Elizabeth
Blackwell
was born in Bristol, England,
on 3rd February, 1821. Her father, Samuel Blackwell, held progressive
views and Elizabeth and her sisters were taught subjects such as Latin,
Greek and mathematics.
In 1832 the Blackwell family emigrated to the United States. Samuel
Blackwell was strongly opposed to slavery
and after meeting William Lloyd Garrison,
became involved in Abolitionist activities. When her husband died
in 1838 Hannah Blackwell had nine children to look after. Elizabeth
contributed to the family income by opening a small private school
with two of her sisters, Anna and Marian, in Cincinnati. Later she
taught in Kentucky and North Carolina.
Elizabeth became interested in the topic of medicine. At that time
there were no women doctors in the United States but Elizabeth argued
that many women would prefer to consult with a woman rather than a
man about her health problems. She was rejected by 29 medical schools
before being accepted by Geneva Medical School in 1847. The male students
ostracized her and teachers refused permission for her to attend medical
demonstrations. Despite these problems, when graduated in 1849 she
was ranked first in her class. She also became the first woman to
qualify as a doctor in the United States and over 20,000 people turned
up to watch Blackwell being awarded her MD.
Elizabeth now moved to Europe where she took a midwives' course at
La Maternite in Paris. While in France she contracted purulent ophthalma
from a baby she was treating. As a result of this infection she lost
the sight of one eye. Elizabeth now had to abandon her plans to become
a surgeon.
In October, 1850, Elizabeth moved to England where she worked under
Dr. James Paget at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London.
It was here that she met and became friends with Florence
Nightingale and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
Both these women were inspired by Elizabeth's success and became pioneers
in women's medicine in Britain.
Elizabeth returned to the United States in 1851 and
attempted to find work in New York. Refused
posts in the city's hospitals and dispensaries, she was forced to
work privately. Her experiences of gender discrimination encouraged
her to write the book The
Laws of Life
(1852).
In 1853 Elizabeth opened a dispensary in the
slums of New York. Soon afterwards she was joined by her younger sister,
Emily Blackwell, who had now also
graduated with a medical degree, and Marie
Zakrzewska. In 1857 the three women established the New
York Infirmary for Women and Children. The women gave public lectures
on hygiene, created a health centre, appointed sanitary visitors and
campaigned for better preventive medicine
During the American Civil War Elizabeth
organized the Women's Central Association of Relief. This involved
the selection and training of nurses for service in the war. Blackwell,
along with Emily Blackwell and Mary
Livermore, played an important role in the development of the
United States Sanitary Commission.
After the war the Blackwell sisters established the Women's Medical
College in New York. Elizabeth became
professor of hygiene until 1869 when he moved to London
to help form the National Health Society and the London School of
Medicine for Women. After meeting Charles
Kingsley Blackwell became active in the Christian
Socialist movement.
In 1875 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson invited
Blackwell to became professor of gynecology at the London School of
Medicine for Children. She remained in this post until
she had a serious fall in 1907. Elizabeth Blackwell died in Hastings,
Sussex, on 31st May, 1910.
(1)
Elizabeth Blackwell, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession
to Women (1895)
My first medical
consultation was a curious experience. In a severe case of pneumonia
in an elderly lady I called in consultation a kind-hearted physician
of high standing who had been present in Cincinnati at the time of
my father's
fatal illness. This gentleman, after seeing the patient, went with
me into the parlour. There he began to walk about the
room in some agitation, exclaiming, "A most extraordinary case!
Such a one never happened to me before; I really do not know what
to do!" I listened in surprise and much perplexity, as it was
a clear case of pneumonia and of no unusual degree of danger, until
at last I discovered that his perplexity related to me, not to the
patient, and to the propriety of consulting with a lady physician!
I was both amused and relieved. I at once assured my old acquaintance
that it need not be considered in the light of an ordinary consultation,
if he were uneasy about it, but as a friendly talk. So, finally, he
gave me his best advice; my patient rapidly got well, and happily
I never afterwards had any difficulty in obtaining a necessary consultation
from members of the profession.
In 1856 my working powers
were more than doubled by the arrival of my sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell,
who became henceforth my partner and able co-worker. Dr. Maria E.
Zackrzewska also joined us as soon as she had graduated at Cleveland,
and became for some years before her removal to Boston our active
and valued assistant in the New York work.
Many cases of extreme destitution
have come to the dispensary. These have been chiefly emigrants, mostly
Germans, without friends or money, and ignorant of the language. Several
families have been visited where some member was sick, and found utterly
destitute, suffering from hunger, and though honest and industrious,
disappointed in every effort to obtain work. To such families little
help with money, generally in the form of a loan till work could be
procured, has proved invaluable, and a small poor fund placed by some
friends in the hands of the attending physician, for this special
object, has saved several worthy families from despair and impending
starvation. Poor
women and children may be sent from any part of the city to receive
the medical aid of the dispensary, it being free to all.
