WOMAN AS PHYSICIAN.

“Angel of Patience! sent to calm Our feverish brow with cooling palm; To lay the storm of hope and fears, And reconcile life’s smile and tears; The throb of wounded pride to still, And make our own our Father’s will.”—Whittier.

“From the earliest ages the care of the sick has devolved on woman. A group by one of our sculptors, representing Eve with the body of Abel stretched upon her lap, bending over him in bewildered grief, and striving to restore the vital spirit which she can hardly believe to have departed, is a type of the province of the sex ever since pain and death entered the world.

“To be first the vehicle for human life, and then its devoted guardian; to remove or alleviate the physical evils which afflict the race, or to watch their wasting, and tenderly care for all that remains when they have wrought their result—this is her divinely appointed and universally conceded mission.“Were she to refuse it, to forsake her station beside the suffering, the office of medicine and the efforts of the physician would be more than half baffled. And yet, where her post is avowedly so important, she has generally been denied the liberty of understanding much that is involved in its intelligent occupancy. With the human body so largely in her charge from birth to death, she is not allowed to inquire into its marvellous mechanism. With the administering of remedies intrusted to her vigilance and faithfulness, she has not been allowed to investigate the qualities, or even know the names or the operations of those substances committed to her use. To be a student with scientific thoroughness, and to practise independently with what she has thus acquired, has been regarded as unseemly, or as beyond her capacity, or as an invasion of prerogatives claimed exclusively for men.

“Indeed, the whole domain of medicine has been ‘pre-empted’ by men, and in their ‘squatter sovereignty’ they have sturdily warned off the gentler sex.”—Rev. H. B. Elliot, in “Eminent Women of the Age.”

It seems to my mind, and ought to every thinking mind, to be ridiculously absurd that “man born of woman” should set up his authority against woman understanding “herself.” “Man, know thyself,” is stereotyped, but if it ever was put in type form for “woman to know herself,” it has long since been “pied.”

“Search the Scriptures,” and you would never mistrust that “eternal life,” or any other life, came, or existed a day, through woman. Mythological writers, who come next to scriptural, give woman no credit in medical science. We will except Hygeia, the goddess of health, the fabled daughter of Æsculapius. In the medical history of no country does she occupy any prominence. There were “Witches,” “Enchantresses,” “Wise Women,” “Fortune-tellers,” who in every age have existed to no small extent, and under various names have figured in the histories of all nations, receiving the countenance of prince and beggar—but females as physicians, as a class, have never been recognized by nations or governments, or scarcely by communities or individuals.

In searching the memorials of English authors for two hundred years past, we can find but little to disprove the above assertions. In Mr. Jeaffreson’s “Book of Doctors,” the author fails to find memorials of their actions, as female physicians, sufficient to fill a single chapter; and those of whom he has made mention, he discourses of mostly in a ridiculous light, as though entirely out of their sphere, or as being of the coarser sort, and questions “if two score could be rescued from oblivion whom our ancestors intrusted with the care of their invalid wives and children.”

In this connection, let us briefly mention such as are better known in English literature, as doctresses especially as mentioned by Mr. Jeaffreson.

Two ladies, who are immortalized in “Philosophical Transactions for 1694,” were Sarah Hastings and Mrs. French. Another, who received the support of bishops, dukes, lords, countesses, etc., in 1738-9, was Mrs. Joanna Stephens, “an ignorant and vulgar creature.” After enriching herself by her specifics, consisting of a “pill, a powder and a decoction,” she bamboozled the English Parliament into purchasing the secret, for the (then) enormous sum of £5000. “The Powder consists of eggshells and snails, both calcined.”

“The decoction is made by boiling together Alicant soap, swine’s-cresses burnt to a blackness, honey, camomile, fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves.” “The pill consists of snails, wild carrot and burdock seeds, ashen keys, hips, and haws, all burnt to a blackness; soap and honey.”

When we take into consideration the fact that there were no “medical schools for females,” at that day, nor until within the last ten or twelve years, that every female applicant was rejected by the medical colleges of England, and that all female practitioners were held in disrepute by both physician and the public, the above repulsive remedies may not so greatly excite our surprise.

“Crazy Sally.”

The most remarkable woman doctor made mention of in English literature, was Mrs. Mapp, nÉe Sally Wallin. We have collected these facts respecting her origin, character, and career, from Chambers’ Miscellany and the Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1736-7. Hogarth has immortalized her in his “Undertaker’s arms.” She is placed at the top of that picture, between Josh Ward, the Pill doctor, and Chevalier Taylor, the quack oculist. (See page 668.)

She was born in Weltshire, in 169-. Her father was a “bone-setter,” which occupation “run in the family,” like that of the Sweets, of Connecticut, or like the marine whom Mrs. Mapp saw one day, as she, in her carriage, was driving “along the Strand, O.”

Said sailor having a wooden leg, the doctress asked, “How does it happen, fellow, that you’ve a wooden leg.”

“O, easy enough, madam; my father had one before me. It sort o’ runs in the family, marm,” was the laconic reply. From a barefooted school-girl at Weltshire, where Sally obtained barely the rudiments of a common education, she became her father’s assistant in bone-setting and manipulating.

The next we hear of Miss Wallin, is at Epsom, where she became known as “Crazy Sally.” She has been described as a “very coarse, large, vulgar, illiterate, drunken, bawling woman,” “known as a haunter of fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming and abusive, in a state of roaring intoxication.”

It is astonishing as true, that this unattractive specimen of the female sex became so esteemed in Epsom, where she set up as a physician, that the town offered her £100 to remain there a year! The newspapers sounded her praise, the gentry, even, lauded her skill, and physicians witnessed her operations.

“Crazy Sally” awoke one morning and found herself famous. Patients of rank and wealth flocked from every quarter. Attracted by her success and her accumulating wealth, rather than by her beauty or amiable disposition, an Epsom swain made her an offer of marriage, which she, like a woman, accepted. This fellow’s name was Mapp, who lived with her but for a fortnight, during which time he “thrashed her” (or she him, it is not just clear which) “three times,” and appropriating all of her spare change, amounting to five hundred dollars, he took to himself one half of the world, and quietly left her the other. Our informant adds, “She found consolation for her wounded affections in the homage of the world. She became a notoriety of the first water; every day the public journals gave some interesting account of her, and her remarkable operations.”

