_Opening of the New York Infirmary, both dispensary and
hospital--Details of its arrangement and furnishing--Dr. Zakrzewska
is resident physician and instructor to the students, and also
superintendent and housekeeper, while carrying on her private
practice and consulting in the Out-Practice--Sample record of one
day’s work--Four resident students from the Philadelphia medical
college--Incidents in practice--Mobbing of the Infirmary following
death of a patient. (Twenty-eight years of age: 1856-1857.)_
We at once entered into negotiation for the house we had in view and
obtained the refusal of it for the 1st of March, 1857. We also ordered
the twenty-four iron bedsteads needed, for the sum of one hundred
dollars, and all the ladies went to work begging and preparing house
linen, so that when the year closed we held a most joyful New Year’s
Day, and received so many congratulations that we actually thought
ourselves in the command of thousands of dollars.
The house was an old-fashioned mansion of the Dutch style, at the
corner of Bleecker and Crosby Streets, just at the outer end of what
was called the “Five Points,” fully respectable on the Bleecker Street
side, and full of patients and misery on the other side and at the
rear. And we spent the few weeks which elapsed before we could begin to
arrange it in getting the good will of editors, ministers and business
men, in order that we might procure the means for carrying on a charity
for which we had nothing but an empty purse.
Dr. Blackwell’s influence among the Quakers, many of them rich, and
Miss Mary L. Booth’s indefatigable notices in the newspapers, opened to
us the ways of procuring the necessary materials for the dispensary,
which occupied the lower front room. It contained a consulting desk,
an examination table behind a large screen, shelves for medicines and
a table for preparing the ingredients of prescriptions. The front
entrance hall was comfortably arranged with settees for the patients
to wait their turn. Donations from several wholesale druggists were
received, and second-hand furniture suitable for our purposes was
cheaply acquired.
A door was put in to separate the back hall from the front hall, and
in this back hall was placed a large stove which heated the stairways,
there being no furnace in the house. This back hall also served as a
dining room for the officers, while the large kitchen opening into it
was ample for all culinary purposes and also allowed space for the
servants’ dining table.
The second floor was arranged for two wards, each containing six beds;
while the third floor was made into a maternity department, the little
hall room serving as a sitting room for the physicians. Open grate coal
fires provided the only heat throughout the house.
The fourth, or attic, floor contained four rooms--two large ones and
two small ones, with a square hall in the center. The two large rooms
served as sleeping rooms, one for four students and the other for
three servants. One of the small rooms served a similar purpose for the
resident physician and one student, while the other was the much needed
store and trunk room. As the attic was rather low studded, the doors
were all kept open, and the skylight of the center hall was kept lifted
except during a storm.
These apartments were furnished with such material as benevolence
provided. It was the most curious mixture of elegant old furniture and
cheap stands and chairs, without any comfort or system, each of us
doing the best we could with our belongings as the house was almost
entirely devoid of closet room.
Into this primitive, first true “Woman’s Hospital” in the world, I
moved in March, superintending all its arrangements, with the kind
assistance of a few ladies appointed by the now organized board of
directors. We ventured to hire one servant to clean, wash and do
general work, as I was the only inmate until the house was regularly
and formally opened on May 1, 1857.
Dr. Blackwell was aided in procuring speakers by Dr. Emily who had
returned from Europe a few weeks before this memorable event. Henry
Ward Beecher, Dr. William Elder from Philadelphia and Dr. Kissam,
a prominent New York physician who was in favor of our experiment,
carried out the program and solemnized the undertaking, while the
audience, seated among the snowy white little beds, felt proud of
having accomplished so much.
But even here my proposition to have one of the Drs. Blackwell also
speak and explain our intentions was refused by our patrons, because it
was feared that she might speak “like a Woman’s Rights woman.” So we
remained in the background, in the most elated spirits yet modest in
appearance.
A sign on the front door told the purpose of the house, and very soon
our old patrons of the Tompkins Square Dispensary found their way to
the now comparatively speaking, quite stylish place. And before a month
had passed, we had our beds filled with patients and a daily attendance
of thirty and more dispensary patients. Drs. Elizabeth and Emily
Blackwell and myself each attended the dispensary two mornings in the
week, from nine to twelve, while four students from the Philadelphia
college came to live in the hospital in the capacity of internes,
apothecaries and pupils of nursing.
