From: "Woman As Physician" by Rev. H. B. Elliott, in Eminent women of the age being narratives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present generation. By James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, Prof. James M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, etc. 1868.
In the subject of the previous sketch, our attention was directed to one whom native tendencies and favoring circumstances so combined to lead to the chosen pursuit, that her engagement in it was, from childhood, almost a foregone conclusion; and it would have required a strong compulsion to divert her from it. In the lady whose name we now present, we observe very different elements of character, and different influences prompting to a similar course. Miss Blackwell is of English parentage, and was born at Bristol, England, in the year 1821. Her father moved to the United States in 1831, and first established himself in business at New York. In accordance with his circumstances and views, his children had at that time every advantage for a liberal education. Proving unsuccessful in his enterprises, he removed to Cincinnati, hoping there to retrieve his fortunes, but died in 1837, leaving his family among strangers to depend entirely upon their own efforts for support. Elizabeth, with well-matured mind, and already developing the energy which has since so thoroughly characterized her, though but seventeen years of age, opened a school, which she sustained satisfactorily several years.
An apparently slight occurrence directed her attention to the study of medicine. A female friend, afflicted with a distressing disease, expressed her keen regret that there was no one of her own sex to whom she and other like sufferers could resort for treatment. There were women who had assumed the medical title, but without authority, and with little claim to confidence. Most of them, also, were of disreputable character, and their practice not only unreliable, but largely criminal. Her friend, appreciating Miss Blackwell's abilities, and knowing that she had yet no settled aim in life, urged upon her the duty of devoting herself to this object, rescuing the title as applied to women from reproach, and meeting a want which multitudes painfully felt.
The suggestion was immediately repelled, as utterly repugnant to her tastes and habits. She had a peculiar and extreme aversion to anything connected with the sick-room, or with the human body in its infirmities. Even the ordinary physical sciences were uncongenial to her. Metaphysics and moral philosophy, the abstract sciences, accorded far more with her inclinations. Pressed upon her, however, as a question for conscientious consideration, and, with characteristic firmness, setting aside personal preferences, she soon decided that the call upon her was providential, and her duty plain. The opprobrium to be encountered and the difficulties to be surmounted only deepened her determination.
Writing for advice to six different physicians in different parts of the country, their invariable reply was, that the object, though desirable, was impracticable; "utterly impossible for a woman to obtain a medical education. The idea eccentric and utopian." Her reasoning from such counsel was brief, and her conclusion peculiar. "A desirable object, a good thing, to be done, said to be impossible. I will do it."