The Grub Street Journal of that period said, “The remarkable cures of the woman bone-setter, Mrs. Mapp, are too numerous to enumerate. Her bandages are extraordinarily neat, and her dexterity in reducing dislocations and fractures most wonderful. She has cured persons who have been twenty years disabled.” Her patients were both male and female. Some of her most difficult operations were performed before physicians of eminence.

Her carriage was splendid, on the panels of which were emblazoned her coat of arms. Regularly every week she visited London in this magnificent chariot drawn by four superb, cream-white horses, attended by servants, arrayed in gorgeous liveries. She put up at the Grecian Coffee-House, and forthwith her rooms would be thronged by invalids.

Notices of her were not always of the most complimentary sort. Being one day detained by a cart of coal that was unloading in a narrow street of the metropolis, on which occasion she was arrayed in a loosely fitting robe-de-chambre, with large flowing sleeves, which set off her massive proportion most conspicuously, she let down the windows of her carriage, and leaning her bare arms upon the door, she impatiently exclaimed,—

“Fellow, how dare you detain a lady of rank thus?”

“A lady of rank!” sneered the coal-man.

“Yes, you villain!” screamed the enraged doctress. “Don’t you observe the arms of Mrs. Mapp on the carriage?”

“DON’T YOU OBSERVE THE ARMS OF MRS. MAPP?”

“Yes—I do see the arms,” replied the impudent fellow, “and a pair of durned coarse ones they are, to be sure.”

On another occasion she was riding up Old Kent Road, dressed as above described. “Her obesity, immodest attire, intoxication, and dazzling equipage were, in the eyes of the mob, so sure signs of royalty, that she was taken for a court lady, of German origin, and of unpopular repute. The crowd gathered about her carriage, and with oaths and yells were about to demolish the windows with clubs and stones, when the nowise alarmed occupant, like Nellie Gwynn, on a similar occasion, rose in her seat, and, with imprecations more emphatic than polite, exclaimed,—

“—— you! Don’t you know who I am? I am Mrs. Sally Mapp, the celebrated bone-setter of Epsom!”

“This brief address so tickled the humor of the rabble that the lady was permitted to proceed on her way, amid deafening acclamations and laughter.”

This famous woman’s career may be likened to a rocket. She flashed before the people as suddenly, ascended as brilliantly to the zenith of fame, and fell like the burned, blackened stick.

Mrs. Mapp spent her last days in poverty, wretchedness, and obscurity, at “Seven Dials,” where she died almost unattended, on the night of December 22, 1737. Her demise was thus briefly announced in the journals:—

“Died at her lodgings, near Seven Dials, last week, Mrs. Mapp, the once much-talked-of bone-setter of Epsom, so wretchedly poor that the parish was obliged to bury her.”

Mr. Jeaffreson makes mention of two more “female doctors;” one an honest widow, mother of “Chevalier Taylor,” who, at Norwich, carried on a respectable business as an apothecary and doctress, and Mrs. Colonel Blood, who, at Romford, supported herself and son by keeping an apothecary shop.

American Female Physicians.

Perhaps English authors and English readers may be satisfied to allow the above meagre and unenviable array of pretenders to stand on record as the representatives of “female doctors” in their liberal and enlightened country! Americans can boast of a better representative.

While England claims a “Female Medical Society,” and one “Female Medical College,” the United States has several of the former, and three regularly chartered “Female Medical Colleges.” In a recent announcement of the English college, it claims fifty students, “but the aim of the whole movement is at present only to furnish competent midwives.”

The “Maternity Hospital,” of Paris (which existed long before the late Franco-Prussian war, but which we can learn nothing of since the fall of that once beautiful city), “afforded some opportunity for observation, receiving females nominally as students, but they were not allowed to prescribe in the wards, nor were they instructed in regard to the use and properties of the remedies there prescribed. Indeed, they can hardly rise above the position of proficient nurses,” says our informant.

Some few medical colleges of the United States are admitting females on the same footing as the heretofore more favored “lords of creation.”

A female college has been in existence in Philadelphia for above twenty years. The “New England Female Medical College” was chartered in 1856; but the “regular” colleges, as Yale, Harvard, etc., refuse all female applicants.

New York has been more liberal towards the gentler sex. At Geneva, Rochester, Syracuse, and elsewhere, as early as 1849-50, medical schools of the more liberal sort, but of undoubted respectability and legal charters, opened their doors to female students. In 1869 the New York Female Medical College was chartered, since which time more than two hundred ladies have therein received medical instruction.

In all the principal cities of the Union may be found from one to a dozen respectably educated and successful female practitioners, who have attained to some eminence in spite of the opposition of the “faculty,” and the ignorant prejudices of the common people.

It is surprising how early and persistently some men forget that they were “born of woman!” Their contempt of the capabilities of womankind would lead one to suppose them to be ashamed of their own mothers. Mark Twain’s facetious but instructive speech, once delivered before an editorial gathering in Boston, ought to be rehearsed to them daily; yes, and enforced by petticoat government upon their notice till it became stereotyped into their stupid brains. Mark says,

“What, sir, would the peoples of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir,—almighty scarce! (Laughter.) Then let us cherish her; let us protect her; let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy,—our—selves, if we get a chance.

“But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is gracious, lovable, kind of heart, beautiful, worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference. Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially, for each and every one of us has personally known, and loved, and honored the very best of them all,—his own mother!”

Sarah B. Chase, M. D., a respectable and successful female physician of Ohio, gives the following excellent advice:—

“I would not encourage any woman to study medicine, with the expectation of practising, who is not ready and willing—ay, anxious and determined—to go through the same severe drill of preparation, the same thorough discipline, as is required of man before he is crowned with the honors of an M. D.”

A Female Pioneer.