The students spent thus their summer months between their lecture
terms in Philadelphia, grateful to have at last an opportunity to see
actual practice. Of course, they had to pay for this opportunity, three
dollars a week for board, as the establishment could not afford to feed
them.
We also had two nurses, one for the general wards and one for the
maternity department. They were both unskilled and considered the
training as more than sufficient equivalent for their services,
receiving simply an allowance of two dollars per week for their
necessary clothing. Thus we kept true to our promise to begin at once
a system for training nurses, although the time specified for that
purpose was only six months. However, one woman remained with us for
several years, and in the course of time she became invaluable as head
nurse.
As for myself, I occupied a peculiar position. I was resident
physician, superintendent, housekeeper and instructor to the students
of whom none was graduated, so that I had the full responsibility of
all their activities, both inside and outside the little hospital. In
order to give an idea of the situation, I want to relate from my notes
the record of one day of my work.
At 5:30 A. M., I started in an omnibus for the wholesale market,
purchasing provisions for a week, and at 8:00, I was back to breakfast.
This consisted, for all inmates except patients, of tea, bread and
butter, Indian meal mush and syrup, every morning except Sundays when
coffee and breakfast bacon were added.
After breakfast, I made my visit to the patients in the house with
two of the students, while the other two students attended upon Dr.
Blackwell in the dispensary. Then a confinement case arrived and I
attended to her, giving orders to students and nurses. After this, I
descended into the kitchen department, as the provisions had arrived,
and with the assistance of the cook I arranged all these so as to
preserve the materials, and I settled the diet for all as far as
possible.
I then took another omnibus ride to the wholesale druggist, begging and
buying needed articles for the dispensary and the hospital, arriving
home at 1:00 P. M. for dinner. This consisted every day of a good soup,
the soup meat, potatoes, one kind of well-prepared vegetable, with
fruit for dessert. On Sundays, we had a roast or a steak, while in the
winter we occasionally had poultry when this was sent in as a donation
and when the amount was more than was needed for the patients.
After dinner, I usually went out to see my private patients, because
receiving no compensation I depended upon my earnings for personal
needs. On this day, however, I was detained by the confinement case
mentioned and could not go out till 5:00 P. M., returning at 7:00 P.
M. for tea. This always consisted of bread and butter, tea and sauce
or cheese or fresh gingerbread. After again making the rounds of the
patients in the house, it was 9:00 o’clock.
Then the students assembled with me in the little hall room, I cutting
out towels or pillow cases or other needed articles for the house or
the patients, while the students folded or even basted the articles for
the sewing machine as they recited their various lessons for the day.
After their recital, I gave them verbal instruction in midwifery. We
finished the work of the day by 11:30, as I never allowed any one to be
out of bed after midnight unless detained by a patient.
This day is a fair illustration of our life. If I had not food to
provide, it was something else; if not drugs, it was drygoods; and
if neither, I attended the dispensary at least two forenoons, and if
either of the Drs. Blackwell was prevented by private business from
attending her regular forenoon, I attended in her place.
The strain upon us all, added to the very meager diet, was immense,
and it became a necessity to provide relaxations. So I arranged that
during the summer, once a month, we all went on a picnic during an
afternoon in the hills across the Hudson; and in the winter, once a
month, we went to a good theater which was near by, and where we often
saw Joseph Jefferson, Laura Keene, Karl Formes or Brignoli. These
entertainments were highly refreshing, and, what was very important,
they were cheap; theater prices were then very moderate and simple
picnics were furnished at low rates.
Oh! how delightful were those days, in their youthful enthusiasm and
filled with hopes. They were full of hard work, both day and night, for
our out-door poor practice increased almost faster than the dispensary
morning clinics, but a few leisure hours once in a while were enjoyed
as we had never before in our lives enjoyed the most desirable events
or festivities.
Also, we were patronized by those families who, in favor of our medical
work as reformers, often invited us to their receptions where we
enjoyed intellectual diversion. Among others already mentioned were
the Sunday evenings at the house of the sisters, Alice and Phœbe Cary,
where distinguished men and women filled the homelike parlors and
partook of plenty of ice water as refreshment.
Another house open to us was that of Mrs. Oakes Smith, where art and
literature were represented. Another was that of the leading lady of
fashion, Mrs. Cole, where whist and music formed the entertaining
pleasures. Here I felt especially at home with Mr. George Hildreth as
whist partner, his being almost deaf giving me a fine opportunity to be
diverted without exertion when too tired even to talk.