(2)
Resolution passed by the Philadelphia County Medical Society (1867)
The physiological
peculiarities of woman even in single life, and the disorders consequent
on them, cannot fail frequently to interfere with the regular discharge
of her duties as physician in constant attendance on the sick. How
much greater must be the interruption to her duties if she enters
the marriage state, and becomes a mother and nurse. The delicate organization
and predominance of the nervous system render her peculiarly susceptible
to suffer, if not to sink, under the fatigue and mental shocks which
she must encounter in her professional round. Man, with his robust
frame and trained self-command, is often barely equal to the task.
The home influence of woman is one of the greatest benefits growing
out of Christian civilization. More especially is this manifest when
we look at her as the head of the household, a helpmate to her husband,
and the confidante, guide, instructor, and loving friend of her children,
whose future happiness and respectability so much depend on her tuition
and example. What would be the state of the household, what the present
condition and future prospects of the children, deprived to a considerable
extent of their natural guardian, who would be engaged all day and
not secure against calls in the night, in the service of the sick?
Nor when at home, can the mother, worried and fretted and anxious
about her patients, give healthy milk to her infant, or be in a fit
frame of mind to interchange endearments with her beloved little ones,
to receive their confidences and offer advice.
Once embarked in the practice
of medicine, a female physician will not long confine herself to attendance
on persons of her own sex. Curiosity, caprice, the novelty of the
thing, would induce some men to ask the professional advice of a woman
doctor. It is sufficient to allude merely to the embarrassments which
would be encountered on both sides, in her visiting and prescribing
for persons of the opposite sex. If her services be restricted to
the female portion of the family, then must there be a male physician
to attend on the males, and thus there will be constantly two physicians
in the regular service of the family, with all the chances of counter
prescriptions and advice and breach of ethics, misunderstandings and
heartburnings, by each one passing the lines of the other. If a female
physician be once received in full standing, and professional intercourse
by consultation or at other times with a physician of our sex be allowed,
the greatest latitude will be taken and given in the statement of
the case of disease, whatever it may be, its symptoms and causes,
and questions of treatment therapeutical and psychical. Will woman
gain by ceasing to blush while discussing every topic as it comes
up with philosophic coolness, and man be improved in the delicate
reserve with which he is accustomed to address woman in the sick room?
The bounds of modesty once passed in this professional intercourse,
will the additional freedom of speech and manner thus acquired impart
grace or dignity to a woman in her new character?
(3)
Elizabeth
Blackwell, Pioneer
Work
in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)
The first
shot at Fort Sumter aroused the whole North, and the assassination
of Lincoln enlisted the indignant energy of
every Northern woman in the tremendous struggle. As the deadly contest
proceeded, and every town and village sent
forth its volunteers to the fearful slaughter of civil war, the concentration
of thought and action on the war dwarfed every other effort.
On the outbreak of the
war, an informal meeting of the lady managers was called at the infirmary
to see what could be done towards supplying the want of trained nurses
so widely felt after the first battles. A notice of this meeting to
be held at the infirmary having accidentally found its way into the
New York Times, the parlours of the infirmary were crowded
with ladies, to the surprise of the little group of managers.
The Rev. Dr. Bellows and
Dr. Elisha Harris being present, a formal meeting was organised. Whilst
the great and urgent need of a supply of nurses was fully recognised,
it was also felt that the movement would be too vast to be carried
on by so small an institution. A letter was therefore drafted on this
occasion, calling for a public meeting at the Cooper Institute, and
a committee of the ladies present was appointed to obtain signatures
to this call.
The meeting at the Cooper
Institute was crowded to overflowing. The National Sanitary Aid Association
was then formed,
in order to organise the energetic efforts to help that were being
made all over the country.
The Ladies' Sanitary Aid
Association, of which we were active members, was also formed. This
branch worked daily
at the Cooper Institute during the whole of the war. It received and
forwarded contributions of comforts for the soldiers, zealously sent
from the country; but its special work was
the forwarding of nurses to the seat of war. All that could be done
in the extreme urgency of the need was to sift out the most promising
women from the multitudes that applied to be sent on as nurses, put
them for a month in training at the great Bellevue Hospital of New
York, which consented to receive relays of volunteers, provide them
with a small outfit, and send them on for distribution to Miss Dix,
who was appointed superintendent of nurses at Washington.
(4)
In 1859, the 23-year-old,
Elizabeth
Garrett (Anderson),
met Emily Davies when she was staying at
Annie Crowe's house. Emily and Elizabeth became close friends. Emily
told Elizabeth about how Elizabeth
Blackwell had qualified as a doctor in the USA. With Emily's
encouragement, Elizabeth decided that she would be a doctor. On 15
June 1860, Elizabeth
wrote to Emily to tell her how her father had reacted to the news.
At first he was very discouraging,
to my astonishment then, but now I fancy he did it as a forlorn hope
to check me; he said the whole idea was so disgusting that he could
not entertain it for a moment. I asked what there was to make doctoring
more disgusting than nursing, which women were always doing, and which
ladies had done publicly in the Crimea. He could not tell me. When
I felt rather overcome with his opposition, I said as firmly as I
could, that I must have this or something else, that I could not live
without some real work, and then he objected that it would take seven
years before I could practise. I said if it were seven years I should
then be little more than 31 years old and able to work for twenty
years probably. I think he will probably come round in time, I mean
to renew the subject pretty often.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