Among the first successful female physicians of Boston, where she was born in 1805, is Harriot K. Hunt, M. D. Her father was a shipping merchant, who, by honesty and uprightness died comparatively poor, for riches are not always to the upright. Her mother is described by Rev. H. B. Elliot, “as one possessing a mind of remarkable qualities, argumentative, practical, independent, and, withal, abounding in tenderness and genial brightness.” In 1830 we find Miss Hunt not only thrown upon her resources for her own livelihood (her father having left but barely the house that gave them shelter to be called their own), but the support and care of an only and invalid sister, somewhat her junior, were also entirely dependent upon her labors. As a school teacher she met the former, as a student and nurse she finally surmounted the latter. “What! more pedagogues turned doctors?”

After nearly three years’ employment of various physicians on the part of the elder sister, and the extreme suffering from the “distressing and complicated disease,” and, what was worse, the “severest forms of prescriptions of the old school of physic” for the same time by the younger sister, the Misses Hunt were led to investigate for themselves. They purchased medical works, which they read early and late.

In 1833 Harriot leased her house, and entered the office of a doctress, Mrs. Mott by name, in the double capacity of secretary and student. The younger sister became a patient of Mrs. Mott’s. The husband of Mrs. Mott was an English physician, who, with his wife to attend the female portion of his patients, had established himself in Boston. Mrs. Mott was without a thorough medical education. “She made extravagant claims to medical skill in the treatment of cases regarded as hopeless.” In 1835 Dr. Mott died, and Mrs. Mott returned to England. Under the treatment of the latter the invalid sister had so much improved in health as to be able to “walk the streets for the first time in three years;” yet where is the “old school doctor,” or the veriest charlatan, that would give her the credit she so seemingly deserved in this case. Both were her opponents. Even the students of the neighboring medical school were “pitted against her.” The old adage respecting his Satanic majesty having the credit due him, did not seem to apply to her case. But Mrs. Mott was more than a match for their cunning, if not for their scientific theorizings, as the following anecdote will show.

“Three wise men of Gotham,” that amiable lady, Mrs. Goose, tells us, “went to sea in a bowl; and had the bowl been stronger, my song would have been longer.” This has its parallel in the three wise students of H——, who laid their wise heads together, and went to see—Mrs. Mott, the doctress, of Hanover Street. One was to pretend that he had some peculiar disease, for which he, with his anxious friends, wished to consult the “wise woman.” They entered the doctor’s office, and demanded to see the doctress. This was an open insult to the woman, as she only gave her attention to females and children. Nevertheless, Mrs. Mott, whose olfactory nerves were not so obtuse as to prevent her from distinguishing the aroma of that peculiar little animal quadruped of the genus Mus, obeyed the summons, and entered the presence of the three wise Æsculapians.

Now the fun began. Not the fun that was to be at the expense of the “ignorant old female quack,” however.

One of the gentlemen arose, and after a profound bow, began, with some embarrassment, to state his case.

“But wait just a moment,” the doctress interrupted. “You intimate that it is a peculiar case. My fee for consultation in such cases is three dollars. Please hand over the money, and proceed.”

This was an unexpected demand. They had thought to have a little fun, expose the woman’s ignorance, and have a “huge thing” to tell to their class-fellows, and not pay for it! Mrs. Mott was a woman, but she possessed powerful magnetic influence, and held fast to the point, viz., her fee for consultation; and to the chagrin of the patient (?), and the astonishment of his chums, the three dollars were paid over to the doctress.

“Now, sir, you will please state your case,” said the lady, pocketing the fee, adjusting her eye-glasses, and seating herself for a consultation.

“Yes. Well—it is a—a peculiar case,” stammered the patient.“You have informed me of that point before. Please proceed,” remarked the doctress with great complacency to the embarrassed fellow.

“It’s a delicate case,” he blushingly replied.

“O, indeed; then step into this private consulting room;” and arising, she led the way to an inner office, where the young man involuntarily followed, greatly to the amusement of the two remaining students, who remarked, “It is getting blamed hot for us here.”

THREE WISE STUDENTS CONSULTING A DOCTRESS.

In a moment, the invalid—greatly improved, one might judge, from his agility,—rushed from the private sanctum with a bound, grasped his hat from the table, exclaiming, “Come on, for God’s sake!” and rushed from the house, followed by his now thoroughly affrighted companions.

“What’s the matter? What did the old tarantula say to you?” demanded the young man’s chums, when well outside of the web into which they had so impudently intruded themselves.“Don’t you ever ask me,” he vociferated. “A —— pretty mess you got me into. But if either of you ever again mistake that old woman for a fool, I hope to God she’ll take you into her private consulting room.”

But to return to Miss Hunt and her sister. In 1855 or ’56 the sisters opened an office in Boston. As with all young physicians without “dead men’s shoes,” professional support, or wealthy and influential friends to back them, patients gathered slowly at first, but with a steady increase, the care of whom soon devolved entirely upon Harriot, as her sister married, and retired from practice.

In 1847 she had an extensive practice among a wealthy and influential class of people, which many an older physician of the sterner sex might envy. With a large practical knowledge, acquired in twelve years’ experience, she applied to Harvard College for permission to attend a course of medical lectures. She was refused admission. In 1850 she again applied. The officers consented this time, but the students offered such objections to the admission of females into their presence, that Miss Hunt generously declined to avail herself of the long-coveted opportunity.

“The Female Medical College,” at Philadelphia, in 1853, granted Miss Hunt an honorary degree.... She is now in the midst of an extensive practice. Miss Hunt has lived a glorious, self-denying life, upholding her sister co-laborers, and the “dignity of the profession,” never demeaning herself by stooping to sell her knowledge, by any of those disreputable practices that mark the avaricious M. D., the charlatan, the parasites, and the leeches of the profession, both male and female.

Among eighty-five “female physicians” (?) of Boston, eighteen claim to be graduates of some college. We know of several who deserve a favorable mention here, but present limits will not admit.

New York Female Doctors.

