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86 ELIZABETH BLACKWELL.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
To The Editors Of The English Woman's Jo...
kav _£ been quite as competent to carry on a mercantile concern , conduct a lawsuitor practise tlie healing artas the greater
number of men whom , they saw engaged in those , avocations ; and they often discussed the possibility of adopting some of those
pursuits as an avenue to fortune for themselves and for others of their sex who should be minded to follow their example . As their
interest in the great social questions of the day gradually deepened , the propriety and necessity of enlarging in some way the sphere of
women ' s activity became more and more evident to them ; the medical profession appearing to them as one in which women—the
mothers , nurses , and first teachers of the human race—were especially qualified by nature to take a useful part , and , consequently ,
as the one in which some innovation might be most hopefully attempted . But these desultory disquisitions were far from
assuming any practical form ; the idea had reached the stage of irationbut made no progress towards any practical result .
asp , In 1844 , the younger branches of the family having reached an at which they were able to take care of themselves , the school
was age given up , and the family dispersed . Some of its members returned to England ; others remained in America , engaged in
various avocations . Meantimea conviction of the important results that would follow
a wider practical , culture , and the opening of a larger sphere , for womenand a determination to devote her life to the
accomplishment of , this end by the adoption of the medical profession , had been taking absorbing possession of Elizabeth ' s mind . Being now
released from the family responsibilities in which she had so long borne her share , she assumed the charge of a large country-school ,
in the state of Kentucky , at a handsome salary , which she carefullhoarded with a view to the carrying out of the project that
was y gradually shaping itself in her mind , and employing every leisure moment in the study of all the medical and anatomical books
within her reach . More than one woman was already in the field , in different parts
of the United States , as a self-constituted " doctor ; " but none of them had ever attempted to legitimate the assumption of the
physician's office for herself , and for her sex , by the achievement of a sound and regular medical education and the conquest of an
orthodox diploma . That such an attempt on her part would inevitably excite oppositionboth in the ranks of the medical profession and
, in society at large , she was fully aware ; but she was none the less resolved to make this attempt , convinced that success must
ultimately crown the effort . Endowed by nature , as has been already shownwith unusual energy and concentration of purpose , perfectly
, unselfish , and with a great amount of practical sagacity and latent
enthusiasm combined with remarkable self-command and the utmost
86 Elizabeth Blackwell.
86 _ELIZABETH BLACKWELL .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1858, page 86, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041858/page/14/
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