To be seen and noticed in these circles was an advantage to medical
women and to our little hospital, for, in spite of our very simple
diet and the plain living of the patients, we were always in debt; and
we had to make great efforts to raise money, holding even a little
Sale again before Christmas. This Sale was held in our own wards,
the patients being removed for a whole week, but we raised the two
thousand, six hundred dollars which was the cost of our first year’s
experiment, not including the rent which was pledged, as already told.
It was a great oversight and much to be regretted, that we considered
this hospital experiment and ourselves of so little importance in
themselves that no printed report had been preserved until the year
1868, that is, eleven years from the time we opened the Infirmary.
I have also only very imperfect private notes, but I find that the
expense, all in all, including the board of the students, was a little
over two thousand, six hundred dollars, from May 1, 1857, to May 1,
1858; and that the average morning dispensary attendance was thirty;
while the in-door patients were about one hundred during the year. But
we had a very large out-door practice, one of the four students alone,
Dr. Mary E. Breed, attending fourteen cases of childbed in one month;
while I was often sent for in the night to assist them with advice when
their knowledge was not sufficient.
The practical gain to these young women was so great that they were
not only devoted, hardworking and conscientious in their professional
duties, but they were more than willing to bear great physical
discomfort, as well as the ridicule which they encountered when they
attempted to demand the recognition and the respect due to their
calling. Everywhere among the better situated people, they met with
discouraging remarks and questions, giving evidence that the opinion
was that the practice of medicine by women would, in the course
of time, be impossible, even if the present few were received as
exceptions, or as the novelties of a fad. And the greatest tact was
called for in accommodating ourselves and our work to the need of even
the poorest people.
I may here describe one picture which memory recalls. Dr. Breed had
been attending a difficult case of childbirth, in a negro quarter, and
she called on me for consultation and assistance.
I entered a room which seemed filled with people of all sizes, and with
faces shading from pitch black through all colors to what seemed pure
Caucasian. This latter was the woman in the corner, near the table on
which stood the lamp, and she was just being delivered of a mulatto
baby by the doctor.
The rest of the swarm were both male and female, of whom the woman in
the corner claimed eight or more. We did not concern ourselves with the
relationship of the remainder, as they all seemed perfectly healthy and
did not require our attention. It seems to me that there must have been
about twenty-four persons in that room, to judge from the number of
beds and the air.
We medical women all went home together at about one o’clock in the
morning. It is strange to say but we had no fear about going to these
squalid places, and there really was no need of fear either.
The greatest politeness and attention was given to our students when
they were once accepted and, as in this case, the young doctor had to
be nurse and comforter during the whole day, as well as doctor at the
moment of crisis.
She felt quite safe during her stay and was provided with fresh
milk--which she drank from the tin can of the store in which it was
bought; and she ate the pie from the paper in which it was wrapped. She
felt strong and at ease, and happy to have the opportunity to exercise
her best influence during the twenty hours of her stay--which may or
may not have sowed some seed for the better.
At any rate, gratefulness was gained in more than one way, for this
kind of people being more or less under the control of the police and
of missionaries at large, did much to spread a good reputation for us
and for our work. In this way, women physicians became known and sought
by just the class in whom they were interested and among whom they
desired to work.
The need for the friendliness of the police towards us I can illustrate
here also. A woman died in the hospital after childbirth. We had
informed the many relations whom the poor and forsaken usually possess
of the seriousness of the case. There was always one woman of the
kinship at the bedside of the patient for about sixty hours before the
death, which took place in the forenoon.
It was not an hour after this sad occurrence before all the cousins
who had relieved each other at the bedside appeared, with their male
cousins or husbands in working attire and with pickaxes and shovels,
before our street door, demanding admission and shouting that the
female physicians who resided within were killing women in childbirth
with cold water.
Of course, an immense crowd collected, filling the block between us and
Broadway, hooting and yelling and trying to push in the doors, both on
the street and in the yard; so that we were beleaguered in such a way
that no communication with the outside was possible. We could not call
to the people who were looking out of the windows in the neighboring
houses, our voices being drowned by the noise of the mob.
At this juncture the policeman who had charge of Bleecker Street and
the one from Broadway came running up to the scene. On learning the
complaint of the men, they commanded silence and ordered the crowd to
disperse, telling them that they knew the doctors in that hospital
treated the patients in the best possible way, and that no doctor could
keep everybody from dying some time.