Woman as a Physician. 
by 
J. P. OHESISrEY, M. 23., 
NEW MARKET, MISSOURI. 
The question as to the propriety of admitting women to 
the benefits of a medical education, preparatory to entering 
professional life, through the facilities now offered by 
our medical colleges and hospitals, necessitating as it does 
in most instances a " mixed clinic,” has opened up the whole 
question of “ woman’s place in nature,” and has, of late, oc- 
cupied much attention and elicited much comment and dis- 
cussion from the medical press, and the various medical or- 
ganizations, throughout this country and in Europe. 
In considering a subject of so wide a range there have, 
of coarse, been varied and conflicting views; the querulous 
and discontented finding ample scope for controversy, while 
the sober and considerate find presented for their analysis, 
a theme of important and profound inquiry. A dozen years 
ago, few among us had a thought that this, among a vast array 
of others, would be a question presenting itself for our solution. 
But the last decade has been a period pregnant with events 
of importance to the human family, and it may prove that 
the advent of females as physicians, was not the least among 2 
Woman as a Physician. 
them. At all events, the issue, whether of our seeking or 
not, stands out in bold relief, and it would be well for all in- 
terested to understand that it, like all questions of its class, 
can only be settled by the calm and unprejudiced reasoning 
which will examine the matter in all of its phases; giving 
the proper importance to any merit it may be found to pos- 
sess, and stern condemnation to its errors. 
The question has been viewed by its opposers, from three 
stand-points: the moral, mental and physical; the most 
strenuous and plausible objections being made by those who 
take the ground that the moral status of woman, or the 
moral status of medicine, rather, forbids their engaging in 
such pursuits; and, while they certainly bring to their aid 
much that is logical in argument, I am persuaded that close 
scrutiny will reveal the fact that their general position on 
this division of the subject, is entirely untenable. The 
moral aspect of the matter has really but one side; it is 
either right or it is wrong, and which it is, is a question not 
for the medical profession alone to solve, but one that must 
be tried by the high court of public opinion, a tribunal be- 
fore whose bar we all have to be judged as to our profes- 
sional capacities. 
I may anticipate, by saying, that I am not of the fanati- 
cal school which would have the world believe that woman 
may properly claim and exercise any or all of the preroga- 
tives of the sterner sex, as if that doctrine should be uni- 
versally admitted, our scientific, social and political fabric 
might, ere long, assume a complexity that would confound 
philosophers, in other fields than medicine, 
A position of that kind would necessitate charges of a grave 
and absurd oversight in the plans of creation, in withholding 
from them beards and other attributes which constitute dis- 
tinguishing marks between the sexes, besides giving us an 
example of a palpable violation of impartial justice, in impos- 
ing upon them functions which often prove a source of phy- 
sical pain, danger and death, while in all things else they 
should remain on an absolute equality. There is a wise Woman as a Physician. 
3 
and broad sense of justice pervading all nature, which leaves 
little room for us to impeach the arrangements of the Divine 
Author of the Universe. 
On the other hand, I am not one among the other ex- 
tremists who look upon every departure by woman from the 
sphere in which we have been accustomed to find them, as 
an effort on their part to unsex themselves, and while I 
doubt not that there are many fields of usefulness besides 
medicine, yet unoccupied by them, to which they might, 
with equal propriety, direct their energies, that fact does 
not alter the principle as to the right or impropriety at- 
tached to their becoming members of the medical or any of 
the learned professions. To become doctors is undeniably 
their abstract right, and their inclinations and qualifications 
should be immediately recognized as the only legitimate 
condition to their entry into, and peaceable occupancy of, the 
field of practical medicine, in any or all of its departments. 
This is an era of advanced ideas in regard to most human 
occupations, and it is possible that we have, until lately 
been pursuing chimerical ideas in regard to the capability of 
woman to enter, successfully, the higher pursuits of life; an 
idea which, perhaps, might properly be classed as a counter- 
part, and add a third to the “twin relicts of barbarism,I,}1,} of 
which our political friends used to talk so much. The 
broadest liberality, and most charitable conduct and senti- 
ment, should actuate our noble profession in dealing with 
this question. We are, perhaps, the last portion of society, 
in whom it would be proper to allow narrow views and ill- 
judged prejudices to usurp the place of reason, and the 
most exalted magnanimity. 
