The Funny Side of Physic Part 16

The first female who received a medical diploma from any college in the United States was Miss Elizabeth Blackwell.

This lady, who now stands only second in years of experience to Miss Hunt, of Boston, and second to no female in medical knowledge and usefulness, came to this country from England in 1831, when she was ten years of age.

[A lady, of whom I made some inquiries respecting the above, a.s.sured me "it was only those females who were eligible as nurses, or prospective widowhood, which would make them eligible, were desirous of concealing their true age."]

Being persuaded that her "mission" was to heal the sick, Miss Elizabeth applied, by writing, to six different physicians for advice as to the best means to obtain an education, and received from all the reply that it was "impracticable," utterly impossible, for a female to obtain a medical education; "the proposition eccentric," "Utopian," etc.

It required just this sort of opposition to draw out the true character, and arouse the hidden abilities of such women as the Misses Blackwell.

Elizabeth, while supporting herself by giving music lessons in Charleston, S. C., received regular medical instruction from S. H. Dixon, M. D., a gentleman and scholar, well known to the entire profession of two continents; also from Drs. John Dixon, Allen, and Warrington, the two latter in Philadelphia. Being considered by these gentlemen competent, Miss Blackwell applied to the medical schools of Philadelphia and New York for admission as a medical student, by all of which she was rejected "because she was a female." Finally she gained admission to the College at Geneva, N. Y., and graduated in 1848. Are the _males_ the only "oppressors" of the gentler s.e.x? No, no; woman is woman's own worst enemy.

Miss Blackwell was two years in Geneva, and so violent was the opposition of _her own s.e.x_, that no lady in Geneva would make her acquaintance while there. "Common civilities at the table, even, were denied me." Entirely different was the treatment which she received at the hands of the students and professors of the college. "Here she found nothing but friendliness and decorum, and, on the eve of her graduation, the cordiality of the students in making way for her to receive her diploma, and pleasantly indicating their congratulations, was marked and respectful."

The following morning her parlor was thronged with ladies.

Miss Elizabeth Blackwell visited London and Paris, and was entered as student at St. Bartholomew's, and also at "_La Maternite_" (The Maternity).

She returned to New York, and, notwithstanding "she found a blank wall of social and professional antagonism facing the woman physician, which formed a situation of singular loneliness, leaving her without support, respect, or counsel," she gained a foothold, and a respectable and living practice soon began to flow in and crown her persistent efforts.

Now her sister Emily commenced the study of medicine, first with Elizabeth, subsequently with Dr. Davis, of Cincinnati Medical College. In 1852 she and her sister were permitted to attend upon some of the wards (female, we presume) of Bellevue Hospital. In 1854 Emily graduated at Cleveland College (Eclectic, I think).

Through their united efforts the "New York Infirmary for Women and Children" was established. "Up to the present time over fifty thousand patients have received prescriptions and personal care by this means."

Contrary to Mrs. Lozier, "they are firm in their conviction of the expediency of mingling the s.e.xes in _all_ scholastic training. In their mode of practice they adopt the main features of the 'regular' system."

Nearly all other physicians are rather of the _Eclectic_ system. Like Miss Hunt, "she was bound by no regular school, as none had indorsed her."

There are many contemporaries of Miss Hunt and the sisters Blackwell whom we might mention, but the history of one is the history of the whole, so far as early struggles, opposition of the profession, and neglect and disrespect of their own s.e.x, is concerned.

Frances S. Cooke, M. D., of the "Female Medical College," East Concord Street, Boston, Mrs. Jackson, Lucy Sewall, M. D., recently returned from Europe, and a half-score others of Boston, much deserve more than a pa.s.sing notice, but our limited s.p.a.ce will not permit. Also, Hannah E.

Longsh.o.r.e, M. E. Zakezewska, of New York, Miss Jane E. Myers, M. D., Mrs.

Mary F. Thomas, M. D. (Camden, Ind.), Miss Ann Preston, M. D., of Philadelphia, Mrs. Annie Bowen, of Chicago, and others, "too numerous to mention," who, in spite of the opposition from their own s.e.x, from the profession, and the public in general, have gained a name and a competency through their professional efforts.

"A woman's intellectual incapacity and her physical weakness will ever disqualify her for the duties of the medical profession," wrote Dr. ----, of Pennsylvania.

Edward H. Dixon, M. D., of New York, in an article published in the "_Scalpel_" shows, by uncontroverted arguments and facts, that the male child, at birth, "in original organic strength," holds only an equal chance with the female; that "the chances of health for the two s.e.xes at the outset are equal, and so continue till the period when they first attain the full use of their legs."

Ask the mother of a family if the labor pains show any respect of s.e.x.

