Page 20 - 1912 February - To Dragma

TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 83

W O M E N IN MEDICINE

(MAUD CARVILL, M . D . , (OCULIST), BOSTON, MASS.)

The earliest records of the world's history bear testimony to occa-
sional instances of women successful in the practice of medicine.
We find such accounts in mythology; and later in the history of
Greece are noted such successful instances as Olympias of Thebes,
Aspasia, and Agnodice. I n the early history of our own country, in
colonial days, the art of healing and the care of the sick and the
injured was almost wholly in the hands of the women. Mary C.
Putnam Jacobi of New York, who died in January 1906, loved and
respected by all was the pioneer American woman in medicine, hav-
ing been the second woman to receive the degree of Doctor of
Medicine from Paris. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, an English woman,
was the first woman to take a medical degree in America, having
graduated from Geneva Medical College, New York. I n 1853 she
founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Wom-
en have had f u l l opportunitv to study medicine in the best schools,
and for hospital practice in England for thirty years and in America
for some twenty years.

In all the chief countries of Europe and America almost every
advantage of the study of medicine and of clinical practice in the
hospitals offered men is open to women also. I t is only a question
of time when all our great medical schools and most of our hospitals
will admit women on equal footing with men. The distinguished
and better class of medical men are not antagonistic to women in the
medical profession, and when necessary meet qualified women in
professional consultation. For the latter have been trained, possibly,
by these men themselves and their capabilities have been proved.

Channels of least resistance for women have been the professions
teaching and nursing. Neither profession affords men as large
pecuniary rewards as business life, and both require for success
patience, sympathy, and service; qualities which women's lives have
tended to develop. As a consequence men have steadily retired be-
fore women in these profession until they are now greatly outnum-
bered. Medicine on the contrary, though closely allied to nursing
and requiring for success many of the same qualities that women
seem pre-eminently to possess, has received a phenominal influx of
men during the past fifty years. Then as a sex, although there have
been notable exceptions, have disputed every step of the way with
women, using as weapons ridicule, intimidation and all the vested
privileges at their command.