Much as I admire the conservatism, character, and pro- 
found learning of Prof. Samuel D. Gross, proud as I am 
to belong to the same profession with one possessed of so 
many noble qualities of head and heart, and warmly as I 
feel toward most of the sentiments expressed by him, during 
his remarks on this subject, at the recent < meeting of the 
Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania {Medical and 4 
Woman as a Physician. 
Surgical Reporter, June 25,1870), I can hardly be persuaded 
that it was “a prurient and itching curiosity which called 
them there, nothing else ” (having reference to nine young 
ladies whom he had observed attending a surgical clinic 
sometime during the winter before), as it might have been 
in them that exalted and responsible feeling which actuates 
all true devotees of physic, urging them to sacrifice, on the 
altar of science and future benevolence, all the grosser feel- 
ings of the human soul, and giving them power to rise su- 
perior to the groveling propensities, which so often animate 
the hearts of those engaged in pursuits less related in their 
nature to the ministrations of the angels. I apprehend that 
even young men are usually so deeply impressed with the 
solemnity and responsibility inseparably connected with the 
associations and work of the practicing physician or surgeon, 
that in most cases, even during their pupilage, “prurience” 
is seldom an important element in their cogitations. lam 
of the opinion, and few will take issue with me upon this 
particular, I presume, that the same truth will hold good, 
and to a much greater extent applied to females under like 
circumstances, as I believe the female sex to be master, or 
mistress rather, of their sensual appetites, to a far greater 
extent than are men. I can think of no better test, than to 
ask every medical gentleman, who has conscientious doubts 
as to the moral propriety of women assuming the duties of 
physicians, to apply his objections to himself, in relation to 
his own feelings, when young, and perambulating the wards 
of women’s hospitals, or to the sentiments which actuate 
him in his professional dealings with the opposite sex; and 
I am safe in the assertion, that he will be the better fitted 
to render an impartial verdict in the case at variance. Can 
he not be generous enough to allow that pure feelings would 
animate and inspire to noble efforts, in relieving human suf- 
ferings, her heart as well as his? Is she not his equal, if not 
his superior, in all the moral and Christian attributes? It is 
an idea extremely paradoxical, to suppose that woman, the 
fairest and best of God’s handiwork, and practical medicine, Woman as a Physician. 
5 
a calling little less sacred than the holy ministry itself, 
should, when united, become a loathsome abomination, a 
moral pestilence, from which virtue must stand widely aloof. 
I am well aware that few men now occupying place in the 
ranks of legitimate medicine, would remain, were they con- 
vinced that the calling had attached to it a contaminating 
quality. Why should not medicine injure man’s morals? 
Is man better proof against inroads from moral contagion? 
There are a hundred prostitutes of his sexto one of theirs— 
custom of his own making, allowing him a little more latitude 
in gratifying his sensuality—not a difference in the princi- 
ple, The old philosophy, that it is a poor rule that will not 
work both ways, is as applicable in this case as in any other. 
After all that may be said in regard to the matter, I con- 
ceive that there is no great difference between the moral 
stability of the sexes, circumstances being equal. It needs 
no strain of imagination, to suppose that women, who 
will bear with unfaltering stoicism, the scoffs and unmanly 
insolence of the thronged lecture-room (the “tax of impu- 
dence, a strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame,” and are 
“traduced by odious ballads” and “names slcred other- 
wise,” are insulted by “ obsclre caricatures being thrust 
upon their lap,” all for the sake of science, and the hope to 
be of future usefulness), are of no ordinary type of brain and 
nerve, and are likely to perform with credit to themselves, 
and benefit to their clients, any duties they may undertake. 
If the same logic now advanced by the opponents of lady 
doctors, had been adopted a few centuries ago by the pro- 
fession, and the public, in regard to the propriety of the 
sexes “mixing” in a professional capacity, men would long 
ago have been scouted from the field of obstetric and gynae- 
cological medicine, and the important scientific and humane 
results, which have rewarded the labors of those conducting 
these inquiries, might never have been realized; and an 
important field of the present physician’s and surgeon’s most 
successful and useful practice, would yet have been in the 
keeping of the ignorant and brutal midwife. 6 
Woman as a Physician. 