Does not the female show as strong lungs as the male in its _earliest_ disapprobation of this unceremonious world? How about the comparative strength exhibited in the demonstrations of each when the lacteal fluid is not forthcoming in proportion to the appet.i.te?

Let us consult Dr. Dixon further,--and charge it to the females!

"We give the girl two years' start of the boy,--we shall see why as we proceed. Both have endured the torture of bandaging, pinning (p.r.i.c.king), and tight dressing; both have been rocked, jounced on the knee, papped, laudanumed, paregoricked, castor oiled, suffocated with blankets over the head, sweltered with cap and feather bed, roasted at a fire of anthracite, dosed according to the formula of some superannuated doctor or 'experienced nurse,' or both, for these people usually hunt in couples, and are very gracious to each other. We give the girl the start to make up for the benefit the boy has derived from chasing the cat, rolling on the floor, or sliding down the bal.u.s.trade, and the torture _she_ had endured from her sampler, and being compelled to 'sit up straight, and not be _hoidenish_.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "POH! YOU'RE A GIRL."]

"Well, they are off to school. Observe how circ.u.mspectly our little miss must walk, chiding her brother for being 'too rude.' He, nothing daunted, (with a '_Poh! you're a girl_'), starts full tilt after an unlucky pig or a stray dog. If he tumbles into the mud and soils his clothes the result is soon visible in increase of lungs and ruddy cheeks."

"In school the boy has the advantage. The girl 'mustn't loll,' must sit up erect, the limbs hanging down, her feet probably not reaching the floor, and the spinal column must bear the main support for three to six hours!

The boy gets relief in 'shying' an occasional paper ball across the room, hitching about, and drawing his legs up on the seat, or sticking a pin in his neighbor, and a good run and jump at recess, changing the monotony of the recreation by an occasional fight after school. At dinner the girl has had no exercise to create an appet.i.te, and her meal is made up of pastry and dessert. 'Remember that her muscles move the limbs, and are composed chiefly of azote, and it is the red meat, or muscle of beef or mutton, that she would eat if she had any appet.i.te for it, that is to say, if her stomach and blood-vessels would endure it. The fact is, _the child has fever and loathes meat_.'"

While the boy, hat in hand, rushes to the common or rear yard to roll hoop, fly his kite, or, in winter, to skate or coast down hill, the girl is reminded that she has "one whole hour to practise at the piano," either in a darkened room, from whence all G.o.d's suns.h.i.+ne is excluded, cold and cheerless, or the other extreme--seated near a heated register, from which the dry, poisonous fumes belch forth, destroying the pure oxygen she requires to inflate her narrowing lungs, and increase the fibrine, the muscle, and strength necessary to the exhausting exercise. She closes the day by eating a bit of cake and a plate of preserves.

The hungry, "neglected" boy has returned, and, with swift coursing blood, strength of muscle and brain, catches a glance at his neglected lesson, comprehending it all the quicker by the change he has enjoyed, bawls boisterously for some cold meat, or something hearty, and tumbles into his bed, forgetting to close the door or window; whereas the girl must be attended to her room, "she is so delicate," and, being tucked well in on a sweltering feather bed, and bound down by heavy blankets, the doors and windows are carefully secured, and, committed to the "care of Providence,"

she is left to swelter till to-morrow.

The period for a great change arrives, often catching the poor, uninformed girl completely by surprise. Furthermore, the constant deprivation of her natural requirements--pure air, wholesome, nutritious food, unrestrained limbs and lungs--now become more apparent. In spite of the constant drilling which she has received, she feels exceedingly _gauche_. Her face is alternately pale and flushed; she suffers from headache,--"a rush of blood to the head." Stays and tight-lacing have weakened the action of the heart, cut off the circulation to the extremities, and deprived those parts of blood which now require the nutriment necessary to their strength and support in the time of their greatest need.

The ignorant mother sends for a physician, perhaps almost as ignorant as herself; or, what is still worse, being a miserable time-server, seeing the admirable opportunity for making a bill, straightway commences a course of deception and quackery that, if it do not result in the death of the unfortunate patient, leaves her a miserable creature for life, with spinal curvature or consumption; or worse, by confinement and medication destroy her chance of restoration; and should some unlucky and ignorant young man take her as wife, and she become a mother, she surely will drag out a wretched existence as a victim to uterine displacement and its concomitant results.

Physically, morally, and intellectually woman is not born inferior to man.

