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THE MYSTERIES OF MONTREAL
BEING RECOLLECTIONS OF A FEMALE PHYSICIAN.
By Charlotte Fuhrer
Truth is Stranger than Fiction
MONTREAL
INTRODUCTION
During a long practice of over thirty years I have seen many things
enacted here in this city of Montreal which, if told with the skill of
a Dumas or a Collins, might not only astonish but startle the sedate
residents of this Church-going community. I have often, while waiting
for the advent of a little midnight visitor, beguiled the weary hours
with a narrative of some of my experiences, and have been amused at the
expression on the faces of my fair patients when told that my memory,
and not my imagination, had been drawn upon for materials. Enquiry
having frequently been made as to whether my recollections were
published, I have been induced to print this volume, changing only names
of persons and localities, so as to avoid identification. Many persons
will find it hard to believe some of the occurrences which are herein
mentioned, but those who have been concerned (directly or indirectly)
with any of the parties to my narratives, will recognize, under the
disguise of a false name, some person with whose history they are
familiar. Should any discover his own actions here narrated, let him not
think that I have wantonly endeavored to open old sores, but rather to
warn others from taking that first false step which so often leads to
future misery and bitter remorse.
MONTREAL, May, 1881
CHAPTER I.
Early Life and Professional Struggles.
My father, an officer in the Hanoverian Army, having died while I was
almost a child, I found myself, at the age of 17, governess in the
family of the Baron Grovestein in Hamburg, Germany, where I met
my present husband, Gustav Schroeder, at that time one of the most
“eligible” young gentlemen in that city.
Though not particularly handsome, Gustav was all that could be desired
in other respects. He was young, well educated, and the son of wealthy
parents, and of an amiable disposition. Soon after my engagement at the
Baron’s, young Schroeder’s visits (ostensibly to the family) became
so frequent, that his friends, who had divined the cause, forbade his
having anything to say to me, more than cold civility demanded;
and insisted that his visits to the Grovestein mansion should be
discontinued. This, it may well be supposed, had quite the opposite
effect, and in a short time we were engaged to be married, with the
formal, if not the hearty approval of Gustav’s relations, and in course
of time the marriage ceremony took place, with all the paraphernalia of
an _Alt-Deutsch Hochzeitsfest_.
Now, however, came the question: How are we to live! for my husband
had no settled profession, and his parents, though wealthy, could not
deprive their more obedient children of their rights to benefit the
perverse Gustav. They gave him sufficient to start him in business, with
the understanding that he would emigrate to America, their idea being
that a German gentleman with a little capital could not fail to make
a fortune among the comparatively illiterate Columbians. To New York
accordingly we came, and Gustav labored assiduously to establish a
business as importer of German manufactures; he soon found, however,
that men who did not know Horace from Euripides could drive closer
bargains, and make quicker sales than he could, and, as he was too proud
to compound with his correspondents in the old country, and insisted on
conscientiously paying a hundred cents for a dollar, we found ourselves
in less than three years, with diminished capital in specie, and an
increased one as regards future candidates for the Presidency, on our
way back to our common Fatherland. Through the influence of his friends,
Gustav procured a good situation in a merchant’s office, but he was
altogether unsuited both by temperament and education for such a
position, and I soon made up my mind that I must either prepare to enter
the world’s great battlefield in person, or live in helpless dependence
on my husband’s relations.
I had often while in America wondered why the ladies of that Republic
(so advanced and enlightened in everything else) should submit to
a practice so revolting, so contrary to all ideas of morality and
refinement as is the system of man-midwifery so widely practiced in the
United States. No German lady would think of permitting the attendance
of a man at her bedside on such an occasion, and though custom in
England seems generally to sanction the absurd practice, yet Her Majesty
Queen Victoria never allows her medical advisers to be in attendance in
any other capacity than that of _consulting_ physicians. I had discussed
the matter frequently with married ladies in New York, and they were
generally agreed, that, could only competent ladies be found in the
United States, man-midwifery would soon cease to be practiced in that
Republic. I accordingly resolved to devote all my energies to the study
of that particular branch of the medical profession, and my efforts were
crowned with success. In two years I obtained a diploma from the Hamburg
University, and soon after prepared to return to America.
[Footnote: Dr. Playfair, President of the Obstetrical Society of London,
in his address delivered in February, 1879, said:--“I confess that it is
with a feeling of regret, something akin to shame, when I reflect that
I am supposed to teach a class of young men the entire subject of
midwifery, and the diseases of women and children, in a short summer
course of something under forty lectures. The thing is a manifest and
ridiculous absurdity, hence we have, of necessity, to omit, year by
year, _at least half of midwifery proper_.”
The Principal of Calcutta Medical College writes Dr. Playfair thus:--“To
what a hideous extent is the practice of midwifery carried on in
England, by utterly unqualified men, whom the unhappy women and their
friends believe to be qualified, and the system in your hospitals sadly
favors this.”
“Yet there are some women who will smother every feeling of modesty and
morality, and trust their lives to one of these licentiates rather than
commit themselves to the care of a thoroughly trained midwife of their
own sex. Surely nothing can be more absurd and irrational.”]