Had that absurd notion outlived its opposition, hundreds 
and thousands of the world’s female population who now 
live in health to testify to its folly, would still have been 
“ doomed to tread with weary step life’s barren waste, where 
no beautiful oases green with verdure or blooming with 
flowers had adorned the deserts of their lives; where no 
evergreen glades or shady bowers, with notes of prattle upon 
the balmy breeze, had rested their weary forms or cheered 
their aching breasts ; where no silvery rills, nor pebbled 
brooks, nor purling streams had danced in the sunset’s mel- 
low gleams, to cheer them on their lonely way. To them 
the charms and endearments of domestic bliss, and the fond 
imaginings of a mother’s endearing love had never, never 
come, only in fleeting and ever changing visions, that vanish 
on the waking of the dawn.” (Battson.) 
Those who imagine that women are of little moment in 
the conduct of the world’s advancement, should remember 
that they have in all periods of the world’s history, been first 
to stanch the tottering fabrics of morality and religion; and 
that to-day their hands are the first to drag from the depths 
of degradation and ruin, the helpless inebriate, and the fallen 
of their own sex; they are the first to brave the dangers of 
the storm-tossed ocean, the scorching sands of the desert, the 
pathless wilderness—leaving behind them the comforts and 
endearments of home and civilization, they throng to their 
self-immolation, that the benighted denizens of the earth’s 
remotest verge, may find eternal life. In the camp, in the 
hospital, on the gory battle-field, they hold the cup to the 
parched lips, soothe the aching brow, and with their tender 
presence, yield the sunlight which raises thousands from the 
couch of despair, or smooths the rugged pathway for those 
who had before known no hope. In a word, their usefulness 
in the hour of suffering, danger and dying, is unsurpassed— 
unequaled by their male companions, notwithstanding their 
claims to a greater share. 
I am aware that we can find few precedents in the annals 
of ancient medicine, upon which to base a spacious defense Woman as a Physician. 
of women’s entering the pursuit of physic ; but as this moral 
bugbear seems to loom up in gigantic proportions on all occa- 
sions, when the question is talked of or written upon, it is 
well to stop and institute an inquiry as to whether there has 
ever been anything observed in the conduct of female aspir- 
ants to the honors of the M. D., to warrant the conclusion 
that the “hobby” has its foundation in fact. The world has 
never, so far as I am informed, accused Florence Nightingale 
of lewdness, nor has an “itching curiosity” been the gov- 
erning incentive in the professional career of Elizabeth 
Blackwell, and Miss Garrett. Nor have I seen an authen- 
ticated instance in which a female medical student has been 
charged with “prurient” or unbecoming conduct. If any- 
thing of the kind had occurred, the lynx-eyed populace, who 
are ever on the alert for items of scandal, would not long 
have kept the world from the benefits (?) of the import- 
ant secret. 
It would seem that the war on the “ innocents,” on the 
score of moral grounds alone, has nothing for its foundation 
more substantial than the “baseless fabric of a vision.” Let 
gentlemen be perverse as they may, it is evident that “ female 
physicians ” are to become a recognized feature in our pro- 
fessional household : they number among their supporters 
many of the first medical men in Europe, and this country. 
Among the familiar names in Great Britain may be men- 
tioned Sir James Y. Simpson (lately deceased), Robert 
Barnes, J. Hughes Bennett, Lionel S. Beale, ¥m. B. Carpen- 
ter, Thomas King Chambers, Curling, Erichsen, Murchison, 
Sieveking, etc., and others whose names I can not now remem- 
ber. On the other hand, it numbers among its avowed ene- 
mies many names of eminence and authority, tiot the least 
among them Prof. Gross, of Philadelphia. 
The prediction of a recent foreign writer upon this subject 
is that “ women will soon take a high place among medical 
practitioners in this country (England); nothing would tend 
more toward human progress, the diminution of human 
suffering, and the prevention of disease, than the admission 8 
Woman as a Physician. 
of females to all branches of the healing art.” "When onr 
College and Hospital authorities recognize the justice of the 
sentiment expressed in the foregoing extract, and so far 
divest themselves of preconceived and, to my mind, erroneous 
ideas in regard to this matter, as to admit on terms of equal- 
ity to their lectures and clinics, students of either sex, who 
may present themselves with proper credentials, the conten- 
tion would be hushed into quiet: then, and not till then. 