In New York city there are upwards of two hundred so-called “female physicians,” about eighty per cent. of whom, according to the best authority,—police reports, etc.,—subsist by vampirism! Here, in this chapter, I shall mention a few of the really meritorious ones, reserving the large majority to be “shown up” under the various chapters as “fortune-tellers,” “clairvoyants,” and “astrologers.”

The subject of the following imperfect, because brief, sketch,—Mrs. C. S. Lozier, M. D.,—late of New York city, was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1813. Her maiden name was Clemence S. Harned. Her father was a farmer by occupation, and a member of the Methodist church. Her amiable and excellent mother was a Quakeress. “Why should Mrs. Lozier, a gentle, modest, unambitious, home-loving woman, have chosen the calling of a physician?” asks her biographer. My answer would be, “She was a creature of circumstances.” Another, in view of the facts to be related, would say, “It was her destiny.”

The valuable information which Mrs. Lozier gained, as a Quakeress, amongst that herbalistic people with which she was early associated, with study and practical observation enabled her to “act efficiently as a nurse and attendant upon the sick and afflicted of the neighborhood.”

The elder brother of Miss Clemence, William Harned, was a physician, as also were two of her cousins. In 1830 she was married to Mr. Lozier, and removed to New York. Her husband’s health failing, and having no other support, Mrs. Lozier opened a select school, which she kept successfully till after the death of Mr. Lozier, in 1837.

“During this period she read medicine with her brother. When her pupils were sick, she would generally be called in before a physician. She also was connected with the ‘Moral Reform Society,’ with Mrs. Margaret Pryor, and visited the sick and abandoned, often prescribing for them in sickness.”

Mrs. Lozier graduated at the Eclectic College, of Syracuse, in 1853, having attended her first course of lectures at the Central College, Rochester. From that time until her death, in 1870, she continued to minister to the sick and afflicted in the city of New York.

At the commencement of this article we stated that Mrs. Lozier was a modest woman. This she continued to be to the end. Those leading physicians who often met her in consultation, with the thousands of patients who from time to time have been under her treatment, the students before whom she lectured during several years, the numerous friends who thronged her parlors, and the Christian professors with whom she mingled,—all, all testify to this fact. “She denied both the expediency and practicability of mingling the sexes” in deriving a medical education. “Woman physician for women,” was her motto. It was not always possible for her to refuse to prescribe for male patients, as many can testify. The efforts of some, far down in the scale of life, to connect the name of Mrs. Lozier with those disreputable practices by which the majority of female physicians—the parasites of the profession—subsist, yea, even gain a competence, in this city, and, consequently, respectability,—“for gold buys friends,”—have utterly failed, and her name to-day, as it ever will, stands out boldly as belonging to one who was a self-denying, God-fearing, honorable, and successful female practitioner.

Mrs. Lozier is said to have been a skilful surgeon, “having performed upwards of one hundred and twenty capital operations.” In 1867-8 Mrs. L. visited Europe, where she was received with great marks of esteem by eminent men, and admitted to the hospitals.

Her son, Dr. A. W. Lozier, is in practice in New York city.

Doctors Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell.

The first female who received a medical diploma from any college in the United States was Miss Elizabeth Blackwell.

This lady, who now stands only second in years of experience to Miss Hunt, of Boston, and second to no female in medical knowledge and usefulness, came to this country from England in 1831, when she was ten years of age. [A lady, of whom I made some inquiries respecting the above, assured me “it was only those females who were eligible as nurses, or prospective widowhood, which would make them eligible, were desirous of concealing their true age.”]

Being persuaded that her “mission” was to heal the sick, Miss Elizabeth applied, by writing, to six different physicians for advice as to the best means to obtain an education, and received from all the reply that it was “impracticable,” utterly impossible, for a female to obtain a medical education; “the proposition eccentric,” “Utopian,” etc.

It required just this sort of opposition to draw out the true character, and arouse the hidden abilities of such women as the Misses Blackwell.

Elizabeth, while supporting herself by giving music lessons in Charleston, S. C., received regular medical instruction from S. H. Dixon, M. D., a gentleman and scholar, well known to the entire profession of two continents; also from Drs. John Dixon, Allen, and Warrington, the two latter in Philadelphia. Being considered by these gentlemen competent, Miss Blackwell applied to the medical schools of Philadelphia and New York for admission as a medical student, by all of which she was rejected “because she was a female.” Finally she gained admission to the College at Geneva, N. Y., and graduated in 1848. Are the males the only “oppressors” of the gentler sex? No, no; woman is woman’s own worst enemy.

Miss Blackwell was two years in Geneva, and so violent was the opposition of her own sex, that no lady in Geneva would make her acquaintance while there. “Common civilities at the table, even, were denied me.” Entirely different was the treatment which she received at the hands of the students and professors of the college. “Here she found nothing but friendliness and decorum, and, on the eve of her graduation, the cordiality of the students in making way for her to receive her diploma, and pleasantly indicating their congratulations, was marked and respectful.”

The following morning her parlor was thronged with ladies.

Miss Elizabeth Blackwell visited London and Paris, and was entered as student at St. Bartholomew’s, and also at “La MaternitÉ” (The Maternity).

She returned to New York, and, notwithstanding “she found a blank wall of social and professional antagonism facing the woman physician, which formed a situation of singular loneliness, leaving her without support, respect, or counsel,” she gained a foothold, and a respectable and living practice soon began to flow in and crown her persistent efforts.

Now her sister Emily commenced the study of medicine, first with Elizabeth, subsequently with Dr. Davis, of Cincinnati Medical College. In 1852 she and her sister were permitted to attend upon some of the wards (female, we presume) of Bellevue Hospital. In 1854 Emily graduated at Cleveland College (Eclectic, I think).

Through their united efforts the “New York Infirmary for Women and Children” was established. “Up to the present time over fifty thousand patients have received prescriptions and personal care by this means.” Contrary to Mrs. Lozier, “they are firm in their conviction of the expediency of mingling the sexes in all scholastic training. In their mode of practice they adopt the main features of the ‘regular’ system.” Nearly all other physicians are rather of the Eclectic system. Like Miss Hunt, “she was bound by no regular school, as none had indorsed her.”There are many contemporaries of Miss Hunt and the sisters Blackwell whom we might mention, but the history of one is the history of the whole, so far as early struggles, opposition of the profession, and neglect and disrespect of their own sex, is concerned.

