CHAPTER XXXI
New Hospital buildings completed—Description of buildings and interior arrangements—Children’s Department established—First general Training School for Nurses in America definitely organized under the direction of Dr. Susan Dimock; one of the graduates of its first class (Miss Linda A. Richards) later helping to organize the training schools of the Bellevue Hospital of New York, the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston City Hospital—New England Hospital medical women invited to attend some of the Clinics at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary—Though delayed by the epizoötic epidemic and the great Boston Fire, the new Hospital buildings are finally formally dedicated—First Hospital Social Service in America organized in connection with the Maternity. (1871-1872.)
Architects, contractors, builders and workmen, all took a personal interest in the plans of the new Hospital buildings, and all made larger or smaller contributions to the enterprise. With such a spirit the structure grew apace, and even early in the spring of 1872 a few patients were moved in—some who especially needed the advantages of the good air, sunlight and almost country quiet. But all the patients were transferred before the end of September.
First Buildings of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, Erected 1872.
The main building was later named in honor of Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska.
Dr. Zakrzewska writes:
At last we were able definitely to inaugurate the work for which we had been preparing during the previous ten years, namely, to dedicate our own building to our threefold object—a clinical school for women physicians and students; a training school for nurses; and a charity, especially for lying-in patients.
For this latter purpose a cottage, the “Maternity,” was expressly built, while the medical and surgical patients occupied the main building. Some rooms were reserved for private patients, who paid fully for all they received. This latter department is very desirable in all hospitals, not only for the accommodation of travelers who may be taken ill while sojourning in a strange city, but also for those who when boarding cannot have the comforts of a home; while it likewise gives to our nurses a fair chance to be trained in attendance upon the sick of all classes and conditions of life.
Thus we had arrived nearly at the point at which we aimed, only that the means needed to carry on the work were not yet secured. We had no endowed wards and we had only a few endowed beds in the Maternity; therefore, we had no Funds but must depend upon the daily interest of the public to sustain the institution.
We now offered to the public not only the idea of reform, as we comprehended it, but also the visible embodiment of it in brick and mortar. Our vision had become materialized, and the work done within its walls spread the tidings of its success among the suffering and the needy.
The Drs. Blackwell, Ann Preston and myself stood no longer alone as the bearers of an idea—hundreds of young women had joined us. The path had been broken, and the profession had been obliged to yield, and to acknowledge the capacity of women as physicians. The argument that we few were exceptions to our sex has ceased; medical societies in different parts of the country admit women as members; hospitals begin to open their doors to women; men physicians endeavor to be polite towards their women colleagues; and their women colleagues certainly stand on a level with the men as regards good education.
And last but not least, society admits that it is highly respectable for a woman to become legally a physician, and offices and houses are now rented to medical women without fear of injury to the reputation of the neighborhood.
Thus, the world does move! But I am sorry to be forced to say that it is not the Republic of America which has given the proof that “science has no sex,” only in so far as that it has furnished the largest number of women students. But it is the Republic of Switzerland which has verified this maxim. Our best women physicians have been educated there as well as in Germany and in France—for even these two latter countries have received women into their schools more on an equality with men than has America. And not less than six of our pupils from Boston are at present receiving the benefits which the opportunities for medical study and research offer in Vienna.
The United States still hesitate to allow to their women that education which they offer to their men. The result will be that talented women will go abroad and seek for the better medical education which Europe offers them and, returning with a higher standard of scientific learning, the men here will not only be obliged to acknowledge such women as their equals but they will be compelled to raise their own professional standards.
So far as my knowledge extends, this will be the first instance in history where through injustice to women, men themselves will be benefited.
The plan was to have one large brick building which should contain all the administrative offices of the Hospital as well as a small number of medical and surgical wards, the intention being to add later a wing entirely devoted to wards. But the Lying-in Department was to be housed in an entirely separate structure.[17]
Quite as essential and desired a policy of expansion, but one which had waited on the new building, was that of the training of nurses.
We have seen the importance which Dr. Zakrzewska attached to this question ever since her first hospital control, back in the days when she organized the practical details of the New York Infirmary. And we have noticed the recurring references to the difficulties which delayed the full development of her plans. But she continued to exercise her choice of individuals as best she might, and she endeavored to give the most thorough training for as long periods as she could make practicable.
Thus, writing of the opening of the New York Infirmary on May 1, 1857, she says:
We kept true to our promise to begin at once a system for training nurses although the time specified for that purpose was only six months.
She began with two nurses, one of whom remained for several years, becoming invaluable as head nurse. But she was evidently not satisfied with the success of this first system for, eight months later, she says:
We now began to make more positive plans for the education and training of nurses. The first two who presented herself and who after four months’ superior women, one a German, the other an American, but neither was willing to give a longer time than four months. During this time they received no compensation except their keeping and one weekly lesson from me on the different branches of nursing.
After these left, it was again a German woman who presented herself and who after four months’ training remained for several years. The second pupil nurse was sometimes of American, sometimes of Irish, descent and nothing remarkable.
