Elizabeth Blackwell

“ Who is guilty of this appalling conversion of women into demons, this contagion of evil which in ever-widening circles is destroying our moral health, and injuring the modesty, freedom, and dignity of all womanhood? The immediate cause is the man, whether prince or peasant, who purchases a woman for the gratification of lust. It is this purchase which draws women into the clutches of a godless, money-making machine, which never loosens its hold of the feeble creature until the essential features of womanhood are crushed out of recognition. ”

“ We speak of the body as if it were a single, simple thing, to be used as a tool and then laid aside; but its complicated structure is a little world in itself. As a machine, it is such a model of compactness and ingenuity that no human skill can approach its perfection. It possesses a twofold life—a life for itself as well as a life for our use. In its own proper life it carries on a thousand curious operations necessary for its growth and maintenance, quite independent of our volition or consciousness. ”

“ Curiosity is no longer unduly exercised, but has grown into a love of truth. It has become that reverential use of reason which is the basis of truth, and which forms the true guide to the attainment of scientific knowledge; for rational method does not isolate a fact from all its connections, but sees it in its relations, and in due proportion. Thus only can valuable knowledge be acquired.
Neither is analysis science. It is only when the observations of analysis are corrected and proved by synthesis that the truth of science can be obtained. ”

“ There is a force more powerful than tempest or whirlwind, more irresistible than the fiercest brutal passion, a power which works in nature unseen but ceaselessly, repairing all destruction, accomplishing a mighty plan; a power which works in the human soul, enabling it to learn truth, to understand principles, to love justice and humanity, and to reach steadily onward to the attainment of the highest ideal. It is the creative and regenerating force of Wisdom, gradually but irresistibly penetrating the mind of Humanity. ”

“ After the battle of Gettysburg she spent two days and nights on the field of slaughter, wading with men’s boots in the blood and mud, pulling out the still living bodies from the heaps of slain, binding up hideous wounds, giving a draught of water to one, placing a rough 237 pillow under the head of another, in an enthusiasm of beneficence which triumphed equally over thought of self and horror of the hideous slaughter. ”

“ The more connections that are established between the life of women and the broad interests and active progress of the age, the more fully will they realize this wider view of their work. The profession of medicine which, in its practical details, and in the character of its scientific basis, has such intimate relations with these every-day duties of women, is peculiarly adapted as such a means of connection. For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women. ”

“ Every class of society, every institution—in short, our whole social life—needs to be re-born into the idea of health. The customs to which we all conform, whether rich or poor, the standards by which we measure success in life, and the means by which we seek to reach it, are all opposed to the idea of health. The hours we keep, our dress, our food, the excitements and strain of life, are injurious alike to mind and body. The deeper we look into the structure and state of society, the more serious are the effects of the general neglect of the laws of human growth. ”

“ Now, my friends, lust, unchecked, untransfigured by affection, is like fiery alcoholic poison to the human constitution. It constantly grows by indulgence; the more it is yielded to, the fiercer it becomes; an instinct which at first was governable, and susceptible of elevation and enlightened direction and control, becomes through constant indulgence a vicious domination, ungovernable and unrestrainable. When unsubdued it injures the health, produces disease, and grows into an irresistible tyrannical possession, which converts human beings into selfish, cruel, and inhuman devils. ”

“ On the bridges, at the corners of the streets, were large groups of blouses, students, citizens, women, listening to some orator of the moment, gesticulating violently. More than once I observed a woman enthusiastically haranguing an audience. The most curious mixture of passions was visible on the faces—fear, anger, indignation, hope, hatred; there was many a figure that realised the horrors of an earlier revolution. It seems inconceivable now that those violent expressions should have died away, and that Paris is going on in its usual busy way. ”

“ This objection, the prominent one which we usually meet, appears to us based on an entire misapprehension of what is the great want of women at the present day. All who know the world must acknowledge how far the influence of women in the home, and in society, is from what it should be. How often homes, which should be the source of moral and physical health and truth, are centers of selfishness or frivolity! How often we find women, well meaning, of good intelligence and moral power, nevertheless utterly unable to influence their homes aright. ”