Frances S. Cooke, M. D., of the “Female Medical College,” East Concord Street, Boston, Mrs. Jackson, Lucy Sewall, M. D., recently returned from Europe, and a half-score others of Boston, much deserve more than a passing notice, but our limited space will not permit. Also, Hannah E. Longshore, M. E. Zakezewska, of New York, Miss Jane E. Myers, M. D., Mrs. Mary F. Thomas, M. D. (Camden, Ind.), Miss Ann Preston, M. D., of Philadelphia, Mrs. Annie Bowen, of Chicago, and others, “too numerous to mention,” who, in spite of the opposition from their own sex, from the profession, and the public in general, have gained a name and a competency through their professional efforts.

“A woman’s intellectual incapacity and her physical weakness will ever disqualify her for the duties of the medical profession,” wrote Dr. ——, of Pennsylvania.

Edward H. Dixon, M. D., of New York, in an article published in the “Scalpel” shows, by uncontroverted arguments and facts, that the male child, at birth, “in original organic strength,” holds only an equal chance with the female; that “the chances of health for the two sexes at the outset are equal, and so continue till the period when they first attain the full use of their legs.”

Ask the mother of a family if the labor pains show any respect of sex.

Does not the female show as strong lungs as the male in its earliest disapprobation of this unceremonious world? How about the comparative strength exhibited in the demonstrations of each when the lacteal fluid is not forthcoming in proportion to the appetite?

Let us consult Dr. Dixon further,—and charge it to the females!“We give the girl two years’ start of the boy,—we shall see why as we proceed. Both have endured the torture of bandaging, pinning (pricking), and tight dressing; both have been rocked, jounced on the knee, papped, laudanumed, paregoricked, castor oiled, suffocated with blankets over the head, sweltered with cap and feather bed, roasted at a fire of anthracite, dosed according to the formula of some superannuated doctor or ‘experienced nurse,’ or both, for these people usually hunt in couples, and are very gracious to each other. We give the girl the start to make up for the benefit the boy has derived from chasing the cat, rolling on the floor, or sliding down the balustrade, and the torture she had endured from her sampler, and being compelled to ‘sit up straight, and not be hoidenish.’”

“POH! YOU’RE A GIRL.”

“Well, they are off to school. Observe how circumspectly our little miss must walk, chiding her brother for being ‘too rude.’ He, nothing daunted, (with a ‘Poh! you’re a girl’), starts full tilt after an unlucky pig or a stray dog. If he tumbles into the mud and soils his clothes the result is soon visible in increase of lungs and ruddy cheeks.”“In school the boy has the advantage. The girl ‘mustn’t loll,’ must sit up erect, the limbs hanging down, her feet probably not reaching the floor, and the spinal column must bear the main support for three to six hours! The boy gets relief in ‘shying’ an occasional paper ball across the room, hitching about, and drawing his legs up on the seat, or sticking a pin in his neighbor, and a good run and jump at recess, changing the monotony of the recreation by an occasional fight after school. At dinner the girl has had no exercise to create an appetite, and her meal is made up of pastry and dessert. ‘Remember that her muscles move the limbs, and are composed chiefly of azote, and it is the red meat, or muscle of beef or mutton, that she would eat if she had any appetite for it, that is to say, if her stomach and blood-vessels would endure it. The fact is, the child has fever and loathes meat.’”

While the boy, hat in hand, rushes to the common or rear yard to roll hoop, fly his kite, or, in winter, to skate or coast down hill, the girl is reminded that she has “one whole hour to practise at the piano,” either in a darkened room, from whence all God’s sunshine is excluded, cold and cheerless, or the other extreme—seated near a heated register, from which the dry, poisonous fumes belch forth, destroying the pure oxygen she requires to inflate her narrowing lungs, and increase the fibrine, the muscle, and strength necessary to the exhausting exercise. She closes the day by eating a bit of cake and a plate of preserves.

The hungry, “neglected” boy has returned, and, with swift coursing blood, strength of muscle and brain, catches a glance at his neglected lesson, comprehending it all the quicker by the change he has enjoyed, bawls boisterously for some cold meat, or something hearty, and tumbles into his bed, forgetting to close the door or window; whereas the girl must be attended to her room, “she is so delicate,” and, being tucked well in on a sweltering feather bed, and bound down by heavy blankets, the doors and windows are carefully secured, and, committed to the “care of Providence,” she is left to swelter till to-morrow.

The period for a great change arrives, often catching the poor, uninformed girl completely by surprise. Furthermore, the constant deprivation of her natural requirements—pure air, wholesome, nutritious food, unrestrained limbs and lungs—now become more apparent. In spite of the constant drilling which she has received, she feels exceedingly gauche. Her face is alternately pale and flushed; she suffers from headache,—“a rush of blood to the head.” Stays and tight-lacing have weakened the action of the heart, cut off the circulation to the extremities, and deprived those parts of blood which now require the nutriment necessary to their strength and support in the time of their greatest need.

The ignorant mother sends for a physician, perhaps almost as ignorant as herself; or, what is still worse, being a miserable time-server, seeing the admirable opportunity for making a bill, straightway commences a course of deception and quackery that, if it do not result in the death of the unfortunate patient, leaves her a miserable creature for life, with spinal curvature or consumption; or worse, by confinement and medication destroy her chance of restoration; and should some unlucky and ignorant young man take her as wife, and she become a mother, she surely will drag out a wretched existence as a victim to uterine displacement and its concomitant results.