About this time a friend of my husbands’ informed us that the climate
of Canada was very much superior to that of the Eastern States, and much
more like that of Germany, and that in Montreal I would be likely to
find, not only a pleasant city, but a people more European in style
and custom, also a capital field for the exercise of my profession. For
Montreal then we sailed with hearts full of hope, and, being fifty-four
days at sea, I was summoned by the Captain to attend a lady on board
(which I did with the success which has since invariably attended my
efforts), and this was my debut as a professional accoucheur.
On our arrival at Montreal we presented letters of introduction to the
German Consul, and the leading members of the German Society, and I soon
became fully occupied in the exercise of my profession. Dr. X----
(now one of our most distinguished physicians) not only tolerated my
vocation, but, with a magnanimity worthy of his genius and ability, gave
me counsel and advice, and recommended me as highly as possible to his
confrères and the public. Some few resident doctors threw cold water
on my enterprise, but, to their credit be it spoken, the profession at
large treated me invariably with the greatest kindness and courtesy,
shewing thereby a liberality and largeness of heart which is ever the
outcome of real ability.
I was not long installed in my new home when, as we were sitting cosily
round the fire, the door bell was rung furiously, and on my going down
to receive my visitor, I was astonished to find a gentleman with a
newborn baby wrapped in the tail of his broadcloth coat. He said he
was its father, and that the mother had taken suddenly ill before any
provision could be made for its reception, and he implored me to take
it, as he would otherwise feel impelled to throw it in the river.
I thought my heart would break to see the poor infant so ruthlessly
treated, so I took it from him, promising to see it safely to some
charitable institution. He told me his name was Ferguson, that he was
in business in Montreal, and that if I would deposit the child in some
charitable institution and call and see its mother during her recovery,
he would pay all necessary expenses. It was too late that night to go
out with the child, so I prepared some food for its nourishment and
kept it till the next day, resolved to go after dusk and see the Lady
Superior at one of the nunneries, but to my chagrin I discovered that
the nunnery was closed, and I was obliged to return home with the
babe, which, by-the-by, continued to roar lustily all the way, and so
attracted public attention to me (its presumptive mother) that I wept
as bitterly as the child itself, and was heartily sorry that I had
undertaken any such mission.
Next day I set out again in good time, but now a new difficulty awaited
me. The good Sister who received me informed me that only those who
were baptized and received into the Catholic Faith were eligible for
admission. On hearing this I burst into tears; I told her my story, that
the child was not mine, but that I was commissioned by its father to
deliver it to her, and I besought her so earnestly to take it from me
that she very considerately did so, and on my handing her the necessary
fee, she undertook to have it regularly baptized and admitted.
In the evening I called to see the mother; she was lying on a miserable
couch in a low lodging-house in the Quebec suburbs, yet she had about
her the air of a lady, and on her finger glittered a ring set with
brilliants. She wept when I told her how her child was disposed of,
but said that she had no other alternative, as if her father, who was a
lawyer of eminence, had any idea of her predicament, he would cast her
off in shame; that when she first discovered her condition she persuaded
her paramour to make a formal proposal for her hand, but her father was
enraged beyond measure, and threatened her so terribly that she, for a
time at least, put away all thoughts of Ferguson from her mind, and had
not quite decided how to act, when the occurrence took place which led
to the visit aforementioned, and caused the necessity for my attendance.
Miss L---- had barely time to call in a carriage at Ferguson’s office,
and apprise him of her condition, when she was taken ill, and obliged to
procure a lodging with all speed. Ferguson selected the wretched hovel
alluded to, as being away from all chance of discovery by his or her
friends, and after my visit, empowered me to engage a nurse, and make
what other arrangements I could for Miss L----‘s comfort. She managed to
get a confidential friend to telegraph her father from Quebec that she
had arrived in that city, and then sent on a letter and had it mailed
there, stating that she had gone on the steamboat the previous evening
to see some friends off, and, remaining too long on board, was taken
away eastward, but would return on receiving the passage money from
Montreal.
With this story she managed to deceive her otherwise astute father, and
in four days she actually got up and went to her own home in a carriage;
insisting on retiring immediately to her room in consequence of the
nervous excitement and fatigue she had undergone. The nurse I had
engaged to attend her, she on some pretence or another smuggled into
the house as a domestic servant, and so not only managed to have an
attendant, but to keep up a clandestine communication with Ferguson and
the outer world.
In the frantic hope of acquiring a rapid fortune, Ferguson migrated
to New Orleans, but just then the American war broke out, and he was
pressed into the service. Whether he was killed or not Miss L----never
found out; his letters became gradually less frequent, till finally she
lost all trace of him whatever, and she eventually married a wholesale
merchant of this city, who is to this day probably unaware of this
little episode in his wife’s former career. Sometimes I see her in her
carriage driving with liveried servants along St. James street, and
I cannot refrain from thinking of the innocent babe as it lay in poor
Ferguson’s coat-tail.