When she removed to Boston and opened the hospital (Clinical Department) in connection with the New England Female Medical College, she there also attempted to carry into execution her conviction of the necessity for training nurses. But in Boston as in New York, women who wished to be nurses were unwilling to give time for training, and applications were few. Nevertheless, she succeeded in training six nurses.
When she founded the New England Hospital, the act of incorporation expressly stated that the training of nurses was one of the fundamental purposes of the new institution. And the first annual report says:
We offer peculiar advantages for training nurses for their important duties, under the superintendence of a physician.
In 1865, the term of six months is again emphasized. In 1868, it is stated that the Hospital offers to candidates board, washing and low wages after the first month of probation but it insists on an attendance of six months. And it adds that few women are willing to give the requisite time.
But now, at last, she found the desired opportunities opening before her. Aside from the influence of European experience, and especially that of Florence Nightingale and of the subsequent writings and utterances of the latter, undoubtedly the agitation which demonstrated the necessity for practical hospital training for the medical profession, had its effect in preparing the minds of both men and women for the realization of the fact that the same necessity existed for the training of members of the sister profession of nursing.
And the lectures to the New England Hospital nurses (which, under certain conditions, were open to women from outside) were steadily attracting women who were better and better prepared to study a profession rather than merely to practice an art.
But Dr. Zakrzewska had still found herself hampered by the narrow quarters which restricted her plans for nurses as well as for doctors, students and patients. She had been still further limited by the human impossibility of even her vigorous strength and endurance being equal to the superhuman demands developed by the successful materialization of her vision. And the training of assistants and colleagues required primarily a sacrifice of the time and energy already imperatively mortgaged.
Now, not only was the material building ready for the Hospital, but also there was there incarnated the spirit of a common purpose, a spirit into the creation of which she had so literally incorporated her own self.
Hence, as the executive Head, she now had at her command not only a commodious structure but also director associates; a corps of younger physicians, trained theoretically and practically in both medicine and surgery; a supply of patients, always beyond the possibilities of accommodation; and a promising reservoir of aspiring women accepting and demanding training in nursing.
Immediately then, upon the opening of the new building, steps were taken for the expansion of the New England Hospital Training School for Nurses, and for its establishment as the “first general training school for nurses in America,” organized and equipped to give general training along the then most modern practical lines, with a full corps of instructors in all branches, and with a hospital service that included medicine, surgery and obstetrics. This change was described in the annual reports of the year of 1871-1872, by Dr. Sewall in the medical report and by Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney as secretary of the corporation.
In addition to performing her duties at the Hospital and attending to her continually expanding private practice, Dr. Zakrzewska served on both the building committee and the furnishing committee for the new hospital. But while, among the staff of medical instructors, she delivered the greatest number of lectures, the details of organizing the new Training School for Nurses were delegated to Dr. Susan Dimock,[18] who became resident physician in August when Dr. Buckel received leave of absence to go to Europe for rest and study.
During the first year of the new Training School for Nurses ten applicants were accepted after probation, two of these completing the year and being graduated. One of these first graduates was Miss Linda A. Richards who later helped to organize the Bellevue Hospital (New York) Training School, and still later that of the Massachusetts General Hospital and that of the Boston City Hospital.
During this eventful year, two important financial losses shadowed the high light thrown upon the foregoing successful working out of the far-reaching plans which Dr. Zakrzewska had for so long labored to develop. These were the loss of the annual donations of one thousand dollars each from the Legislature of Massachusetts and from the Boston Lying-in Hospital Corporation—the former having voted against any appropriation to private charities, and the latter having decided to reopen a hospital under its own control, in the overcrowded part of the city. Hence, it was again considered expedient to plan for a December Fair. But many days of doubt and hesitancy were to precede the opening of this Fair.
It had been planned to have the formal dedication of the new building take place at the time of the annual meeting of the board of directors. As this day approached it was found that it would be impossible for the friends of the enterprise to reach the new location of the Hospital. The great epizootic epidemic was prevailing; horses were everywhere succumbing to its virulence, and all the activities of the city which depended upon these necessary animals were almost paralyzed.
A fortnight later traffic was more controllable, but in the meantime every one had passed through the calamity of the great “Boston Fire,” and Mrs. Cheney spoke the language of restraint when she said, “It was not easy to go to men whose warehouses and offices were in ashes, or to women who had lost their investments in insurance, and ask them to give us the money that we needed to complete our building and to carry on our work.”
Under such circumstances it redounded to the credit of both the hospital workers and the community of Boston that the formal opening of the Hospital was not longer delayed, that the Fair was held in December as planned, and that it resulted in a sum exceeding five thousand dollars.
It is important to note that it was also during this year that the first Hospital Social Service work in America was begun. This was organized in connection with the Maternity—Dr. Dimock, Miss Lilian Freeman Clarke, Miss Elizabeth Greene and Miss Mary Parkman coöperating.
And this year was further marked by the opening to the New England Hospital medical women of some of the clinics of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.