Of the medical profession, it should be stated, for the encouragement of
women, that there are over three hundred graduates from the several
medical colleges for women; and that there is scarcely a village
throughout the country but has its woman physician, of greater or less
skill. In New-York City, there are many successful physicians beside the
Drs. Blackwell. Dr. Lozier has a practice of $15,000, and owns two fine
houses, earned by her own perseverance. In Orange, N.J., Dr. Fowler is
very popular, and has a paying practice of $5,000 a year. In
Philadelphia is Dr. Hannah Longshore, with a practice worth $10,000 per
annum; then there are Drs. Preston, Tressel, Sartain, Cleveland, and
Myres, with incomes ranging from $5,000 to $2,000. In Utica, N.Y., Dr.
Pamela Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion is Dr. Vail; in
Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In Rochester, Dr. Sarah Dolley numbers
among her patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who, but a few
years ago, ridiculed the idea of a "female physician." Mrs. Dolley's
practice brings her fully $3,000 a year.
Dr. Gleason of Elmira, Dr. Ivison of Ithaca, and Dr. Green, late of
Clifton Springs, who has opened a water-cure somewhere in Western New
York, all have a large amount of practice, and prescribe with the
greatest acceptance for those who favor hydropathic treatment.
At Milwaukee, in the autumn of 1866, I found Dr. Ross. She is one of the
consulting physicians of the Passevant Hospital and of the Orphans'
Home. She has practised with steadily increasing reputation for ten
years. She understands what is due to her position, and has had a hard
struggle with the empirical women of the medical profession that crowd
the great thoroughfares of the West. But she would neither lower her
fees nor abate her requirements to compete with this class. She came of
the best surgical blood. Her grandmother was Mercy Warren, married to
Darling Huntress, of Newbury, and first cousin to General Warren, of
Bunker's Hill. Our famous Boston surgeons of the same family might be
proud of her reputation. She has established her practice and her
character, and would agree with all that I have stated in the body of
this book in regard to the great need of medical societies to guard the
position of well-educated physicians, which is now at the mercy of a
worthless college diploma. Dr. Ross goes to the Paris Exposition of this
year (1867), as an agent for the State of Wisconsin. She deserves the
honor; and the State has done itself credit by the choice. The
professional position of the physicians at the New-England Hospital for
Women and Children in Boston, is also a matter for general
congratulation.
The English Female Medical Society reports (June, 1866) twenty students
and good results.
The physicians of this country have been occupied this winter in
discussing the discovery, by one of their number, of the active
infectant in fever and ague. It has been found in the dust-like spores
of a marsh plant, the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a woman of
rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera, in a microscopic
insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so
minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the
introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen; and the
subject is now under investigation.