Physically, morally, and intellectually woman is not born inferior to man. We have briefly shown where and how she has fallen behind in the race of life in a physical view of the matter. The intellectual sense has kept pace only with the physical. Morally woman stands alone; by her own strength or weakness she stands or falls. Man scarcely upholds or encourages her. Her own sex, we have herein-before stated, is woman’s own worst enemy! “Be thou as chaste as ice, or pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny,” and if she fall, who shall restore her? The whole world is against her; one half makes her what she is, the other’s scorn and neglect keeps her thus! The “ballot” will not keep woman from falling, nor raise her when fallen. The “church” does not exempt woman from the wiles of men, nor its adherents raise the fallen to their pristine strength, beauty, and respectability! Though Christ, the lowly, the magnanimous, said, “Neither do I condemn thee,” his followers (?) cannot lay their hands upon their hearts and repeat his gracious words. Where is the fallen woman whom the church (not Roman Catholic) ever took in with that good faith and spirit of sisterly love or brotherly affection, with which a fallen man can, and is, often received into the church and into society?

Echo answers, “Where?”

O, deny this who will! It is no “attack upon the church;” merely a lamentably truthful statement.

The church, like society, withdraws her skirts from contact with the fallen sister. “She is a wreck, drifted upon our shore, for which God holds some one accountable. Not a wreck that can be restored—not a wreck that money or repentance can atone for.” (What! not money? Then surely she is lost, and forever!) “The damage is beyond earthly knowledge to estimate, beyond human power of indemnification. If ever the erring soul shall retrace her steps, it will be Christ himself who shall lead her; if ever peace shall brood again over her spirit, it will be the Comforter who shall send the white-winged dove.

“But the merest lad detects the lost woman. She carries the evidences of her guilt (or misfortune?) in the very clothes she wears, whether she is the richly dressed courtesan of the Bowery, or the beggarly street-walker of the village. There is a delicacy in, and a fine bloom on the nature of woman, which impurity smites with its first breath, and she cannot conceal the loss nor cover the shame!”

“If there be but one spot upon thy name,
One eye thou fearest to meet, one human voice
Whose tones thou shrinkest from, Woman! veil thy face,
And bow thy head and die!”

Then is there no help for woman’s condition in this cold, uncharitable world? you ask, in view of these facts related above. Yes; but it rests with woman. It must begin with the first breath the female infant draws. Educate her from the cradle. Give her the freedom of the boy, the pure air that the boy breathes; not the romping, rude, boisterous plays, perhaps (?), of the boy, but plenty of outdoor exercise, runs, slides, skates, rides; let her laugh, yea shout, if it be in a country place, till the woods ring again with the merry echoes, and the puzzled forest nymphs issue from their invaded retreats, endeavoring to solve the riddle by ocular demonstration which their ears have failed to unravel, viz., the sex, as revealed in the strength of voice and buoyancy of spirits, or expressed in unrestrained laughter!

“O, shocking! How hoidenish!”

Who says to laugh is “hoidenish?” A female invariably! And this is just what we are explaining: women must change tactics as teachers. There is time enough to instruct the young lady, after the girl or the miss has developed muscle, vitalized her blood, and capacitated her brain for the sterner realities of life.

Let women learn to be true teachers of women.

Begin at the beginning. This is the only way. Stand by one another in the reform. Never mind the ballot; don’t try to wear the breeches. No—the male attire I mean.

The superfluous boarding-school education must give place to something more substantial. Mrs. Dashaway is to the point:—“No, Pauline; home eddycation is perferable. If there is a requestred spot on this toad-stool I detest more’n another it is a female cemetery, where bread-and-butter girls are sent and quartered for a finished eddycation; and it does finish most of em.”

“O, no, no, aunty. You mean sequestered spot, and sent quarterly to a seminary.”

“Well, well; you’ve got too many oceans in your head already of Greek and zebra, of itchiology, and other humerous works; as for me, give me pure blood, sound teeth, and a good constitution, and let them what’s got them sort of diseases see the good Samaritan, and ten to eleven if he don’t cure them in less than no time. Land! if Pauline ain’t drummin’ the piany!”

Shall women remain passively resigned to the lamentable physical condition of her sex? or will she see where lies the main difficulty, viz., in a wrong start,—in the superfluous, debilitating, namby-pamby education of the female infant, miss, young lady?

Thoreau wrote that he believed resignation a virtue, but he “rather not practise it unless it became absolutely necessary.”

“Resignation” is unnecessary in this case. Only let every woman arouse her energies, and stand firmly in claiming her “rights” to rightly educate her children, girls as well as boys, showing no respect of sex in their early training, thereby “commencing at the beginning.” What is a house without a good foundation? You may build, and rebuild, and finally it will all topple over, overwhelming you in its ruins.

There is no “right” that woman may claim for herself and sex in general but men must and will concede. Man is not your master. “Habit,” “fashion,” “opinion,” these are your only masters. These shackle woman.

Do women dress for men? to please the opposite sex? or for each other’s eye? “You know just how it is yourself.” Poh! What do men, generally speaking, know of woman’s dress? Absolutely nothing! I boldly assert that not one man in twenty, going out to a call, party, or even a concert or opera, knows the cut and color of the dress of his wife accompanying him. Woman dresses for women’s inspection. Whatever she does for fear or favor of man else, woman dresses for her own sex.

“What will Mrs. Codfish say when she sees this turned dress?”

“Old Codfish,” her husband, is worth at least fifty thousand dollars, and here is Mrs. Copyman, whose husband is as poor as “Job’s turkey,” standing in dread of that woman’s criticism!

Not one male in a thousand can detect a well turned dress, but I defy the most cunning dressmaker to alter, retrim, frill, and “furbelow” a dress that the female eye won’t detect at a glance!

“I rather pay the butcher’s bill than the doctor’s,” says the father.

“O, horrors! Just see that girl swallow the meat! Why, it will make your skin as rough as a grater and as greasy as an Indian’s!” exclaims the mother.

Miss Primrose keeps our village school; she who wears the trailing skirts, and was seen to cut a cherry in two parts before eating it, at the party last week. She almost went into convulsions—not of laughter, as I did—to see Kitty Clover astride a plank, with her brother on the opposite end, playing at “See-saw.”

“Here we go up—up—uppy; and here we go down—down—downy,” they were singing in unison, when “ding, ding, ding!” went the school-bell, followed by a scream from Miss Primrose.

