Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to WomenBlackwell, Elizabeth
History
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women
Blackwell, Elizabeth
Blackwell, Elizabeth, 1821-1910; Women physicians -- United States -- Biography
I cannot refrain from expressing my obligations to you
for directing me to the excellent Dr. Warrington. He has
allowed me to visit his patients, attend his lectures, and
make use of his library, and has spoken to more than one
medical friend concerning my wishes; but with deep regret I
am obliged to say that all the information hitherto obtained
serves to show me the impossibility of accomplishing my
purpose in America. I find myself rigidly excluded from the
regular college routine, and there is no thorough course of
lectures that can supply its place. The general sentiment of
the physicians is strongly opposed to a woman’s intruding
herself into the profession; consequently it would be
perhaps impossible to obtain private instruction, but if
that were possible, the enormous expense would render it
impracticable, and where the feelings of the profession
are strongly enlisted against such a scheme, the museums,
libraries, hospitals, and all similar aids would be closed
against me. In view of these and numerous other difficulties
Dr. Warrington is discouraged, and joins with his medical
brethren in advising me to give up the scheme. But a strong
idea, long cherished till it has taken deep root in the
soul and become an all-absorbing duty, cannot thus be laid
aside. I must accomplish my end. I consider it the noblest
and most useful path that I can tread, and if one country
rejects me I will go to another.
Through Dr. Warrington and other sources I am informed
that my plan can be carried out in Paris, though the free
Government lectures, delivered by the faculty, are confined
to men, and a diploma is strictly denied to a woman, even
when (as in one instance, as it is said) she has gone through
the course in male attire; yet every year thorough courses
of lectures are delivered by able physicians on every branch
of medical knowledge, to which I should be admitted without
hesitation and treated with becoming respect. The true place
for study, then, seems open to me; but here, again, some
friendly physicians raise stronger objections than ever.
‘You, a young unmarried lady,’ they say, ‘go to Paris, that
city of fearful immorality, where every feeling will be
outraged and insult attend you at every step; where vice
is the natural atmosphere, and no young man can breathe
it without being contaminated! Impossible, you are lost if
you go!’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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