“ No one outside the profession can fully realize the grave responsibility, even desperate anxiety, felt by the conscientious physician when life or death seems to depend upon his action, and he knows that medical resources are not equal to the occasion. It is a noble desire for the advancement of the beneficent art of medicine which makes the great body of busy doctors eagerly listen to those who are supposed to speak with authority, and hail with hope every announcement or supposed discovery which seems to promise improved practical results. ”

“ Hypocrisy is the vice which, above all others, our Lord denounces with the most awful condemnation, raising the drunkard and the harlot, with His far-seeing, merciful purity, and thrusting the Scribe and Pharisee—secret fornicators—into their place. ‘He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’ Hypocrisy is the vice which distinguishes in the most marked degree those nations which dare to call themselves Christian, but who practically deny every principle of Christ’s teaching in the conduct of public and, to a great extent, private affairs. ”

“ Our ministrations to body and soul cannot be separated by a sharply-defined line. The arbitrary distinction between the physician of the body and the physician of the soul—doctor and priest—tends to disappear as science advances. Every branch of medicine involves moral considerations, both as regards the practitioner and the patient. Even the amputation of a limb, the care of a case of fever, the birth of a child, all contain a moral element which is evident to the clear understanding, and which cannot be neglected without injury to the doctor, to the individual, and to society. ”

“ Those women who pursued this life of scientific study and practical activity, so different from woman's domestic and social life and yet so closely connected with it, could not fail to regard these avocations from a fresh stand-point, and to see in a new light the noble possibilities which the position of woman opens to her; and though they may be few in number, they will be enough to form a new element, another channel by which women in general may draw in and apply to their own needs the active life of the age. ”

“ Do you think I care about medicine? Nay, verily, it’s just to kill the devil, whom I hate so heartily—that’s the fact, mother; and if that isn’t forming Christ in one, the hope of Glory, why, I don’t know what is. So pray comfort yourself, and have faith that such a ‘child of many prayers’ will be fixed up all straight at last.... I live in a good society, the fellowship of hard-workers, for however little the result of my actions may be, I have the strengthening conviction that my aim is right, and that I, too, am working after my little fashion for the redemption of mankind. ”

“ In the hard and crushing strife for decent living in which the great mass of our population are entangled, health is injured, hope dies out, and the gas-lighted gin-shop is the solace, as the dreary workhouse is the refuge of those who have ceased to hope. ”

“ However injurious, therefore, illegitimate but single unions may be to the welfare of society, I leave them entirely aside in these remarks, as not coming under the head of prostitution. I speak of the conversion of soulless lust into a business traffic—of the system of brothels, procurers, and so-called Contagious Diseases Acts—the system which provides for, not checks, vice. I solemnly declare that so far from this system being a necessary part of society, it is the greatest crime that can be committed against our common humanity. ”

“ I do not attempt to disguise the difficulty of laying down the law of right and wrong in medicine; not only because medicine, as every other part of social life, is subject to the growth of evolution, but because in a state of society that has not yet succeeded in moulding itself on the fundamental principles of Christianity, we are involved in faulty social conditions which prevent us from embodying our moral perceptions in every phase of practical life. But, remember, thought and endeavour may live a righteous life, no matter what faulty conditions surround us. ”

“ It is the strongest force in human nature. Whatever else disappears, this continues. Undeveloped, no subject of thought, but nevertheless as the central fire of life, Nature guards this inevitable instinct from all possibility of destruction. But as an idea, thought out in all its wide relations, shaped in human practice in all its ennobling influences, it is the latest growth of civilization. In whatever concerns the subject of sex, customs are blindly considered sacred, and evils deemed inevitable. ”

“ Although each one is born with free-will, his type—the plan and pattern of his being—is born with him also. This type is a limitation to the nature, but it is also a guide; it is the finger of Providence showing him the road to follow in the great wilderness of creation; it is the Divine order, according to which each one can freely grow and expand in body and soul to the finest proportions. ”

“ Does she care more for her children, for their respectability and welfare, when she is conscious of her own honest past life? Does she love her husband more, and will she strive to make his home brighter and more attractive to him, exercising patience in the trials of her humble life, being industrious, frugal, sober, with tastes that centre in her home? These are vital questions for the welfare of the great mass of the people, and consequently of society and of the nation. ”