In adding to this part of the subject, I can do little better 
than improve Hamlet a little—a thing which my readers 
will no doubt say would be no small task for an older and 
wiser head than mine. He asks, “ AVhat a piece of work is 
a man ?” What a piece of work is Woman ! How noble 
in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, 
how express and admirable ! in action, how like an Angel! 
in apprehension, how like a God ! the beauty of the world ! 
the paragon of creation ! “ All this and more ” might well 
be said in her behalf, though “ this goodly right, the earth, 
seems not to me a sterile promontory,5’ nor “the o’erhanging 
firmament a foul and pestilential congregation of vapors.55 
In considering woman’s capacities to occupy successful!}7 
a place in practical medicine, the second stand-point, that of 
mental adaptability, is reached. It is a singular fact that 
this, the most essential prerequisite to her worth as regards 
her relation to the sick, in the capacity of physician, has 
been almost entirely ignored as a debatable point; and the 
one of infinitely the least importance—morality, allowed to 
monopolize the discussion. 
Even amid the great clamor raised throughout this coun- 
try, and in most countries of Europe, for more efficient 
intellects to begin with, more thorough preparatory train- 
ing, and a higher standard of requirements generally, for 
male students, before admitting them to the honors of the 
.Doctorate, the female portion of the medical world have 
almost totally escaped attack, in the most vulnerable quar- 
ter; and is thus left, to enjoy the delusive supposition that 
they are perfect as to mental material. Woman as a Physician. 
9 
Physiology and anatomy teach us, that there is a very 
wide dissimilarity in the arrangement and functions of the 
physical organization of the two sexes; but that in the mental 
organization there is very slight difference to be observed. 
In the female, the osseous, the muscular, the vascular, and 
(least of all) the nervous systems, are unlike those of the 
male; and even the composition of the blood is different. 
When, however, we come to compare the important func- 
tion, the intellect, the marked difference before observed 
everywhere to exist, here, in a great measure, disappears; 
leaving the two sexes nearer on an equality in this than in 
any other characteristic. There is in this particular certainly 
a difference observed, and it is in favor of the male : the 
cerebral hemispheres in the female being inferior in size; 
while there is little or no observable discrepancy in other 
portions of the encephalon; the superior development of 
brain substance in the male, however, only corresponding 
to his superior physical development. 
While candor compels the admission that her powers of 
logic and analysis may not be so profound as those of the 
sterner sex, her intuitive powers are certainly greater than 
his; her perceptions more acute, and her apprehensions 
quicker; often enabling her to scan the human character, 
read the feelings of others, and probe the hidden mysteries 
of the human heart, when man’s most searching investiga- 
tion would be completely inefficient. This principle in the 
female mind, is equivalent to that trait in the minds of 
mankind in general, which allows that ffrst impressions of 
any given occurrence, founded upon a reasonable relation of 
the facts attending it, are, commonly, more nearly correct 
than those formed after deliberation, this faculty bearing a 
close correspondence to that of instinct. 
The characteristics of the female mind, above set forth, 
could in no pursuit be of more ready application, and of 
more value, than in practical medicine; as while a profound 
knowledge of the principles of the science is often essential 
in arriving at correct ideas in pathological problems; yet in 10 
Woman as a Physician. 
many diseased conditions, particularly among the susceptible 
and nervous of her own sex, among whom her practice 
would mainly be confined, their nature can only be made 
apparent by exploring the hidden recesses of the soul—the 
whole human fabric, moral, psychical and physical. Her 
powers of interpreting the feelings of others, her ready 
sympathy with the afflicted and unfortunate, and the 
strength of her intuition, guiding to clearness and decision 
in judgment and action, can but render her an efficient aid 
in the sick household. 
While we are not inclined to debate the proposition that 
women are equal, in point of intellect, with men, we have 
the premises clearly before us upon which a very material 
part of this inferiority depends, namely, the lack of oppor- 
tunity; particularly is this the case with our Western females, 
who have had the advantages of education very sparingly 
meted out to them. With all our modern civilization and 
■Christian progress, our women have been, and are yet, too 
generally looked upon through the shadow of the long in- 
tellectual night, which for so many weary centuries pre- 
ceded the waking of the dawn, two hundred years ago; and 
which yet occasionally flits across the splendor of our intel- 
lectual noonday. While woman has not the same facilities 
afforded her in our institutions of learning, whereby she may 
receive primary and complete training, equal to that be- 
stowed upon the male sex, we may not expect to find her 
equal in intellectual development. 
