brother of Miss Clemence, William Harned, was a physician, as also were two of her cousins. In 1830 she was married to Mr. Lozier, and removed to New York. Her husband's health failing, and having no other support, Mrs. Lozier opened a select school, which she kept successfully till after the death of Mr. Lozier, in 1837.

"During this period she read medicine with her brother. When her pupils were sick, she would generally be called in before a physician. She also was connected with the 'Moral Reform Society,' with Mrs. Margaret Pryor, and visited the sick and abandoned, often prescribing for them in sickness."

Mrs. Lozier graduated at the Eclectic College, of Syracuse, in 1853, having attended her first course of lectures at the Central College, Rochester. From that time until her death, in 1870, she continued to minister to the sick and afflicted in the city of New York.

At the commencement of this article we stated that Mrs. Lozier was a modest woman. This she continued to be to the end. Those leading physicians who often met her in consultation, with the thousands of patients who from time to time have been under her treatment, the students before whom she lectured during several years, the numerous friends who thronged her parlors, and the Christian professors with whom she mingled,--all, _all_ testify to this fact. "She denied both the expediency and practicability of mingling the s.e.xes" in deriving a medical education.

"Woman physician for women," was her motto. It was not always possible for her to refuse to prescribe for male patients, as many can testify. The efforts of some, far down in the scale of life, to connect the name of Mrs. Lozier with those disreputable practices by which the majority of female physicians--the parasites of the profession--subsist, yea, even gain a competence, in this city, and, consequently, _respectability_,--"for gold buys friends,"--have utterly failed, and her _name_ to-day, as it ever will, stands out boldly as belonging to one who was a self-denying, G.o.d-fearing, honorable, and successful female pract.i.tioner.

Mrs. Lozier is said to have been a skilful surgeon, "having performed upwards of one hundred and twenty capital operations." In 1867-8 Mrs. L.

visited Europe, where she was received with great marks of esteem by eminent men, and admitted to the hospitals.

Her son, Dr. A. W. Lozier, is in practice in New York city.

DOCTORS ELIZABETH AND EMILY BLACKWELL.