_Dr. Blackwell goes to England for vacation--Dr. Zakrzewska’s health
suffers under increased strain--Goes to Boston for vacation--Is there
urged to become professor of obstetrics in the New England Female
Medical College, and to establish a hospital for this college--Accepts
offer and removes to Boston. (Twenty-nine years of age: 1859.)_
New Year’s Day, 1859, was a very cold one, bleak winds prevailing
after a snowstorm. A number of invitations were extended to us by
friends, who did not simply array their houses for callers bringing
their congratulations in Dutch fashion and receiving the customary
refreshments. I decided to accept the hospitality of Mrs. and Mr. Booth
in Williamsburg, the home of our friend and companion, Mary L. Booth,
while the rest of the household was treated to a dinner of roast goose
which kind patrons had provided. We never could have thought of such
luxuries ourselves, nor on Thanksgiving Day nor Christmas, either.
However, we never suffered for the want of them--they always appeared
in due time on these holidays.
This furnishes proof that it is a pleasure to be kind and that there
are more good people in the world than we may realize. If only one half
of humanity could be brought into absolute contact individually with
the other half which is neglected, degraded and discouraged, there
is no doubt that we would witness the same equalization in the large
cities as that which prevails in the country towns and villages. Not
that there is no difference of subsistence in these latter, but the
absolute poverty is not to be found in them as we find it in the former.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell now went to England for a vacation and to visit
old friends. Her absence caused an increase in work and responsibility,
as Dr. Emily and myself had to divide the work which she had done in
the dispensary. This increase was just the little more which I could
not bear, and the sick headaches returned so often and with such
violence that I had to relinquish a good deal of supervision to my head
nurse, and finally I was obliged to keep to my bed for a whole week.
When they were visiting the Infirmary, the Boston friends of woman’s
medical education, of whom I have spoken, had kindly asked me to visit
them. So I concluded to take a short vacation in February, placing my
senior students in charge of the medical work, under the supervision of
Dr. Emily Blackwell.
My visit to Boston, towards the last of February, was exceedingly
interesting. I found that Mr. Samuel E. Sewall, as well as his
associate directors of the _New England Female Medical College_,
had been anxious to add a clinical department to their purely
theoretical school.
And outside friends, who had become interested in me personally as well
as in my plans to aid the education of medical women by training them
in practical work, also were anxious that I should change my place of
residence from New York to Boston and accept the position of organizer
of this clinical department.
The impression which I received when first visiting Boston in 1856
was deepened. And it was exceedingly favorable as to the earnestness
of all the women with whom I came in contact, and as to their desire
to elevate the education of womankind in general and in medicine
especially. I felt that a larger field for my efforts might be opened
there in connection with a medical school rather than in New York where
the two Drs. Blackwell controlled the direction of efforts towards what
seemed to them wisest and best.
Besides, the financial condition of the Infirmary was improving so
steadily that the services which I had been rendering gratuitously
could now be hired; while the medical applicants were of an unusual
talent and more and more willing to make arrangements for a longer
period of service with increased responsibilities, although they still
had to pay their expenses.
Also, my private practice had increased to such an extent that I was
free from debt, having repaid all loans advanced to me during my
studies save the two hundred dollars which the Cleveland society had
expended towards my first year. This, I could not now repay as the
society had dissolved. But I kept this amount to loan to poor students,
without note or interest. Some repaid the loan of fifty dollars or one
hundred dollars from time to time; others, not able perhaps to do so,
are still holding it, and I am unable to say positively who they are
as I did not record the names. I am only sure that these amounts, and
some more, are in their hands. The first one to whom I loaned the whole
two hundred dollars was Dr. Susan Dimock, when she was going to Europe
to study, she repaying it before she made that fatal trip abroad in
1875.
All these considerations influenced me when Boston’s liberal friends
of women, or of “the Cause,” as it was styled, offered me the position
of organizer and head of the clinical department which they were ready
to establish. And the directors of the medical college offered me the
chair of obstetrics in that school, which being my specialty had great
attraction for me.
After hesitating for a long time as to what course to pursue, I went
to Boston in the spring to define in a public address my views and
position in respect to the study of medicine. I found so great a desire
prevailing for the elevation of the medical college for women to the
standard of the male medical colleges and such enthusiasm in respect
to the proposed hospital, that I felt a great desire to make the new
hospital department as useful to the public and to the students as the
New York Infirmary had become.
