Medicine woman

“ We maintain, in common with all medical men, that science is impersonal, and that the high aim of relief to suffering humanity sanctifies all duties: and we repel, as derogatory to the science of medicine, the assertion that the physician who has risen to the level of his high calling need be embarrassed, in treating general diseases, by the presence of earnest women. The movement for woman’s medical education has been sustained from the beginning by the most refined, intelligent, and religious women, and by the noblest and best men in the community. ”

“ That the most thorough and scientific medical education need do no injury to any woman might safely be prophesied, even if the experiment had never been tried; but we have, moreover, the absolute confirmation of experience on the point, as I, for one, will gladly testify from personal acquaintance in America with many women who have made Medicine their profession ”

“ Reporter, July 6, 1867.
“It is obvious that we cannot instruct women as we do men in the science of medicine; we cannot carry them into the dissecting room and hospital; many of our more delicate feelings, much of our refined sensibility must be subdued before we can study medicine; in females they must be destroyed.”—Remarks on Employment of Females as Practitioners, Boston, 1820. ”

“ Everywhere among the better situated people, they met with discouraging remarks and questions, giving evidence that the opinion was that the practice of medicine by women would, in the course of time, be impossible, even if the present few were received as exceptions, or as the novelties of a fad. ”

“ But, fortunately, we do not have to rely on works of the imagination for our knowledge respecting the women practitioners of the healing art, either during the Homeric period or during that which intervened between the downfall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance. For the history of medicine during mediæval times affords too many examples of women who became famous for their knowledge of medicine, as well as for their success in surgical and medical practice, to leave any doubt about the matter. ”

“ Other subjects than those of medicine are often discussed, and the advice of a physician sought on matters of vital importance to those interested. The free, unembarrassed entrance of a physician into the sanctum of home, gives an opportunity of learning much that should be sacredly preserved in their own hearts. A lady physician needs firmness and dignity in the maintenance of her rights and opinions. When a woman is weak both in body and mind, timid and fearful, how much better can one of her own sex soothe her! It may be the nurse has not time, in a charitable, or even in a pay institution. ”

“ If so, then women have an inherited right, almost wide as the world, and coeval with history, to practise medicine. Every one recognizes them as the natural physicians of the household, and under all our ordinary ailments it is to some wise woman of our family we go for advice or assistance. ”

“ If, on the contrary, some women, however few, can, under all existing disadvantages, successfully pass the ordeal, and go forth with the full authority of the degree of Doctor of Medicine, surely all will be glad to welcome their perhaps unexpected success, and bid every such woman, as she sets forth on her mission of healing, a hearty God-speed! ”

“ Like this the woman who has practically established the modern science of public health, in 1916 came into her title. It is probably the last difficulty and discrimination that the American woman in medicine will ever encounter. ”

“ We believe, if a lady acquires a knowledge of medicine, it should be a thorough one. Undoubtedly too much [Pg 25] strong medicine has been used in the United States, and that will account to some extent for the bad health of American women. Night practice and the inclemencies of the weather are the greatest difficulties a woman must contend with in the practice of medicine. If a lady has means, she can command a conveyance of her own. As to practising at night, she can have some one to accompany her, if in the city. ”

“ She does n't believe in women doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most of them are, doctor,—and ends by saying that the same woman who would be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the hospital or sick-chamber. ”

“ It is only within the last few years that women have received any preparation for the practice of medicine in our country. But it is now advancing in a way that is very gratifying to the friends of the cause, and is beginning to be appreciated by the people. ”

“ Yet while I have thus shown the darker side, I can see that the study of medicine is full of opportunities for women, and that there are so many ways of becoming useful, if not as practitioners then as teachers and resident physicians in female schools and colleges, that no truly talented woman need fear want of success in some branch of the profession.—The Woman’s Journal, June 23, 1888. ”

“ The objection often urged against the practice of medicine by women, that they have no confidence in each other, and that a medical woman would therefore find herself without patients, can only be conclusively answered by facts. ”

“ Different motives actuate ladies in the study of medicine. The wives of some manufacturers, planters, and others, who reside where medical advice is not easily obtained, study medicine that they may prescribe for their husbands' employées. ”

“ I think these facts will be considered as establishing the statement that the practice of medicine by women, is no longer a doubtful, but a settled thing; that a new social power is growing up in our midst, concerning which the question is—not shall it exist, but how shall it exist—shall its influence be for good or for harm? It needs but a moment's consideration to see how very deplorable the influence of an ignorant class of female physicians must be! ”

“ Moreover, there is reason to hope that women doctors may do even more for the health of their own sex in the way of prevention than of cure, and surely this is the very noblest province of the true physician. Already it is being proved with what eagerness women will attend lectures on physiology and hygiene when delivered to them by a woman, though perhaps not one in ten would go to the same course of lectures if given by a medical man. I look forward to the day when a competent knowledge of these subjects shall be as general among women as it now is rare ”

