More Women Physicians
These physicians were mentioned
briefly in the book, Daughters of America or Women of the
Century.
Drs. HELEN MORTON and LUCY E. SEWALL are worthy physicians in Boston, at the New England Hospital, where they have been very successful.
"The Woman's Journal" 1 says, "
Dr. ANNA E. BROMALL of Chester, Penn., a graduate of the
Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, has returned from Europe, where she has spent three years visiting the hospitals for women in Paris, Vienna, and London, thus perfecting herself in her profession, in which she bids fair to excel. She delivered this week, in Philadelphia, a very interesting and lucid description of the management and nursing in the various hospitals which she has visited."
The same paper on the same date referred to the fact that
REBECCA HANNA was graduated at the medical department of the Iowa State University with the highest honors ; and was awarded the first prize, a fine case of surgical instruments, for her specimens of surgical anatomy. She went to Burlington, Io., to practise medicine, and applied for membership to the Des
Moines County Medical Association, but was refused because she was a woman.
Dr. ANN PRESTON was born in December, 1830, in West Grove, Penn., of Quaker parentage. She was a professor in the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and at one time the " dean."
RACHEL L. GODLEY is now the dean of that
institution (Woman's Medical College of
Pennsylvania), and a fine lecturer on chemistry to the medical students, as the writer can testify from the evidence of a delighted ear.
Dr. LYDIA A. JENKINS was a practising physician at the time of her death, and with her husband, E. S. Jenkins, M.D., was conducting the Hygienic Institute at Binghamton, N.Y.
There must come a close to this incomplete chapter. The wish arises that some woman of the profession will yet prepare a large volume concerning women physicians, as the author hopes to do of the women in her own profession.
"The Galaxy " of December, 1868, has an article on "Women as
Physicians," from which the following paragraphs are taken. Speaking of the Philadelphia Woman's Medical College it is said,
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"Subsequently a woman's hospital was founded in connection with the college. It went into operation in 1861. More than a thousand patients are treated annually in the several departments of the hospital. The resident physician,
Dr. Emeline Horton Cleveland, after graduating in the college, added to her experiences a year's residence in the Maternite at Paris. Dr. Cleveland also fills the chair of obstetrics, and diseases of women and children in the college, and is eminently superior as a practitioner. As a lecturer, she is lucid, eloquent, and earnest. In her social and in her domestic relations as wife and mother, she Is every way admirable. Her manner is so gentle and securely womanly, that the coarsest and most hardened creatures are refined in her presence. She has an unusually commanding and graceful person ; and her dark eyes are of the 'almond shape' one so often reads of, and so rarely sees. She is also most happily free from any professional mannerism; and a stranger from conversing with her would hardly dream of her being a 'scientific ' woman, although ready to admit her very clever and cultivated, and endow her charms with that very excellent thing in woman, a low, sweet voice." |
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Among the notable graduates of the above college are
Dr. Elizabeth C. Keller, whose success as a surgeon in difficult cases, often by novel and original instruments, is widely known in Pennsylvania and New England ;
Dr. Helen M. Betts, who is her assistant now in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and who chiefly attends to diseases of the eye ;
Dr. Emily White, who has been anatomical demonstrator, and has studied abroad ;
Dr. Almira L. Fowler, now Dr. Fowler-Ormsby, who is practising in Orange, N. J., having already acquired a competency ;
Drs. Gleason, of Elmira ; Amelia Tompkins, Hamilton ; Hunt, Oneida ;
Cook, Buffalo ; Nivison, Ithaca ; Jane Payne, of Mount Vernon, Ohio;
Laura E. Ross, Milwaukee ; Sarah Entricken, Westchester, Penn. ;
C. A. Buckel, Boston ; Anita E. Tyng, Providence, R. I. ; and
Lucy M. Abbott, of the New York Infirmary, who is remarkable for her energy, her straightforwardness, and quickness of perception;
Miss Mary C. Putnam, who graduated in 1864, and studied afterward in Paris, and was the first woman admitted to visit the School of Medicine in that city, having passed a brilliant examination. She has since married
Dr. Jacobi, and is still engaged in her profession.