With glowing cheeks—that’s from the exercise—and downcast eye, from fear of Miss Primrose’s anger, Kitty came demurely into the school-room before recess was half over.After a long lecture about her “masculine behavior,” “horrid red countenance,” and “rumpled dress,” and “dishevelled hair,” poor Kitty is sent to her form to “sit up straight, and not forget that she is a young lady hereafter.”

“HERE WE GO UP—UP—UPPY; AND HERE WE GO DOWN—DOWN—DOWNY.”

And what of her brother who was on the other end of the plank? O, he is a boy! “That’s what’s the difference!”

Love and Thoroughwort.

“He’ll never die for love, I know,
He’ll never die for love, nor wear
Upon his brow the marks of care.”

This is a true story, written for this work, but published, by permission of the author, in the “American Union.”“So you believe me totally incapable of truly loving any girl, do you?”

“I most assuredly do,” was my positive answer.

My friend, George Brown, turned and walked away a few paces, looking thoughtfully to the ground. He was a splendid looking man, about twenty years of age; my late school-fellow, my present friend and confidant. He was, what I did not flatter myself as being, a great favorite with the ladies. Handsome, tall, manly, of easy address, a fine singer and dancer, the only impediment to his physical perfection was, when the least excited, a hesitancy of speech—almost a stammer. Finally he turned and walked back to me, saying,—

“Now, Ad, if you will agree to a proposition I have to offer, I will disprove your assertion, so oft repeated, that I never loved—not even that dear girl, Jenny Kingsbury.”

“First let me hear your proposition.”

“You have long desired to visit Bangor?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Let us harness ‘Simon’ early some fine morning for that delightful city; go by the way of B. and O., stop and see Jenny, who I have learned by roundabout inquiry resides with her aunt in the latter place. And,” he added, triumphantly, “see for yourself if she isn’t a girl to be loved.”

“O, no doubt Jenny Kingsbury ‘is a girl to be loved;’ so was Addie, and so was ’Ria, and a dozen others, whom you have sworn you loved so devotedly. O George, out upon your affections.”

“Will—will—you go? That’s the question.”

“Yes—I will go—because I wish to visit Bangor very much,” was my reply; and the time was at once set for the journey, which was to occupy two days.

Mrs. Brown, the mother of my friend George, was a devout Christian. She believed in her Bible. Moreover, she was an excellent nurse, and next to her Bible, believed in thoroughwort. Thoroughwort tea, or thoroughwort syrup, was her panacea for all the ills, physical or moral, that ever was, or could be, detailed upon poor humanity.

“Before you start, boys—”

“Boys! Where are your men?” interrupted George.

“Hear me!” continued Mrs. Brown. “Before you start for Bangor to-morrow morning, do you take a good drink of that thoroughwort syrup in the large jar on the first shelf in the pantry. It’ll keep out the cold; for there’ll be frost to-night, I think, and at five o’clock in the morning the air will be sharp. O, there is nothing equal to thoroughwort for keeping out the cold.”

“Anything to eat in that pantry?” asked George, with a wink tipped to me. You see I was to sleep with him that night, preparatory to an early start for Bangor.

“Yes, some cold meat, bread, and a pie. But don’t forget to first take a dose of the thoroughwort syrup. Addison, you bear it in mind, for George is awful forgetful, especially about taking his thoroughwort.” And Mrs. Brown detained us fully fifteen minutes, as she rehearsed the remarkable qualities of her favorite remedy,—“particularly for keeping out cold.”

“Mother thinks that condemnable stuff is meat, drink, and clothing,” remarked George, as we sought the pantry at an early hour on the following morning, not for the thoroughwort, but for sandwiches, pies, and the like.

“Let me take a taste of the ‘stuff,’” I said, as I noticed the jar so conveniently at hand.

“O, no; not on an empty stomach. It will make you throw up Jonah if you do,” exclaimed George, with an expression of disgust distorting his features. “Eat something first, and then, if you want to taste the condemned ‘stuff,’ do so, and the Lord be with you,” he added, pitching into the eatables.

Having made away with the pie, and much of the sandwiches, we turned our attention for a moment to the thoroughwort syrup. I took a taste, and George spilled a quantity on the shelf, “that mother may know we have been to the jar,” he remarked, as we left the pantry.

It was not yet five o’clock when we drove noiselessly away from the door. If I remember rightly, we were not noiseless after that. The morning was delightful, slightly cool,—but that was no impediment to our warm blood, owing to the thoroughwort,—and we sped on in an exuberant flow of spirits. “Simon” was in excellent travelling order, and went without whip or spur. We should have reached the village of B., where we were to breakfast, and bait Simon, by eight o’clock, but George would insist on making the acquaintance, nolens volens, of half the farmers on the road, ostensibly to inquire the way to B.

“Hallo!” he shouted, reining up Simon before a small farm-house. Up flew a window, and out popped a nightcapped head.

“What d’ye want?” called a feminine voice. It was now hardly daylight, and the person could not distinguish us.

“Excuse me, madam, for disturbing your slumbers; but can you inform a stranger if this is the right road to B.?” asked George, in his most pleasing manner.

“O, yes; keep right on; take the first left hand road to the top o’ the hill; then go on till yer—”

We drove away, not waiting for the rest.

“Do you suppose that old woman is talking there now, with her nightcapped head poked out of the window?” asked George, as we reached the hotel at B.

“For shame!” said I. “Waking up all the people on the road, to inquire the way, with which you were perfectly familiar!”

From B. our route lay along the western bank of the beautiful Penobscot. I need not detain you while I rehearse the delightful scenery en route to Bangor; the variegated and gorgeous splendors of the autumnal leaves; the bending boughs, from the abundant ripened fruit, in colors of red, orange, and yellow on one hand, and on the other the bright, glassy waters of the broad river, dotted here and there by the white sails of boats and vessels lying becalmed in the morning sunshine.

We reached the village of O., and George made inquiry for the residence of Mr. Kingsbury.

“The large white house just across the bridge.”

“Thank you.” And we drove up to the front yard.

“Ne-ne-now, Ad, you go up and knock, and call for Miss Kingsbury; ye-ye-you know I st-stutter when I get ex-ex-cited,” said George, hitching Simon to the horse-post.