“ The view held by former generations that women can get along without a doctor and with any sort of nursing is partly responsible for the existence of gynecology, the branch of medicine which deals with the diseases of women. ”

“ I have known matrons and sisters of hospitals with more practical tact in the detection and treatment of disease than half the young surgeons [Pg 104] by whom the country poor are commonly attended.” [55]
“Perhaps,” says the author of “Women and Work,” “there is no profession which so calls for women as that of medicine. Much suffering would be saved to young women if they had doctors of their own sex, who, with friendly counsel and open speaking, would often prevent many forms of severe disease by attending to first symptoms.” ”

“ No safer or purer medicine can be found to maintain the health of the young, or for delicate women and nursing mothers. It regulates, purifies and invigorates the female functions and is highly prized. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nor can I leave the subject without expressing a hope that, when women are once practising medicine in large numbers, great gain may accrue to medical science from the observations and discoveries which their sex will give them double facilities of making among other women. ”

“ In this hasty and superficial sketch of the history of the early practice of medicine by women we would not be true to the facts if we omitted mention of certain ignorant and vulgar women who assumed medical knowledge and medical skill to impose upon a too credulous public. That avaricious women, fond of notoriety and careless of their reputation, should imitate the methods adopted in every age by unprincipled men, is not surprising though it may be mortifying. ”

“ IN attempting to sketch the history of the entrance of women into the medical profession, we find the earlier periods obscured by a meagerness of material and a lack of sequence which our superficial researches have failed to supplement.
Isolated cases of gifted women attaining notable surgical skill and successfully pursuing the divine art of healing are recorded at various epochs in the history of the intellectual development of woman, but they occur at long intervals of time and in widely scattered chronicles. ”

“ It is quite probable yet that she, with her many professional sisters, will hush in silence the often and repeated statement that the practice of medicine "tends to destroy the womanly qualities" of females who enter the profession as regular practicing physicians. ”

“ Nor is it possible or desirable to sanction the practice of any such intermediate class. The alternative is unavoidable of banishing women from medicine altogether, or giving them the education and standing of the physician. The broad field of general medical science underlies all specialities, and an acquaintance with it is indispensable for the successful pursuit of every department. ”

“ THE practice of medicine as a whole appeals strongly to women, because of their sympathy for the sick and afflicted and their innate desire to relieve such distress, while obstetrics and gynecology are the special branches that they naturally choose. ”

“ While thus briefly tracing out the history of midwifery in modern times, and the causes which led to its practice passing from the hands of women into those of men, I have not paused to mention, in due chronological order, those women who, in the last three centuries, have been distinguished for a knowledge of the other branches of Medicine and Surgery. ”

“ A female medical mission may be defined to be the practice of medicine by a lady, for the purpose not merely of curing, but of Christianizing her patients. Now, it is not difficult to see, from what has been already said, how admirably suited such an agency is to the present condition and wants of the women of India. ”

“ For ourselves, we hold that the admission of women into the ranks of medicine is an egregious blunder, derogatory to the status and character of the female sex, and likely to be injurious, in the highest degree, to the interests and public estimation of the profession which they seek to invade. ”

“ Indeed, common delicacy would seem to demand that all the special diseases of women should be treated principally by women; but this aside, and speaking from common sense only, men may be as scientific as they please,—it is plain that thoroughly to know the women’s organism, what is good for it and what evil, and how it can best be cured when it is disordered, one must be one’s self a woman. ”

“ As I am alluding to my own experience in this matter, I may perhaps be allowed to say how often in the same place I have been struck with the contingent advantages attendant on the medical care by women of women. How often I have seen cases connected with stories of shame or sorrow to which a woman’s hand could far most fittingly minister, and where sisterly help and counsel could give far more appropriate succour than could{42} be expected from the average young medical man, however good his intentions. ”

“ At the close she came to me, and, with tearful eyes and a quivering lip, said, ‘I see now why all I have suffered, in body and mind is worse than useless. I see now that I have never had the disease for which I have been treated.’
“Woman’s trusting, confiding nature is beautiful; but oh, how much it needs to be protected by an intelligence on such subjects that will enable her properly to exercise her own judgment! And surely, in such cases, above all others, a woman should be sure that her medical adviser has had a proper education, and possesses a well-established moral character. ”

“ A few women dispensed medicine and enjoyed reputations as doctors, but it was in the field of obstetrics and as midwives that they made their most important contributions. Although women did what might be described generally as nursing, their contribution in this area was relatively insignificant when compared with the importance of the female nurse today. Any discussion of the place of women in seventeenth-century medicine should note the relationship between women, witchcraft, and medicine. ”