However this matter of female education may have been 
lacking in the past, the noble generosity of such men as 
Yassar, and the wise liberality evinced by our people gen- 
erally, in our own generation, in this direction, have been 
and will yet be, the means of perfecting, as nearly as can 
he, our already advanced civilization. Indeed, our females 
have themselves awakened from the long night-slumber 
which enveloped them, and are making Herculean efforts 
toward equality in the affairs of life; efforts which promise 
to be crowned with a greater degree of success, and to be Woman as a Physician. 
11 
fraught with more important results than the most far-see- 
ing could have anticipated, a quarter of a century ago. 
We now find them in the school, the college, the hospital, 
the hustings; on the bench, at the bar, in the office, behind 
the counter—everywhere ! And their ingenuity, integrity, 
perseverance and economy, have given them a place in most 
of these positions, hardly excelled by the most accomplished 
of their male compeers. 
The only place from which woman has been sternly 
driven, the one in which the enlightened Christian age, in 
which we live, would have expected first to have found her, 
is the pulpit; it has been proof against all her endeavors to 
enter its holy precincts; and she has to coniine her Christian 
ministrations to the outskirts of the religious domain. This, 
I can not help regarding, as another evidence that we are 
not yet entirely freed from the influences of superstitious 
and bigoted intolerance. It is claimed that it is against the 
of the Scriptures to permit women to publicly 
proclaim the teachings of the Bible; and that a violation of 
the doctrine thus taught, would expose the perpetrator to 
the wrath to come. Woman’s mission on earth, is peace and 
love, and her chiefest “ glory is going about doing good.” 
It would be difficult, indeed, to find fields more fitted for her 
ministrations, than the souls and bodies of men. 
Although the disparity between the intellectual endow- 
ments of the two sexes, has been spoken of in a preceding 
portion of this paper, it must not be inferred from what is 
there said, that the difference is acknowledged to be great; 
or that women are not adequate to the attainment of the 
most exalted positions intellectually. That they are, and 
ever have been, found in many of those stations in life, 
which are the reward of intellectual worth, is attested by the 
records of the past and the present. Examples are not want- 
ing, in which woman has attained eminence in the arts, 
sciences, literature and politics; sculpture, music, the drama; 
astronomy, botany and medicine; poetry, fiction and his- 
tory; diplomacy, government, and even war itself, have 12 
Woman as a Physician. 
acknowledged themselves debtors to the powers of her mind; 
and to her participation in the affairs of life in the future, 
must we look to be kept from retrograding into barbarism, 
and falling again into that abyss of degradation, from which 
the human family have so lately emerged. It must be re- 
membered, that a just recognition by man, of woman’s equal- 
ity in all things socially, was the first step toward permanent 
civilization; and now the acknowledgment of her equality, 
mentally (and, perhaps, politically), remains to place the 
progression of mankind on a sure and lasting foundation. 
I do not wish to be held responsible for the sentiment, 
which would admit the female wojdd, indiscriminately, to 
the ranks of medicine; the same requirements as to mental 
capacity, preparatory education, and moral character should 
be required from them, as is exacted of male students when 
applying for matriculation. Indeed, the requirements in 
these particulars should be enforced with the most rigid 
exactness, in their application to both sexes. It is a fact 
everywhere recognized, that the most notorious and disso- 
lute can gain access to our medical colleges, placing thus a 
lasting stigma upon the colleges, and an unjust reproach 
upon the profession. I hope never to be under the disa- 
greeable necessity of recording the same against women’s 
medical colleges and female students. 
Women have always exerted a potent influence in the 
sick chamber, and not always for good, as I have no doubt 
most of my professional brethren can bear testimony. By 
having an educated class among them, to warn them of the 
dangers of intermeddling, the evils springing from this class 
of self-constituted doctresses might be very materially less- 
ened. The powTer exerted by woman over the minds of the 
sick and their friends, in regard to the doctor to be em- 
ployed, the remedies to be used, and indeed* the wdiole con- 
duct of the sick room, is truly wonderful, as every candid 
reader will admit; and this wonderful sway obtains over all 
alike—the rich and the poor, the intelligent and the igno- 
rant—and, to my mind, constitutes a very powerful argu- 13 
Woman as a Physician. 
ment toward allowing her a thorough medical training, and 
fitting her to use this immense power in a wise, legitimate, 
and scientific way. Half the value of practical medicine 
originates from enforcipg hygienic regulations and thorough 
control in nursing. 
