In New York city there are upwards of two hundred so-called "female
physicians," about eighty per cent. of whom, according to the best
authority,--police reports, etc.,--subsist by _vampirism_! Here, in this
chapter, I shall mention a few of the really meritorious ones, reserving
the large majority to be "shown up" under the various chapters as
"fortune-tellers," "clairvoyants," and "astrologers."
The subject of the following imperfect, because brief, sketch,--MRS. C. S.
LOZIER, M. D.,--late of New York city, was born in Plainfield, New Jersey,
in 1813. Her maiden name was Clemence S. Harned. Her father was a farmer
by occupation, and a member of the Methodist church. Her amiable and
excellent mother was a Quakeress. "Why should Mrs. Lozier, a gentle,
modest, unambitious, home-loving woman, have chosen the calling of a
physician?" asks her biographer. My answer would be, "She was a creature
of circumstances." Another, in view of the facts to be related, would say,
"_It was her destiny_."
The valuable information which Mrs. Lozier gained, as a Quakeress, amongst
that herbalistic people with which she was early associated, with study
and practical observation enabled her to "act efficiently as a nurse and
attendant upon the sick and afflicted of the neighborhood."
The elder brother of Miss Clemence, William Harned, was a physician, as
also were two of her cousins. In 1830 she was married to Mr. Lozier, and
removed to New York. Her husband's health failing, and having no other
support, Mrs. Lozier opened a select school, which she kept successfully
till after the death of Mr. Lozier, in 1837.
"During this period she read medicine with her brother. When her pupils
were sick, she would generally be called in before a physician. She also
was connected with the 'Moral Reform Society,' with Mrs. Margaret Pryor,
and visited the sick and abandoned, often prescribing for them in
sickness."
Mrs. Lozier graduated at the Eclectic College, of Syracuse, in 1853,
having attended her first course of lectures at the Central College,
Rochester. From that time until her death, in 1870, she continued to
minister to the sick and afflicted in the city of New York.
At the commencement of this article we stated that Mrs. Lozier was a
modest woman. This she continued to be to the end. Those leading
physicians who often met her in consultation, with the thousands of
patients who from time to time have been under her treatment, the students
before whom she lectured during several years, the numerous friends who
thronged her parlors, and the Christian professors with whom she
mingled,--all, _all_ testify to this fact. "She denied both the expediency
and practicability of mingling the sexes" in deriving a medical education.
"Woman physician for women," was her motto. It was not always possible for
her to refuse to prescribe for male patients, as many can testify. The
efforts of some, far down in the scale of life, to connect the name of
Mrs. Lozier with those disreputable practices by which the majority of
female physicians--the parasites of the profession--subsist, yea, even
gain a competence, in this city, and, consequently,
_respectability_,--"for gold buys friends,"--have utterly failed, and her
_name_ to-day, as it ever will, stands out boldly as belonging to one who
was a self-denying, God-fearing, honorable, and successful female
practitioner.
Mrs. Lozier is said to have been a skilful surgeon, "having performed
upwards of one hundred and twenty capital operations." In 1867-8 Mrs. L.
visited Europe, where she was received with great marks of esteem by
eminent men, and admitted to the hospitals.
Her son, Dr. A. W. Lozier, is in practice in New York city.