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SAN ANTONIO
MEDICINE

Women Doctors and American

Medical History: Trials and

Triumphs in Service of the

Most Needful

By David Alex Schulz, CHP

story. The siblings rarely attended school, edu- University in Syracuse, New York).
cated at home by private tutors. Experiencing The Dean announced to faculty that “A
little real-world academic competition, Eliza- young lady, studying privately with an emi-
beth set her sights on becoming the first woman nent physician in Philadelphia, applied with
accepted by an American medical college. her mentor’s endorsement for admission to
Elizabeth’s motivation was not compassion their school.”
for the sick, or a sense of vocation, but to The faculty put the decision to the student
The Age of Heroic Medicine was ending. demonstrate that women were up to the era’s body. The students recognized faculty skittish-
Harrowing techniques of bloodletting, sweat- premier challenge. Nor would she be satisfied ness and their power to make serious mischief.
ing and purging to balance the four “humors” by her own acceptance alone. Proof-of-concept Astounding the college, students approved
were giving way to gentler treatments. By the required Emily follow suit so together they and before long, Elizabeth Blackwell rose from
1850s, wealthy patients began expecting effec- could establish a thriving medical practice. The a classroom curiosity to class-leader in aca-
tive results without agonizing therapy. Scien- Blackwells were never satisfied by second best: demic achievement.
tific medicine was a frontier pioneered by new Elizabeth attempted admission only at the Elizabeth performed clinical work over
schools, infirmaries and hospitals. Surgery was most traditional, prestigious colleges. break at Philadelphia’s refuge for the destitute,
performed anesthetically but hazardously – Even the best medical schools were a far cry Blockley Alms House. “Blockley is the micro-
Lister’s antiseptics were still a decade away. from the clinical training and residency now cosm of the city,” wrote one observer. “Here is
The Blackwell sisters blazed the frontier; integral. Students were taught by rote in a series drunkenness; here is pauperism; here is illegit-
Elizabeth was the first woman to earn a med- of lectures for which they had to purchase tick- imacy; here is madness; here are the eternal
ical degree in the United States, and Emily, its ets. The entire course, from admission to grad- priestesses of prostitution, who sacrifice for the
first woman surgeon. Their story and that of uation, was two 16-week semesters, repeated sins of man; here is crime in all its protean as-
institutions they founded informs “The Doc- the following year. Students hoped to gain pects; and here is vice in all its monstrous
tors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters some practical experience during the summer. forms.” Serving two thousand indigents in such
Brought Medicine to Women and Women to “She sought interviews with Philadelphia’s a place offered a sense of clinical work that the
Medicine” by Janice P. Nimura (2021; W. W. leading physicians and sent letters of inquiry to lecture hall never provided.
Norton & Company). The sisters’ aspirations, medical colleges in both Philadelphia and New In January 1849, she became the first
endeavors and eccentricities, portrayed in an York. At the University of Pennsylvania, the woman to earn a medical degree in the
epically-scaled history, is a story not only of oldest and most august American medical United States. A year later, Dr. Elizabeth
people but of a time and place, and a profession school, Dr. Samuel Jackson burst out laughing Blackwell moved to France for practical resi-
in growth. at her request.” dency: she could enter La Maternité, France’s
Elizabeth (the third of nine children) and Rejected by every institution to which she largest public maternity hospital, not as a
Emily (her next younger sister) were raised in a had applied, Elizabeth sent off a flurry of appli- qualified doctor but as a student.
religious family following a progressive “English cations to a dozen provincial medical colleges At La Maternité, Dr. Blackwell saw a thou-
Dissenters” faith. Their father was ironically a across New England. Lightning struck in the sand cases — vastly more than she might see
sugar manufacturer and fervently antislavery: form of a rebellious student body at Geneva anywhere else — under the tutelage of Paul
paradoxes run rampant in the feisty family Medical College (later transferred to Syracuse Antoine Dubois, a distinguished professor of

34 SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • July 2021