The Funny Side of Physic Part 14

The writer was on a Fulton ferry boat in the winter of 1857, when a similar scene occurred. A German woman was taken in pain. A whisper was pa.s.sed to a female pa.s.senger; a policeman was summoned from outside the ladies' (?) cabin; the male occupants were ejected,--even myself and another medical student, and the husband of the patient. The latter remonstrated, and demonstrated his objection to the momentary separation by beating and shouting at the saloon door.

"Katharina! Katharina!" he shouted, "keep up a steef upper lips!"

This roaring attracted nearly all the men from the opposite side of the boat, who crowded around him and the door, to learn the cause of the Teutonic demonstrations of alternate fear, anger, and encouragement.

"Got in himmel! Vere you leefs ven you's t' home? Vich a man can't come mit his vife, altogedder? Hopen de door, unt I preaks him mit mine feest; don't it?" So he kept on, alternately cursing the policeman and encouraging "Katharina," till we reached the Brooklyn side, and left the ferry boat.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

V.

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.

HER "MISSION."--NO PLACE IN MEDICAL HISTORY.--ONE OF THEM.--MRS.

STEPHENS.--"CRAZY SALLY."--RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.--RUNS IN THE FAMILY.--ANECDOTES.--"WHICH GOT THRASHED?"--A WRETCHED END.--AMERICAN FEMALE PHYSICIANS.--A PIONEER.--A LAUGHABLE ANECDOTE.--"THREE WISE MEN."--"A SHORT HORSE," ETC.--BOSTON AND NEW YORK FEMALE DOCTORS.--A STORY.--"LOVE AND THOROUGHWORT."--A GAY BEAU.--UP THE PEn.o.bSCOT.--DYING FOR LOVE.--"IS HE MAD?"--THOROUGHWORT WINS.

"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 s.e.x 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 st.u.r.dily warned off the gentler s.e.x."--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 G.o.ddess of health, the fabled daughter of aesculapius. 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 cla.s.s_, 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 a.s.sertions. 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 coa.r.s.er 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 _eggsh.e.l.ls_ 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 pract.i.tioners 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, _nee_ 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 Welts.h.i.+re, 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 Welts.h.i.+re, where Sally obtained barely the rudiments of a common education, she became her father's a.s.sistant 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 astonis.h.i.+ng as true, that this unattractive specimen of the female s.e.x 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 acc.u.mulating 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 ma.s.sive 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DON'T YOU OBSERVE THE ARMS OF MRS. MAPP?"]

"Yes--I _do_ see the arms," replied the impudent fellow, "and a pair of durned coa.r.s.e 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.