NOTES

[1] This statement and related ones throughout the autobiographical chapters are the only references to her family history made in this connection by Dr. Zakrzewska.

A “Memoir of Dr. Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, issued by the New England Hospital for Women and Children, Boston, 1903,” quotes her as writing to a friend, “I am in reality as family-proud as any aristocrat can possibly be, but I prefer to be remembered only as a woman who was willing to work for the elevation of Woman.” This Memoir further says:

The Polish family of Zakrzewski of which her father and grandfather were in the line of direct descendants, is one of the most ancient in Europe and traces its history back to 911. It is named among the most powerful aristocratic “republican families of agitators” of Poland, and fell with Poland’s downfall.

The princely family property—which consisted according to some accounts of ninety-nine villages—was confiscated, the main portion falling into Russia’s hands in 1793. At that time Marie’s grandfather saved his life by flight beyond the border, having seen his father fall on the field of battle and his mother and other members of the family perish in the flames of their castle.

Writing of the family history, a brother of Marie states: “Ludovico was the name written under the coat of arms which I often held in my hands as a boy, and Ludwig was the name borne by every eldest son of the family until 1802. When our father was born on November 11—St. Martin’s Day—his mother, a good Catholic, added Martin to the name of Ludwig.” His father (Marie’s grandfather) was, however, the first one of the Zakrzewski family to leave the Catholic church. He became not only a Protestant but a very liberal thinker.

The family history on the mother’s side is traced back only to the middle of the eighteenth century.

Marie Elizabeth Sauer, the great-grandmother of Marie, for whom she was named, was a Gypsy Queen of the Lombardi family. She was said to be “the most lovely of women, very beautiful and energetic.” Her father was a surgeon and was attached to the army of Frederick the Great during the Seven Years’ War. His daughter accompanied him in his work as assistant surgeon. Among those whom she attended was a Captain Urban. He had been wounded in the chest and she removed the ball. Upon his recovery they were married, much to the delight of her father, as Captain Urban belonged to the same Gypsy tribe of the Lombardi. Nine children were born to them, five daughters and four sons. They were all of unusual size, the daughters almost six feet tall, with hair flowing down to their feet; the sons seven feet tall and of perfect stature. Marie’s grandmother was the middle one of these nine children, and became a veterinary surgeon. She had three daughters one of whom was the mother of Marie.

[2] “The undersigned, Secretary of Legation of the United States of America, certifies that Miss Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska has exhibited to him very strong recommendations from the highest professional authorities of Prussia, as a scientific, practical, experienced accoucheuse of unusual talent and skill. She has been chief accoucheuse in the Royal Hospital of Berlin, and possesses a certificate of her superiority from the Board of Directors of that institution. She has not only manifested great talent as a practitioner but also as a teacher; and enjoys the advantage of a moral and irreproachable private character. She has attained this high rank over many female competitors in the same branch; there being more than fifty in the city of Berlin who threaten by their acknowledged excellence to monopolize the obstetric art.

Theo. S. Fay.
Legation United States, Berlin, Jan. 26, 1853.
(Seal)

Upon inquiry I find that instead of fifty there are one hundred and ten female accoucheuses in Berlin.

Theo. S. Fay.

[3] Apparently Dr. Zakrzewska had no information as to the details of raising the money which was loaned to her for defraying her living expenses while at the medical college.

In Glances and Glimpses, the source of such financial assistance is suggested by Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, who visited Cleveland in 1854. She speaks of the first Medical Loan Fund Association. She also speaks of the Ohio Female Medical Education Society, and quotes from the constitution of this latter an article referring to the repayment of loans.

Dr. Hunt further speaks of traveling to other towns in Ohio, lecturing on the study of medicine by women, and “establishing loan fund associations auxiliary to the Cleveland association.” She particularly mentions Elyria (where Mrs. Severance also spoke), Tiffin, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Yellow Springs.

[4] Elsewhere, Dr. Zakrzewska says:

In the beginning of the first winter I was the only woman; after the first month another was admitted; and during the second winter there were three besides myself who attended the lectures and graduated in the spring.

[5] This attitude of the clerical profession, persisting at least as late as 1857, is also referred to by Professor Joseph P. Remington in the report of an address published in the American Journal of Pharmacy, January, 1911.

[6] Speaking of the visit made to Cleveland at this time, Dr. Hunt states in Glances and Glimpses:

In December, 1854, I started for Ohio, being desirous to understand the medical question in that State.... I had only heard that Marie was a student at the Cleveland College; but when I met her I felt that here was a combination of head and heart which was as uncommon as it was beautiful.... Further acquaintance has but deepened my interest in Marie, and Dr. Blackwell of New York must feel it a privilege to have been the means of her introduction at Cleveland as a medical student, where her noble bearing and scientific mind are perceived and acknowledged by the faculty....

