Elizabeth Blackwell

“ The wind that lifts my hair seems filled with angel hands that soothe the soul to peace; that little warbling bird fills me with holy joy; a glory seems to rest everywhere, a tide from the Divine Nature.
During my residence at Blockley, the medical head of the hospital, Dr. Benedict, was most kind, and gave me every facility in his power. I had free entry to all the women’s wards, and was soon on good terms with the nurses. But the young resident physicians, unlike their chief, were not friendly. When I walked into the wards they walked out. ”

“ In Paris this spirit pervaded young and old, and gave a wonderful fascination to the study of medicine, which even I, standing only on the threshold, strongly felt. There are innumerable medical societies there, and some of the members are always on the eve of most important discoveries; a brilliant theory is almost proved, and creates intense interest; some new plan of treatment is always exciting attention in the hospitals, and its discussion is widely spread by the immense crowds of students freely admitted. ”

“ Women did not dare to walk in the pleasant woods and country around the village, for terror of runaway slaves. Painful social contrasts constantly forced themselves on my notice. I well remember sitting with my hostess, who was reclining in her rocking-chair, on the broad, shaded verandah, one pleasant Sunday morning, listening to the distant church bells and the rustling of the locust trees, when the eldest daughter, a tall, graceful girl, dressed for Sunday, in fresh and floating summer drapery, came into the verandah on her way to church. ”

“ My great dream is of a grand moral reform society, a wide movement of women in this matter; the remedy to be sought in every sphere of life—radical action—not the foolish application of plasters, that has hitherto been the work of the so-called ‘moral reform’ societies; we must leave the present castaway, but redeem the rising generation. In my own mind I have divided my ‘Union’ into many branches, several of which I see Mr. Channing has proposed for this ‘Woman’s Rights Society.’ Education to change both the male and female perverted character ”

“ Very few workmen were to be seen, but underground a whole army of them were hard at work. The casting was very curious. Twice a day the melted iron is drawn off from the bottom of the great brick towers they call furnaces. Strong men with faces as black and scorched as a coal were busy, armed with iron poles, guiding the sea of fire that rushed out into the moulds that covered a great extent of ground, drawing out the white-hot masses of cinders and dirt, and splashing cold water over the front of the furnace to enable them to stand there. ”

“ Under the intelligent instruction of the demonstrator anatomy became a most fascinating study. The wonderful arrangements of the human body excited an interest and admiration which simply obliterated the more superficial feelings of repugnance; and I passed hour after hour at night alone in the college, tracing out the ramification of parts, until, suddenly struck by the intense stillness around, I found that it was nearly midnight, and the rest of the little town asleep. ”

“ I was sitting, one dull afternoon, in my bare lodging-house drawing-room, somewhat regretfully thinking of the bright skies of Paris and pleasant study under the trees of the Luxembourg Garden, when the door opened and three young ladies entered, and introduced themselves as Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes and the Misses Leigh Smith.
This proved the commencement of a lifelong friendship. These ladies were filled with a noble enthusiasm for the responsible and practical work of women in the various duties of life. ”

“ The clear perception of the providential call to women to take their full share in human progress has always led us to insist upon a full and identical medical education for our students. From the beginning in America, and later on in England, we have always refused to be tempted by the specious offers urged upon us to be satisfied with partial or specialised instruction. On the occasion of this address an appeal was made for assistance in collecting funds for the growth of the dispensary and the gradual formation of a hospital, as indispensable for the accomplishment of the work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If I were rich I would not begin private practice, but would only experiment; as, however, I am poor, I have no choice. I look forward with great interest to the time when you can aid me in these matters, for I have really no medical friend; all the gentlemen I meet seem separated by an invincible, invisible barrier, and the women who take up the subject partially are inferior. ”

“ My enlarging experience in various countries in respect to the relations between men and women—the customs, the diseases, the social disaster springing from errors as to human physiology and neglect in education with regard to the most important functions—showed me the imperative work which devolved upon the physician in this matter. I realised that the mind cannot be separated from the body in any profound view of the scope of medical responsibility. ”

“ I often feel when I am with them how beautiful the relations of man and woman might be under a truer development of character, in nobler circumstances. I do not know the moral character of any one of our students, for I have no genius for hunting up the darker parts of a person’s soul; but I know that Geneva is a very immoral place, the lower classes of women being often worthless, the higher ones fastidious and exclusive, so that there is no healthy blending of the sexes. ”

“ There is a valuable and much-needed work to be done in England. Slow, uphill work, not remunerative (my tour was an expense to me) ; a repetition, to a great extent, of our last seven years’ work. It would need us both to do it well; and so greatly does England want just our experience that, were it possible, I should counsel the transference of our work to this side of the water. But this we cannot do, and I shall therefore endeavour to prepare others for English work by receiving and educating students in America. In America, as here, it is a life work. ”