Further information enables the author to add of
Dr. Elizabeth C. Keller that her maiden name was Rex, and she was born in 1837, near Gettysburg, Penn. Her first husband was
Matthias McComsey, who died in 1859, leaving her with one son. She superintended an orphan asylum in Lancaster, Penn., from 1860 to 1867 ; then married
George L. Keller, of that city. Was graduated by the above mentioned medical college in 1871 ; conducted a hospital and dispensary in Bedford Street, Philadelphia, successfully; afterward accepted the position of resident physician at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, in Boston. In 1877 began her present successful practice in one of the beautiful suburbs of Boston, where with her family she resides.
Her associate, Dr. Betts, was born in 1816, at Vienna, Ohio. Studied in select schools, and with her father, who was a clergyman, till in 1868 she began the study of medicine " from pure love of it," as she says. By teaching and through her own efforts she finished a full course of study in college, graduated in 1872, and vent into private practice in Youngstown, Ohio. But being anxious for hospital practice, in three years accepted a position as
assistant in the hospital of which Dr. Eliza C. Judson was resident physician, and from thence came to Jamaica Plain, in 1878, where she now practices with success.
"In 1856 the New England Medical College was chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature, to be located in Boston. So far back as 1844 the subject of employing female attendants for women had engaged the attention of
George Gregory ; and in 1848 his brother, Samuel Gregory, opened a medical school for women. The college has steadily progressed. Over fifty
thousand dollars have been bequeathed to it from different sources. Some remarkably proficient students have received the degree of M.D., among whom may be mentioned
FRANCES M. COOKE, professor of anatomy, and lecturer on physiology and hygiene, for the past nine years in the college ; also
ANNA MONROE, demonstrator of anatomy; Dr. HAYNES; Dr.
MORTON, who spent four years in Paris, two in study and two in practice;
Dr. SEWALL, now in London; Dr. AVERY, professor of physiology and hygiene in Vassar College ;
Dr. WEBSTER, of New Bedford ; and MARY H. THOMPSON, Who graduated in 1863, and went to Chicago the same year, organized a woman's hospital, and displayed a deal of energy, tact, and good sense.
"The New York Medical College for Women was chartered in 1863, since which time one hundred women have matriculated in it, and twenty-nine completed its course of study.
ANNA INMAN, M.D., fills the chair of obstetrics; Mrs. C. S.
LOZIER, that of diseases of women and children, and is also dean of the college.
"The Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary was chartered in 1865, and its first college session opened November, 1868. Having two such women as
Drs. ELIZABETH and EMILY BLACKWELL
at its head, is sufficient prestige of its success.
"Among other aids, it may be mentioned that the large Eclectic Medical College of Ohio was one of the first to welcome women as students. In Cleveland, the regular and homoeopathic have received them, as also the Chicago Medical School. In 1850 the Rochester Eclectic School opened its doors to women, and, When merged in the Syracuse school, continued to do so. In 1853 the Penn University was started in Philadelphia, with separate departments of instruction for men and women. It was discontinued in 1864.
The New England Hospital for Women and Children, which was organized in 1861, furnishes essential help to medical students.
Dr. MARIE E. ZArKRZEWSKA is attending physician, and
Dr. Horatio R. Storer attending surgeon. Over five thousand patients are annually treated, without regard to nationality or color, furnishing an almost infinite variety of diseases.
" The New York Infirmary, under charge of the
Drs. Blackwell, has since 1856 given relief to over forty thousand women and children. Over six thousand were recipients of its charity during the past year. More than thirty students have enjoyed its advantages, and twenty nurses have been trained and established in the city."
Two physicians whose success I have had opportunity to notice, are
Dr. Madana F. DeHart, wife of a lawyer of Jersey City, and the sister of that lawyer,
Dr. Sarah Depart. These ladies have shared one office for many years, and won universal respect as practitioners.
The " Phrenological Journal " says : "DR. ALICE BENNETT is chief physician in the female department of the Norristown Insane Asylum ;
Dr. Agnes Johnson, of Zanesville, Ohio, is assistant physician in the Athens (Ohio) Insane Asylum ;
Dr. Margaret Cleves is the chief
physician at the State Hospital for the Insane at Harrisburg, where Drs. Jane Carver and
Anna Kugler are assistants ; and Dr. Emma Boon has lately been appointed as assistant to
Dr. Richardson in the insane department of the Philadelphia Almshouse.
Let the list of women physicians grow until there are enough for every city, town, and hamlet in our land ; remembering that to the female man as well as to the male may Cicero's words apply: " Homilies ad Deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam salutem honinibus dando. (" Men in no particular approach so nearly to the gods as by giving
health to their fellow-men.")
1 For Jan. 16, 1876. |