“What shall I say to her? and how shall I know Miss Kingsbury from any other lady?”

“O, ask for her. I’ll compose myself, and follow ri-right up. You’ll know her from the description I have given you. Black eyes and hair, full form—O, there is nobody else like her. Come, go up and call for her.”

“Well, I’ll go; and if I get stuck, come quickly to my rescue,” I said, turning to the house. “Is Miss Kingsbury at home?” I asked of the young lady who answered my knock. “This person is surely not Miss Jenny,” I said to myself; “cross-eyed, blue at that, and light, almost red hair.” She smiled, took a second look at me, and said,—

“Who?”

“Miss Jenny Kingsbury,” I repeated.

“Well—yes—I guess she is. Will you walk in?”

“No, thank you. Will you please call her out?” And so saying, I beckoned to George.

The girl closed the door, and I called to George “to make haste and change places with me.” He came up just as the door reopened, and a beautiful dark-eyed woman appeared, whom he greeted as Miss Kingsbury.

“I’ll see to the horse,” I said; and having taken a hurried glance at the young lady, I withdrew. For a full half hour I walked up and down beneath the maples in front of the house, watched the steamer Penobscot, as she came up the river, and from thence turned my attention to a schooner that was endeavoring to enter the cove, not far from the house. A light breeze had sprung up from the westward, and the channel being narrow, there seemed much difficulty in gaining the harbor.

Finally George came to the door and beckoned me. I went in, and received an introduction to Mrs. Kingsbury and to Jenny.

“O, but she is beautiful,” I whispered to George.

He was flushed and excited, consequently stammered some, and I was compelled to keep up a conversation, but I did not feel easy. Something was wrong. I detected more than one sly wink between aunt and niece, and when the cross-eyed miss came into the room, I could not tell whom she was glancing at, as her eyes “looked forty ways for Sunday,” but she leered perceptibly towards first one, then the other of the ladies. I hinted to George that we must not delay longer. Still he tarried. Mrs. Kingsbury seemed interested in the movements of the schooner in the mouth of the cove. Miss Jenny was interested in George. I was interested in getting away from them all. Finally the schooner was moored to the wharf, and, standing at the window, I noticed a sailor, with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, approaching the house. A whisper passed between aunt and niece, and the latter asked George to accompany her into an adjoining room.

It was now past noon. A pleasant, savory smell came up from the kitchen, but no one asked me to put up the horse, and stay to dinner.

The man with the bundle came familiarly into the yard. Soon George returned alone to the room, and seizing his hat, he stammered, “C-c-come, Ad,” and rushed from the house.Mrs. Kingsbury attended me to the door, and wished me a pleasant ride to Bangor. George jumped into the buggy, seized the reins, and giving a cut upon the horse, bawled, “Go on, Simon.”

“Hold on. First let me unhitch him,” I cried, seizing the spirited beast by the bridle. I unfastened the halter, and jumped into the carriage; and away flew Simon, snorting and irritated under the unnecessary cuts he had received from the whip. At the first corner George took the back road towards B.

“Not that way! Hold on, and turn about,” I exclaimed, catching at the reins. “Now stop and tell me all about it. Did you propose to Jenny? Has she accepted, and are you beside yourself with ecstatic joy? Come, tell me.”

“Ho! Simon.” And laying down the reins, George drew out his wallet, and taking therefrom a bit of silk goods, he turned upon my astonished gaze a woe-begone look, and said,—

“Ad, she’s mum-mum-married—”

“Married!”

“Yes, married; and there’s a piece of her wedding gown. The fellow you saw come in while there, with the bundle on a stick,—the land-lubberish-looking fellow,—was her husband. O my God! Did you ever?” And so relieving his mind, he caught the reins and whip, and away darted Simon at a fearful rate of speed.

At Bangor I said to George,—

“Well, there probably is no love lost on either side. She sold out at the first bid, and you never had the least hold on her affections.”

“Ah, I have had her confidence in too many moonlight walks to believe that,” was his reply.

“And it was all moonshine,—that’s evident,” I said.

“No, no; I wish it was. I never shall love again,” said George, with a deep sigh, and a sorry-looking cast of countenance.“No, I suppose not,” was my non-consoling reply.

“Still, do you believe I never loved that darling girl?” he asked, almost in a rage. “If that man—that fellow—should die with the autumn leaves, I would at once marry Jenny, who loves me still,” he exclaimed, pacing the room like an enraged lion.

“He won’t die, however. He looks healthy and robust, and will outlive you and your affection for his wife,” I replied, with a derisive laugh.

It rained the next afternoon, as we returned home by a shorter route than via O. and B. George talked a great deal of Jenny on the way back, and said he never should get over this fearful disappointment.

“Only think of the lovely Jenny Kingsbury marrying that fellow with the bundle and the stick! O, I shall be sick over it; I know I shall.”

“Especially if you take a bad cold riding in this storm,” I added, by way of consolation. “However, you can take some of your mother’s good thoroughwort—”

“Confound the thoroughwort,” he interrupted.

---

“Did you know that George is sick?” asked his little brother of me the following day.

“No. Is he much sick?” I inquired, in alarm.

“O, yes; he’s awful sick—or was last night; and mother fooled him on a dose of fresh thererwort tea, which only made him sicker,” replied the little chap, turning up his nose in disgust.

“Is he better now?” I inquired.

“O, yes; ever so much now. I don’t know what ma called the disease he’s got; but howsomever she said thererwort was good for it, and I guess it is, ’cause he’s better.”

I was called away, and did not see my friend George till a week after our return from the little trip to B. He never mentioned Jenny afterwards, nor said a word about the thoroughwort tea. He took to horses after that, and eventually married a poor, unpretending girl, quite unlike the dark-eyed, beautiful, and wealthy Miss Jenny Kingsbury.

Mrs. Brown still recommends her favorite panacea for all ails, physical or moral; but whenever she mentions it in George’s presence, he exclaims, with a look of disgust,—

“O, confound the thoroughwort!”

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