“ I cannot wonder that students throng to Paris, instead of to the immense smoke-hidden London; here there is no excitement, all moves steadily onward, constantly but without enthusiasm. No theory sets the world on fire till it is well established, and the German observers are much more studied than the French. Everything is stamped 175 by good sense and clear substantial thought; my respect is fully commanded, but I often long for a visit to the College of France and a stroll in the Luxembourg. ”

“ I have long since realised that conscience and humanity must guide intellectual activity and curiosity, or we wander from the high-road of truth into a labyrinth of error. The above experience illustrates how the eager young student, thirsting for knowledge, may be blind to the unscientific or immoral methods of pseudo-science.
[7] The fine property on Stuyvesant Square, at the corner of East Fifteenth Street, has since been purchased, and is now the site of the New York Infirmary and College. ”

“ By that time it is a quarter past six; 131 Madame Charrier makes her appearance and goes the rounds, accompanied by the élèves, each one giving a short report of the patients under her care. It is a funny group: fifty women or more of all ages, wide awake from the hurry of their duties, but dressed mostly in haste with little white caps, coloured handkerchiefs, and the coarser ones in short bed-gowns, their faces browned by the sun, their hands red with hard work, but all good-tempered, with a kind word always ready, and their black eyes sparkling with life. ”

“ I cannot say what going to Russia might have done for you in English reputation, but for America it would have been sheer waste of time. I am constantly surprised to see what an entire non-conductor of enthusiasm the ocean is, and reputation in England, except in very rare cases, is utterly unavailing here. The radical differences in national character, and the eager, youthful nature of this people, quite prevent full sympathetic transmission of feeling and recognition of older experience. ”

“ She sometimes visits our dortoir and forms the centre of a group, whom she entertains with her constantly overflowing life, sometimes singing, in a deep contralto voice, her peasant hymns to the Virgin—simple pathetic melodies chanted under the lindens when the day’s labours are finished—or dancing vigorously the figures, more gay than graceful, of her country, while she sings some lively air. I admire her vigorous life, I like to see her in the infirmary ”

“ There are, I think, about sixty students, the most gentlemanly class I have ever seen. I have been here about ten days. There are so many physicians and surgeons, so many wards, and all so exceedingly busy, that I have not yet got the run of the place; but the medical wards are thrown open unreservedly to me, either to follow the physician’s visits or for private study; later, I shall attend the surgical wards. At first no one knew how to regard me. Some thought I must be an extraordinary intellect overflowing with knowledge; others, a queer, eccentric woman ”

“ The great object of education has nothing to do with woman’s rights, or man’s rights, but with the development of the human soul and body. But let me know how you mean to treat the subject, and I will render you what aid I can.... My head is full of the idea of organisation, but not organisation of women in opposition to men. I have been lately meditating constantly on this idea, and seeking some principle of organisation which should be a constantly growing one, until it became adequate to meet the wants of the time.... ”

“ Fate certainly gave me a strange and sudden blow, but now I am up again strong and hopeful, and eager for work, and I beg uncle to feel quite sure that a brave soldier’s niece will never disgrace the colours she fights under; but will be proud of the wounds gained in a great cause, and resolve more strongly than ever to ‘conquer or die.’ In truth, dear friends, the accident might have been so much worse that I am more disposed to rejoice than to complain. ”

“ The girls look picturesque in the wood by the sunset light. Sometimes a group is seated on the grass round its chief, eagerly taking in the instruction that may aid it in the next day’s examination; others are singing or playing; but I think I have never seen one engaged by herself in meditation or work. Their character is eminently social, communicative. Mr. Doherty remarked wisely that vanity, in its widest sense, is their ruling spirit, which makes it impossible for them to understand the English, where pride rules. There is one young girl I like to talk with. ”

“ The country was no flatter than between Liverpool and Birmingham, but badly 113 drained and badly cultivated, with many peat bogs and dwarf willows bordering the watercourses. There were many villages built of light-coloured stone, but apparently not one brisk, thriving town. The whole way wooden fences instead of beautiful live hedges, women digging trenches and working in the peat bogs, and the railroad left in the rough, unfinished style of America, without the excuse of an immense young country. ”

“ To every woman, as well as to every man, the responsible function of parentage is delegated. Our nature is dwarfed or degraded if the growth which should be attained by the exercise of parentage, directly or potentially, be either avoided or perverted.
The physician knows that the natural family group is the first essential element of a progressive society. The degeneration of that element by the degradation of either of its two essential factors, the man or the woman, begins the ruin of a State. ”