|
Most Bristolians
will probably never have heard of Elizabeth Blackwell. But this
remarkable woman, born in Bristol in 1821, has played an incredible
role in the history of modern medicine.
For Blackwell
was America's first female doctor, and the first woman ever to have
her name placed on the British Medical Register.
 |
| The
idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect
of a great moral struggle
i |
 |
| Elizabeth
Blackwell |
A contemporary
of Florence Nightingale, Blackwell was born into a wealthy Bristol
family.
Her parents
Samuel and Hannah Blackwell were the affluent owners of a sugar
refinery in the city. Unusually for the time her father insisted
she and her four sisters and four brothers were equally well educated.
But business did not go well for Samuel Blackwell, and after a series
of money problems he decided to take his family to the New World
where he hoped there would be new business opportunities.
After a grim
seven week voyage to the Americas, 11-year-old Elizabeth and rest
of the Blackwell family settled in New York. But their financial
affairs grew more precarious and they were forced to up-sticks to
Cincinnati.
Samuel died
there the following year, and the family had to take in lodgers
and teach local children from their home in order to make ends meet.
 |
| Geneva
College c1840 courtesy Archives/Warren Hunting Smith Library/Hobart
and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York. |
Although women
of the day would usually spend their time trying to attract a husband,
Blackwell instead became determined to study medicine.
After privately
studying with male doctors who approved of her calling, she attempted
to get accepted to medical school. 16 rejections later, at the age
of 27, she finally gained admittance to the Geneva College in New
York.
But her problems
did not end there. Her fellow students were openly hostile to her
and the women of the town thought her bad or mad and kept away.
Even when she gained her degree in 1849, the first ever woman to
do so in America, she was still not accepted and could not find
a job.
|
Hopes
of a surgical career are dashed
|
Instead she
journeyed to Paris where she studied midwifery at La Maternite.
But tragedy struck, and while treating a young child with an eye
infection some pus accidentally splashed into her own eyes.
She later lost the sight in one eye, putting paid to the surgical
career she had hoped to follow.
 |
| The original
medical register at Geneva College naming Elizabeth Blackwell
as a student. Courtesy Archives/Warren Hunting Smith Library/Hobart
and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York. |
But she was
determined to continue to practice medicine, and improve both the
lot of women in her chosen field and the general lack of hygiene
in the profession.
Returning to
New York Blackwell wrote and lectured about the importance of proper
nutrition and sanitation. She adopted a young Irish orphan and found
favour with the Quakers who began to come to her for treatment.
She established
a clinic for poor women along with her sister Emily, who had also
become a doctor. This clinic became the New York Infirmary for Indigent
Women and Children and still exists today as the New York Infirmary/
Beckman Downtown Hospital.
|
"Lady
doctors were killing their patients"
|
The new hospital's
beds were full within a month, although the first couple of times
a patient died mobs attacked the building convinced the "lady
doctors were killing their patients."
 |
| A bronze
statue of Dr Blackwell in the grounds of Geneva College. (Courtesy
Archives/Warren Hunting Smith Library/Hobart and William Smith
Colleges, Geneva, New York) |
Blackwell returned
to England to further the women's cause there. She become the first
woman to have her name on the British Medical Register and was a
pioneer for British women hoping to become doctors.
She helped
establish the National Health Society in 1871 and became a professor
of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Women (now the
Royal Free Hospital).
After a full
life Elizabeth Blackwell, one of Bristol's most influential daughters,
and an American legend, died in Hastings in 1910 at the grand age
of 81.
A true pioneer
and a great Bristolian.
|
Motorway
gridlock special