I attended lectures one day on a class of diseases peculiar to women, and not one shade of levity or impropriety diminished the interest of the occasion. Men and women studying together at a medical college of high standing was prophetic. I spoke with the professor after the lecture and he remarked, “We are more democratic in Ohio than you are in Massachusetts.” I felt like hanging my head. The Athens of America was eclipsed by a younger sister; yet I rejoiced greatly that as the elder was unprepared to advance, the junior tripped her up triumphantly, stepped over her, and took the first prize.

... I thought it best to visit the towns in the northern part of Ohio and try to elicit interest in the medical question by establishing loan fund associations.

[7] Mary L. Booth later earned a reputation as historian and as translator, and was the editor of Harper’s Bazar from its beginning in 1867.

[8] The first Board of Directors (nineteen in number) was made up almost entirely of women who were serving on the Board of Lady Managers for the Clinical Department of the New England Female Medical College in 1861-1862, the last year of Dr. Zakrzewska’s connection with that college. Her resignation at the end of that year caused that department to be discontinued and the services of the Lady Managers to be no longer in request by the college.

To the number of Lady Managers who transferred their interest to the new Hospital were added on the Board of Directors several men, one being the former leading trustee of the college, Hon. Samuel E. Sewall.

This historic first Board of Directors was finally constituted as follows:

[9] Later, Dr. Mary E. Breed, who was graduated from the New England Female Medical College and had been a student under Dr. Zakrzewska at the New York Infirmary, became resident physician, and Miss Anita E. Tyng and Miss Lucy M. Abbott, who had been her students at the New England Female Medical College, were student assistants. Dr. John Ware consented to serve as consulting physician and Dr. Samuel Cabot as consulting surgeon.

[10] Karl Heinzen is thus described by the Boston Evening Transcript:

He was a native of Prussia and came to America in January, 1848, as an exile, having been banished from Germany on account of a book which he published on the Civil Service of the Prussian Government, which showed that, instead of the promised constitutional government, a complete net of absolutism was extending over every province of Prussia.

On the breaking out of the revolution of 1848 in France and Germany, he left America in May to participate in the movement in Europe; after its suppression he was again exiled, going first to Switzerland and afterwards to England. But in 1850 he again came to America which has since been the scene of his labors.

On his arrival he found almost the entire German population in the Democratic and pro-slavery party; he therefore established here the first anti-slavery German newspaper. This exposed him to severe persecutions by the Democrats, so that his life was threatened in New York City and in Toledo, Ohio.

He was also the first among the German-Americans to advocate woman suffrage.

Since 1858 he has lived in Boston, and during this time he has stood on terms of firm friendship with William Lloyd Garrison who frequently translated Mr. Heinzen’s articles for the Liberator.

Mr. Heinzen was the most radical thinker whom the Germans in America possess. Besides editing for more than twenty-five years a newspaper, The Pioneer, he has published a number of valuable books on political, philosophical and social subjects.

[11] Dr. Tyng had been a student at the New England Female Medical College under Dr. Zakrzewska, later a resident student at the New England Hospital and then a graduate of the Philadelphia medical school—this school now becoming established on a more stable foundation and having changed its name from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

[12] Dr. Thompson was a graduate of the New England Female Medical College, studying for two years under Dr. Zakrzewska. Later she received an honorary degree from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Chicago Hospital for Women and Children which she founded was afterwards named the Mary Thompson Chicago Hospital for Women and Children.

In an affectionate letter to Dr. Zakrzewska in later years, Dr. Thompson rallies this former teacher on her frank remarks when trying to goad the students of the New England Female Medical College to better work, saying:

I wished to tell you of our work here that you might know that we are doing something more than “the ordinary run of nurses,” I having heard it remarked in times past that that was all we would amount to. That did not stimulate me in the least to this kind of work. But I will tell you what did—it was the actual love of surgery and the witnessing many men operate when I felt that I could do quite as well as they did. Since writing you, my third case of ovariotomy has done well.