We have briefly shown where and how she has fallen behind in the race of life in a physical view of the matter. The intellectual sense has kept pace only with the physical. Morally woman stands alone; by her own strength or weakness she stands or falls. Man scarcely upholds or encourages her. Her own s.e.x, we have herein-before stated, is woman's own worst enemy! "Be thou as chaste as ice, or pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny," and if she fall, who shall restore her? The whole world is against her; one half makes her what she is, the other's scorn and neglect keeps her thus! The "ballot" will not keep woman from falling, nor raise her when fallen. The "church" does not exempt woman from the wiles of men, nor its adherents raise the fallen to their pristine strength, beauty, and respectability! Though Christ, the lowly, the magnanimous, said, "_Neither do I condemn thee_," his followers (?) cannot lay their hands upon their hearts and repeat his gracious words. Where is the fallen woman whom the church (not Roman Catholic) ever took in with that good faith and spirit of sisterly love or brotherly affection, with which a fallen man can, and is, often received into the church and into society?

Echo answers, "Where?"

O, deny this who will! It is no "attack upon the church;" merely a lamentably truthful statement.

The church, like society, withdraws her skirts from contact with the fallen sister. "She is a wreck, drifted upon our sh.o.r.e, for which G.o.d holds some one accountable. Not a wreck that can be restored--not a wreck that money or repentance can atone for." (What! not money? Then surely she is lost, and forever!) "The damage is beyond earthly knowledge to estimate, beyond human power of indemnification. If ever the erring soul shall retrace her steps, it will be _Christ_ himself who shall lead her; if ever peace shall brood again over her spirit, it will be the Comforter who shall send the white-winged dove.

"But the merest lad detects the lost woman. She carries the evidences of her guilt (or misfortune?) in the very clothes she wears, whether she is the richly dressed courtesan of the Bowery, or the beggarly street-walker of the village. There is a delicacy in, and a fine bloom on the nature of woman, which impurity smites with its first breath, and she cannot conceal the loss nor cover the shame!"

"If there be but one spot upon thy name, One eye thou fearest to meet, one human voice Whose tones thou shrinkest from, Woman! veil thy face, And bow thy head and die!"

Then is there no help for woman's condition in this cold, uncharitable world? you ask, in view of these facts related above. Yes; _but it rests with woman_. It must begin with the first breath the female infant draws.

Educate her from the cradle. Give her the freedom of the boy, the pure air that the boy breathes; not the romping, rude, boisterous plays, perhaps (?), of the boy, but plenty of outdoor exercise, runs, slides, skates, rides; let her laugh, yea _shout_, if it be in a country place, till the woods ring again with the merry echoes, and the puzzled forest nymphs issue from their invaded retreats, endeavoring to solve the riddle by ocular demonstration which their ears have failed to unravel, viz., the s.e.x, as revealed in the strength of voice and buoyancy of spirits, or expressed in unrestrained laughter!

"O, shocking! How hoidenis.h.!.+"

Who says to laugh is "_hoidenish_?" A female invariably! And this is just what we are explaining: women must change tactics as teachers. There is time enough to instruct the _young_ lady, after the girl or the miss has developed muscle, vitalized her blood, and capacitated her brain for the sterner realities of life.

Let women learn to be true teachers of women.

Begin at the beginning. This is the only way. Stand by one another in the reform. Never mind the ballot; don't try to wear the _breeches_. No--the male attire I mean.

The superfluous boarding-school education must give place to something more substantial. Mrs. Dashaway is to the point:--

"No, Pauline; home eddycation is perferable. If there is a requestred spot on this toad-stool I detest more'n another it is a female cemetery, where bread-and-b.u.t.ter girls are sent and quartered for a finished eddycation; and it does finish most of em."

"O, no, no, aunty. You mean _sequestered_ spot, and sent _quarterly_ to a _seminary_."

"Well, well; you've got too many oceans in your head already of Greek and zebra, of itchiology, and other humerous works; as for me, give me pure blood, sound teeth, and a good const.i.tution, and let them what's got them sort of diseases see the good Samaritan, and ten to eleven if he don't cure them in less than no time. Land! if Pauline ain't drummin' the piany!"

Shall women remain pa.s.sively resigned to the lamentable physical condition of her s.e.x? or will she see where lies the main difficulty, viz., in a _wrong start_,--in the superfluous, debilitating, _namby-pamby_ education of the female infant, miss, young lady?

Th.o.r.eau wrote that he believed resignation a _virtue_, but he "rather not practise it unless it became absolutely necessary."

"Resignation" is unnecessary in this case. Only let every woman arouse her energies, and stand firmly in claiming her "rights" to rightly educate her children, girls as well as boys, showing no respect of s.e.x in their _early_ training, thereby "commencing at the beginning." What is a house without a good foundation? You may build, and rebuild, and finally it will all topple over, overwhelming you in its ruins.

There is no "right" that woman may claim for herself and s.e.x in general but men must and will concede. Man is not your master. "Habit," "fas.h.i.+on,"

"opinion," these are your only masters. These shackle woman.