The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-01
YOUNG WOMEN DOCTORS.
SCENES IN THE BUSY LIFE OF A
FEMALE MEDICAL STUDENT.

FEMALE MEDICAL , OO6NIs
Young Women Who Use Almost UninteIli-
gible Words and Phrases-An Interesting
Career with q Few of Its Drawbacks.
The Sad Side Of Life.
A big. old fashioned square house, with a
spacious yard all about it, stands In West
Fifty-fourth street.
Over the stone steps that lead up from the
gateway pass the feet OF many women-some-
times young women and pretty ones, with
their arms full Of books and the glow of en-
thusiasm in their faces. Other young women,
too-the pity of it-with faces that carry
upon them a story of suffering and want, and
sometimes Of sin. And, perhaps next, there
may pass through the gateway a woman with
whitening hair, carrying small leather bag
and physicians case. She has the alert,
earnest face and quick step of the woman
who has work ahead Of her, and plenty of it;
and she is followed by bent woman with
tired face, who carries in her arms a sick
baby whose thin cry leaves a pitiful echo In
the ears Of the passer by.
And they all go up the long walk and enter
her own purpose.
But the young women hnger moment In
the long hall and chatter like blackbirds
about the weather and the walking, and turn
over the pile of letters lying on the table.
By and by one begins to differentiate them
and to notice that most of them are still I'M
der 25, that several are exceedingly pretty,
and that none of them differ in any way
from the average well bred young woman
Then some one rushes up, notebook in hand:
"Oh, Miss Brown" she asks, ''what do you
give as the first symptoms of locomotor
ataxia, and what difference in respiration is
there in eclampsia and hysteriaW
IN THE RECITATION ROOM.
But the outsider never learns, for just then
some one cries out: ''It's time for the his
tology girls" and they scramble notebooks
and papers together and file into a large room
at the left, which looks very much like a
with its chairs and tables and
blackboards and charts on the wall Of vari-
Gus anatomical persons in uncomfortable at
titudes. Before the pupils are fairly seated
the professor of histology, pulling off her
gloves as she enters, takes her seat at the lit
tie table on the rostrum and looks down at
the faces before her. Shades of Galen! Who
would not sit at the feet Of such a woman to
learn wisdom2
She is as young, surely, as the learners who
sit before her. Her face has never a line
upon it, and not even the gold trimmed glasses
can make her brown eyes look severe, while
a bonnet that is anything but professional
crowns the shock of curly hair that tumbles
over her forehead. 1t is the hour for the
quiz in histology, and round after round
of questions-Sharp, rapid, incisive-comes
from the professors lips as she mods quick
assent or dissent from the answers that come
from all corners of the room.
ATTENDING LECTURES.
The histology quiz is over, and the girls
do not seem to be altogether ''annihilated,"
as they declared beforehand they should be;
at least, there appears to be considerable
bodily substance left, as they sweep their
books together and hastily don wraps and
overshoes for their journey to an adjacent
building, where, with pencil and notebook in
hand, they listen to lecture by the famous
Dr. Phoebe Wait, the substance of which will
be required of them for the next days recita-
ton.
Now comes in the grave faced professor
the only man visible throughout the days
entire routine-who leads the clinique. Aud
the students make a close circle about him
with the ever present notebook and pencil,
while patient after patient is led out from an
and he explores and expounds the
causes of the various maladies that are pre-
sented in terms whose length and learning
seem at once to terrify and to crafty the sub
jects thereof.
The long list of patients is prescribed for
at last, and the Clinique is over. 1t is getting
late i'll the afternoon, but the work of the
young women is not vet done. A part Of
them must 60 up into the hospital for service
there, and others go into the dispensary,
where a dozen or so charity patients are
waiting to be cared for. 1t is almost dark
before the last one passes out into the street,
and she does not walk as lightly as she did
when she came up the steps in the morning.
She is tired in body and brain, and her heart
is always a little sadder for the suffering she
sees.
AFTER THE DAYS WORK.
But she goes home, takes hot bath, eats
hearty dinner, and gets in three hours of solid
study before she goes to bed. She doesn't get
much time for amusement, though she likes it
as well as any other young woman-perhaps
even a little better, because she must see so
much OF the dark side of things But she
isn't altogether oppressed by the sadness and
severity. of her life. She wears good gowns
that fit her well, and she likes them, too. She
wears bangs if they become her, and high
heeled boots if her feet are pretty, nor does
she forget, even in the hurry of her morning
toilet, to give her back hair the latest twist.
She doesn't faint away in the dissecting
room at the first cut of the scalpel, as the
man student usually does. She doesn't faint
away at all while there, but after she leaves
the room and the nervous strain is over she
finds the world growing suddenly dark, and
the next thing she knows some one is sopping
her bangs with cologne, and she struggles
back into the world to say, with professional
interest: We'll, I'm glad TO know what faint
ing Is like, anyway"
Take her all in all, the woman medical stu
dent Is amoSt interesting and delightful mani
festation Of the girl bachelor and she finds
life Just as full Of zest and just as we'll worth
the living as if she did not understand how
closely ones estimate of it depends on the