It would be superfluous to extend this article by a lengthy 
comparison of the physical powers of the sexes, the delicate 
bone and muscle of woman being indisputably outstripped 
by the brawny sinews of her rude companion. This, how- 
ever, only holds good as a general rule, for it is equally cer- 
tain that there are occasions where woman’s physical supe- 
riority is so manifest that it leaves no room for argument; 
and these occasions are at the bedside of the sick. As a 
nurse her physical capacities are incomparably superior 
to those of man; thus presenting for her a claim to the 
ranks of medicine that can not be ignored when her claims 
are honestly considered. Who ever heard of a woman suc- 
cumbing to the toils and exhausting vigils incident to nurs- 
ing those in whom she was interested ? It is the mother, the 
wife, the sister or daughter, whose eye is never closed, whose 
ear is never deaf, whose feet are never weary, while the 
necessities of the sick have a claim upon her. The mor- 
ning’s dews, or the gloom of midnight, deter her not from 
her humane ministrations; no one like her can smooth the 
painful couch, make sweet the bitter draught, or calm the 
aching heart; no one so ready to gratify the childish caprices 
or soothe the distempered imagination when “ thick coming 
fancies ” oppress the troubled brain. In fact, it would ap- 
pear that there is a strange compatibility between women 
and the chamber of the sick; their benevolence relieving it 
of many of its terrors, while in its solemn precincts they 
learn, and teach, those lessons of humility and self-sacrifice 
which we are assured constitute half the wages of a blessed 
immortality. 
When pestilence, in its most dreadful aspect, spreads dis- 
may and death among its crouching victims; when famine’s 
gaunt form fills the land with mourning; when grim-vis- 14 
Woman as a Physician. 
aged war gives the wail of the widow and fatherless to the 
pitiless winds, woman is the last to desert the post of dan- 
ger, and often goes down amid the wreck that surrounds 
her. To brave these dangers, often more terrible than the 
cannon’s mouth, requires an amount of physical endurance, 
mental and moral fortitude, possessed in a surpassing degree 
by but few men, if we except physicians. In trying epochs, 
like the present war in Europe, and during our civil war, 
when the larger portion of the male population (physicians 
especially) is taken from some districts, how inconceivably 
valuable might a medical knowledge in a portion of the 
females become ? 
It may, without detriment to the argument as to the men- 
tal and physical fitness of women to become doctors, be ad- 
mitted that, while there are some departments of medicine 
more particularly adapted to their capacities and tastes, and 
in which they have proved themselves the equals of the most 
superior male practitioners—the field of obstetric medicine 
and surgery, for instance—there are some others, surgery 
in particular, in which they may not hope to become as effi- 
cient as men; though this can not, by any means, serve as 
an argument to keep women from the profession of medi- 
cine, as the same rule applied to men (a vast majority of 
whom have no capabilities as surgeons), wrould give our pro- 
fessional ranks an undesirable tenuity. Any rule which 
will hold good for men as a class, in the social affairs of life, 
will also hold good commonly with women. 
It might be objected that the physical inferiority of wo- 
man would exclude her from participating in some fields of 
practice—the remote and sparsely peopled rural districts of 
our own and other countries, where practical medicine is 
made a business; and this is true to a certain extent, but 
not on a scale sufficient to alter the matter to any great de- 
gree, as the cities and thickly populated districts oiler the 
widest field of usefulness and pecuniary success to all aspir- 
ing professional persons. We may expect that a woman 
nowr entering the medical profession will look high, and not Woman as a Physician. 
15 
be content with an inferior place, either as to locality or 
acquirements. 
In my effort to arrange my random thoughts on this sub- 
ject, I have endeavored to report woman and her cause 
aright to the unsatisfied. If I have not succeeded to the 
satisfaction of my professional friends, it will be remem- 
bered that “the will is infinite, and the execution confined; 
the desire boundless, and the act a slave to limit.”