The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-05-08
Your Health
Prejudices Against
Women Physicians
Broken Down
BY Logan clendenning, N, D.
WHEN ONE reads the story Of
Elizabeth Blackwell in The First
Woman Doctor, by Rachel Baker
published by Julian Messner,
Inc, New York;, you get the i'm

DR.. Clendening will answer
questions Of general interest
only, and then only through
his column.
preston that the world do move,
The prejudices that were rampant
in 1850 about a woman as a doctor
were such that other women osten.
tatiously pulled away their skirts
as she passed.
You would have thought they
would have been proud of her. She
certainly wasn't doing anything
wicked. Just. thought the other
women. undignified. Well, | re-
peat, the world do move. Such
prejudices are a thing Of the past.
In my medical classes this year
there are six women in the senior
and five in the junior class. And
very good students they are. And
while the prejudices are not en-
tirely gone they are nothing to
what they were when Elizabeth
Blackwell started out on a medical
career.
Early Life
She was born in 1921, in Bristol,
England, of Quaker family. The
father was an industrious and sue
cessful manufacturer, driven to
America in 1882 by labor condi-
tions in England. He was broad
minded enough to say his girls
should do what they wanted in life
even when Elizabeth wanted to
study medicine. The family made
the acquaintance of Harriet
Beecher Stowe and Margaret Full
er and Elizabeth was early inocu-
lated with the ideas of Woman's
Rights.
She had q good fundamental
education for a woman in the early
1840s. The incident which seemed
to mark her vocation for her came
when she attended a sick friend
of her mothers. The woman was
dying and Elizabeth spent long
afternoons attending her.
81 have often wondered said
the sick woman, "why women who
are always preoccupied with the
care Of the sick are not allowed TO
become physicians.
Decides to Become Doctor
AIf l could have been treated by
a woman physician" she added,
later, perhaps my illness would
have been better understood"
No medical school at that time
would admit woman. She tried
In l843 TO be admitted to jefferson
Medical College, Philadelphia, and
the University Of Pennsylvania,
but was refused.
"You might as we'll lead q revo-
luton as try to become a physi-
cian," she was told by o sympa-
thetic faculty member.
THE gentlemen in our classes"
was the objection of another facul-
ty member, would find it disquiet-
ing to have a member of the other
sex present in their midst"
Fighting Prejudices
She was rebutfed and refused
by all the first ranking medical
schools, but finally was accepted
at the small Geneva Medical Col
lege Of Geneva, New York, from
which she graduated in 1s49.
Her whole life is a record Of
fighting against prejudice, rebuffs
and the overcoming of obstacles
that to anyone with less resolution
and determination would have
been insurmountable. Because she
was not admitted to attend at any
dispensary for charity patients
she financed and built her own
the New York Dispensary, founded
in 1850. 1t was later the New York
Infrmary and College for Women
and Children. In 1869 DR.. Black
we'll settled in England and be-
came Professor of Gynaecology in
the London School of Medicine for
Women. She died in 1910.
She suffered all her life the
usual martyrdoms of the pioneer.
Once a woman died in her infirm-
airy and the relatives ascribed it
to the laundering of women ply
sicians. Their hysteria aroused q
mob which tried to batter down
the doors of the infrmary and lay
hands on DR.. Blackwell. They we're
Gained only when an eloquent
lrishman, former patient whose
life she had saved, harangued them
from the front steps. 1t was not
only the ignorant who were pre-
JUDGED. Fanny Kemble, the ac-
tress, refused to give benefit per-
formance for the Infirrnary with
the words-"Trust a uomdn-as a
doctor-never."
Among my own former pupils I
know a woman who has now an
enormous practice as an oculist;
two others eminently successful as
children specialists; and there are
three noble and valuable ladies
who have taken the places Of three
men in an outpatient dispensary.