A St. Louis doctor factory recently turned out a dozen female doctors.
As long as the female doctors were confined to one or two in the whole
country, and these were experimental, the _Sun_ held its peace, and did
not complain; but now that the colleges are engaged in producing female
doctors as a business, we must protest, and in so doing will give a few
reasons why female doctors will not prove a paying branch of industry.
In the first place, if they doctor anybody it must be women, and
three-fourths of the women had rather have a male doctor. Suppose these
colleges turn out female doctors until there are as many of them as
there are male doctors, what have they got to practice on?
A man, if there was nothing the matter with him, might call in a female
doctor; but if he was sick as a horse--and when a man is sick he is
sick as a horse--the last thing he would have around would be a female
doctor. And why? Because when a man wants a female fumbling around him
he wants to feel well. He don't want to be bilious, or feverish, with
his mouth tasting like cheese, and his eyes bloodshot, when a female is
looking over him and taking an account of stock.
Of course these female doctors are all young and good looking, and if
one of them came into a sick room where a man was in bed, and he had
chills, and was as cold as a wedge, and she should sit up close to the
side of the bed, and take hold of his hand, his pulse would run up to
a hundred and fifty and she would prescribe for a fever when he had
chilblains. Then if he died she could be arrested for malpractice. O,
you can't fool us on female doctors.
A man who has been sick and had male doctors, knows just how he would
feel to have a female doctor come tripping in and throw her fur lined
cloak over a chair, take off her hat and gloves, and throw them on a
lounge, and come up to the bed with a pair of marine blue eyes, with a
twinkle in the corner, and look him in the wild, changeable eyes, and
ask him to run out his tongue. Suppose he knew his tongue was coated so
it looked like a yellow Turkish towel, do you suppose he would want to
run out five or six inches of the lower end of it, and let that female
doctor put her finger on it, to see how it was furred? Not much! He
would put that tongue up into his cheek, and wouldn't let her see it for
twenty-five cents admission.
We have all seen doctors put their hands under the bed-clothes and feel
a man's feet to see if they were cold. If a female doctor should do
that, it would give a man cramps in the legs.
A male doctor can put his hand on a man's stomach, and liver, and lungs,
and ask him if he feels any pain there; but if a female doctor should do
the same thing it would make a man sick, and he would want to get up and
kick himself for employing a female doctor. O, there is no use talking,
it would kill a man.
Now, suppose a man had heart disease, and a female doctor should want
to listen to the beating of his heart. She would lay her left ear on his
left breast, so her eyes and rosebud mouth would be looking right in
his face, and her wavy hair would be scattered all around there, getting
tangled in the buttons of his night shirt. Don't you suppose his heart
would, get in about twenty extra beats to the minute? You bet! And
she would smile--we will bet ten dollars she would smile--and show her
pearly teeth, and her ripe lips would be working as though she were
counting the beats, and he would think she was trying to whisper to him,
and----
Well, what would he be doing all this time? If he was not dead yet,
which would be a wonder, his left hand would brush the hair away from
her temple, and kind of stay there to keep the hair away, and his right
hand would get sort of nervous and move around to the back of her head,
and when she had counted the heart beats a few minutes and was raising
her head, he would draw the head up to him and kiss her once for luck,
if he was as bilious as a Jersey swamp angel, and have her charge it in
the bill; and then a reaction would set in, and he would be as weak as
a cat, and she would have to fan him and rub his head till he got over
being nervous, and then make out her prescription after he got asleep.
No; all of a man's symptoms change when a female doctor is practicing on
him, and she would kill him dead.
The _Sun_ is a woman's rights paper, and believes in allowing women to
do anything that they can do as well as men, and is in favor of paying
them as well as men are paid for the same work, taking all things into
consideration; but it is opposed to their trifling with human life,
by trying to doctor a total stranger. These colleges are doing a great
wrong in preparing these female doctors for the war path, and we desire
to enter a protest in behalf of twenty million men who could not stand
the pressure.