WOMEN IN PROFESSIONS, BUSI

NESS AND TRADE.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WOMEN IN PROFESSIONS, BUSINESS

AND TRADE.

A

EDITORIAL.

"So much is clear,

Though little dangers they may fear,
When greater perils men environ,

Then women show a front of iron;

And, gentle in their manner, they

Do bold things in a quiet way."

LL avenues of industry, professions, business, and trade, are now open to women. What women have accomplished in the profession of medicine is instructively presented by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, and Mrs. Ada M. Bittenbender has traced the advance of "Women in Law" with painstaking carefulness. The profession of American women on the stage is outlined with discriminating appreciation by Miss Lilian Whiting. Mrs. Katharine Pearson Woods has sketched the "Queens of the Shop, the Workroom, and the Tenement" with strong strokes, and the Marquise Clara Lanza relates in an attractive manner many interesting facts regarding "Women Clerks in New York."

In this department will be found also statistics of women's work in various lines of business and trade, together with brief sketches of noteworthy examples of successful business women.

THE

WOMEN IN MEDICINE.

BY MARY PUTNAM JACOBI, M. D.*

'HE history of the movement for introducing women into the full practice of the medical profession, is one of the most interesting of modern times. This movement has already achieved much, and far more than is often supposed. Yet the interest lies even less in what has been so far achieved than in the opposition which has been encountered: in the nature of this opposition, in the pretexts on which it has been sustained, and in the reasonings, more or less disingenuous, by which it has claimed its justification. The history, therefore, is a record not more of fact than opinion. And the opinions expressed have often been so grave and solid in appearance, yet proved so frivolous and empty in view of the subsequent event, that their history is not unworthy careful consideration among that of other solemn follies of mankind.

In Europe the admission of women to the profession of medicine has been widely opposed because of disbelief in their intellectual capacity. In America it is less often permitted to doubt--out loud— the intellectual capacity of women. The controversy has therefore been shifted to the entirely different ground of decorum.

At the very outset, however, two rival decorums confronted each other. The same centuries of tradition which had, officially, reserved the practice of medicine for men, had assigned to women the exclusive control of the practice of midwifery, which they held until late in the eighteenth century.

The history of medical women in the United States may be divided into seven periods, as follows:

First, the colonial period of exclusively female midwifery.

Second, the period of the Revolution and the years immediately preceding and following it. During this period male physicians made rapid strides in advancement, but they harshly thrust out all "females," even from their work as accoucheurs.

* Author of "The Value of Life," "Studies in Endometritis," "Hysteria, and Other Essays, etc."

The third period was one of reaction. In 1848, a Boston gentleman, Mr. Samuel Gregory, began to protest against the innovation of male midwives." The arguments then used against the intrusion of men into midwifery were similar to those subsequently used against the admission of women to medicine-arguments namely based upon "considerations of modesty and decency."

The fourth period began in Boston, with the opening of a School of Medicine (so called) by Mr. Gregory, November 1848. It maintained a precarious existence until 1874 when it was absorbed into the medical department of the Boston University.

By this time two schools had been started in Philadelphia. One, the Penn Medical School, was soon extinguished. The other, the now flourishing Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, was founded in 1850. It was during this fourth period that the first women appeared who demanded the opportunity to be educated as full physicians.

These were Harriet K. Hunt of Boston, to whom the Harvard Medical College refused admittance, Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell of Ohio, Marie Zakzrewska from Germany, Ann Preston, a Quaker lady of Philadelphia, Sarah Adamson, now Mrs. Dolly of Rochester and Mrs. Gleason of Elmira.

It was by sheer force of intellect that Elizabeth Blackwell divined for women the suitability of an occupation whose practical details were to herself distasteful. Among all the pioneer group of women physicians, hers chiefly deserves to be called the record of an heroic life.

She applied at twelve medical schools to be admitted as a student, and at last, by a vote of the students, she was received at the school at Geneva, N. Y., whence she graduated in 1849.

After five years' study in America and Europe, Dr. Blackwell settled in New York and opened a little dispensary for women and children, which was gradually developed into the New York Infirmary. This was chartered in 1854, and thus preceded by a year the Woman's Hospital, founded by Marion Sims. The Blackwells founded the infirmary especially to secure for women physicians the hospital facilities elsewhere denied them. It was the first institution of the kind in the world.