The chance of being able to carry out my own plans of work instead of
being simply assistant to the Drs. Blackwell was a final temptation,
and after inquiries and consultations with Dr. Emily I decided in
May to accept the offered position and to remove at once to Boston.
My decision was aided by two facts: the first, that Dr. Blackwell’s
absence had proved that the Infirmary could be sustained by two
doctors, not only without loss but with a continuance of its steady
increase, this latter being the consequence of the good already done
to the community through its ministrations. And the second was that my
health was becoming uncertain under the strain of the work which, by
virtue of necessity as well as of habit, would remain my share in New
York.
Having fulfilled my promise of contribution to the Infirmary of two
years’ gratuitous services and having put everything in order and
divided the duties which I had been discharging, I left the Infirmary
on June 1, 1859, taking a short vacation in New York but arriving in
Boston on the sixth, as I found to my great disappointment that no
short vacation would bring back the strength which I had wasted in my
zeal to advance “the Cause” more rapidly than the law of evolution
permits.
Thus ended my New York career. I left feeling that I could be spared,
although the breaking up of several true friendships saddened the
departure. Of all the friends, Mary L. Booth was the dearest to me. It
is not through blood kinship that we feel the strongest; nay, we may
even feel no affinity at all towards the sisters and brothers we so
love, while the few kindred spirits we meet fill our souls with life
and inspiration.
The few friends to whom I was thus sincerely attached remained such for
life, and the professional affinities stand to-day in the same relation
to me as when we were young, while a few non-professional New York
friends find time and opportunity to meet me occasionally to exchange
reminiscences of the golden days of our youth.
About this date, there were already a goodly number of women upon whom
the degree of M.D. had been legally conferred, but the minds of those
who understood the conditions which prevailed were far from being
satisfied with results.
Recognition in the profession and opportunities for a good education
for others who wished to cultivate this field of labor were our aims.
And so we labored on, the Drs. Blackwell and myself in New York and Dr.
Ann Preston in Philadelphia--the latter for the “college,” and all the
former for the “hospital” education of female students.
Meanwhile, a number of spurious institutions proclaiming the same aim
had sprung up like weeds which threatened to choke the wheat in the
field. After the interest of a few high-minded male physicians had
been secured, the battle with and against these institutions had to be
fought--and it is still to be fought.
The best of these secondary institutions existed in Boston, and it
was thither that I was going with the hopefulness which befits the
missionary spirit.
[As has been elsewhere stated, most of the preceding chapters were
written by Dr. Zakrzewska in a letter to her friend, Miss Mary L.
Booth, in New York. And she closes this letter with the paragraphs
which follow.]
... I could not refrain from writing fully of this part of my life
which has been the object of all my undertakings, and for which I have
borne trials and overcome difficulties which would have crushed nine
out of ten in my position. I do not expect that this will be the end
of my usefulness; but I do expect that I shall not have to write to
you any more of my doings. It was simply in order that you, my friend,
should understand me fully, and because you have so often expressed
a wish to know my life before we met, that I finished this letter.
Now you have me externally and internally, past and present. And,
although there have been many influences besides which have made their
impressions on my peculiar development, yet they are not of a nature
to be spoken of as facts, as, for instance, your friendship for me.
On looking back upon my past life, I may say that I am like a fine
ship that, launched upon high seas, is tossed about by the winds and
waves and steered against contrary currents until finally stranded
upon the shore. There, from the materials a small boat is built, just
strong enough to reach the port into which the ship had expected to
enter with proudly swelling sails. But this ambition is entirely gone
and I care now very little whether or not people recognize what is in
me, so long as the object for which I have lived becomes a reality.
And now, my good friend, I must add one wish before I send these last
few pages to you, namely, that I may be enabled some day to go with
you to Berlin to show you the scenes in which my childhood and youth
were passed, and to teach you on the spot the difference between
Europe and America. All other inducements to return have vanished.
Nearly all the men who aided in promoting my wishes have passed away,
and the only stimulus that now remains to make me want to revisit the
home of my youth, is the wish to wander about there with you and
perhaps with two or three other of my American friends. Until this can
be accomplished, I hope to continue my present work in the New England
Female Medical College which, though by no means yet what we wish it
to be, is deserving of every effort to raise it to the position that
it ought to take among the medical institutions of America.