[13] Dr. Buckel was graduated in Philadelphia and then served under Dr. Zakrzewska as resident student at the New York Infirmary. During the last two years of the Civil War she rendered efficient service in the United States military hospitals of the Southwest, earning the soubriquet of “The Little Major.” The Survey, May 17, 1913, says: “She selected and supervised the nurses, kept records in the absence of clerks, wrote letters for sick soldiers, obtained furloughs for convalescents, and comforted the dying.” In the year 1865-1866, she succeeded Dr. Ruth A. Gerry as assistant physician at the New England Hospital, the latter returning to the practice which she had already started at Ypsilanti, and beginning to share in the long fight for the admission of women to the University of Michigan.

[14] After receiving her degree of M.D. at Berne, Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake returned to Great Britain and was largely instrumental in establishing the London School of Medicine for Women and in obtaining hospital facilities for it. She has reported her experience in Medicine as a Profession for Women and in Medical Education of Women. Charles Reade makes extensive use of both of these articles in writing his novel The Woman Hater.

[15] Dr. Morton was a classmate of Dr. Sewall when both were students of Dr. Zakrzewska at the New England Female Medical College. She had spent four years in study at the Paris Maternité during the last two of which she had served as assistant teacher.

She returned to Boston in 1867 to begin the practice of her profession. She then became connected with the New England Hospital, her first appointment being on the staff of the Dispensary. Here she became the successor of Dr. Zakrzewska, the latter resigning from this branch of the work and leaving it entirely to the constantly growing number of younger medical women.

[16] (p. 355) There are two great causes of sickness in our lying-in wards. First, mental distress during pregnancy, caused by poverty or neglect; second, the exposure and fatigue which many endure before coming to us.

One young girl, late last fall, had been sleeping for a week in outhouses. Another came in the cold winter weather, after wandering in a bewildered condition in the streets with wet skirts and no stockings, searching for some place of shelter in her distress. Another when she entered was very sick with acute pleurisy and pneumonia, so that even before her delivery her life was threatened. Several cases of intermittent fever and one of typhus fever were admitted under such circumstances that we could not avoid taking them without being guilty of inhumanity. Two women in a comatose condition from puerperal convulsions were also taken in. One of these last was restored to health, while the other never recovered consciousness.

We have taken in several babies who were so poisoned with patented nostrums that only the most vigorous treatment with antidotes could rouse them, and weeks of the most assiduous nursing were necessary to restore their enfeebled vitality.

Some of you saw in one of the wards the wretched little creature who was brought by its mother to us in a comatose state, with the skin drawn loosely over its bones and its half-closed glassy eyes sunk deeply in their sockets. This child had been boarded out by its mother while she worked at service, and it had been gradually declining until at the age of three and one-half months, it weighed but seven and one-half pounds.

This was an extreme case, but frequently a practiced eye will detect the same process going on. Often when I am called to a sick child, I recognize in the ashy hue, sunken eyes and other well-known symptoms, the work of some “soothing syrup” or other equally pernicious drug. Pitiful indeed is the fate of babies deprived of their natural guardians and subjected to the influence of these infamous nostrums.

Can we not find some means to secure to infants a mother’s care and love for at least the first year of their lives, by furnishing these mothers with some honest means of support, and thus saving both mothers and children? I leave this important question for you to consider, for even if it is not strictly part of our work, it is a sequel to one department of our Hospital.

A young woman, who in her childhood lost her mother and whose stepmother not only kept a house of ill-fame but sent this daughter to another, has now a beautiful baby to which she is so strongly attached that, in spite of the evil influences of all her past life, she is willing to do even the hardest work for the sake of keeping her baby with her. Yet, only a few evenings ago she came, with her blue-eyed baby sweetly smiling in the soft wrappings provided by its fond mother, and said that she must give it up. “Nobody,” she said, “would take her with her baby,” and I saw the hard look in her eyes and the bitter smile that made me tremble for her future, though I am confident that she had the will and the strength to earn her living honestly.

Last winter we were called to attend a woman in a difficult and complicated labor. She lived in a dark basement with floor wet and broken, the scanty bedcovering eked out by her husband’s old coat (which he himself needed) and the small pile of coal on the floor being the only comforts visible except the stove. Cold, faint and hungry, this woman had suffered for hours. When she was safely delivered, public charity could not make her comfortable—it was private benevolence that gave her blankets, sheets, clothing and care.

Another case of recent occurrence shows how insufficient is the law to take care of the sick. A woman in one of the worst localities in the city who was beaten by her drunken husband and turned out of doors, was seized with premature labor in the streets and found her way into the house of a neighbor. This neighbor, Mrs. M., who was nearly blind, supported by her daily earnings herself and an interesting little boy whom she had taken from the city crier’s to nurse and whom she had kept with her rather than send him to Tewksbury.

Mrs. M. allowed the woman to stay, and on the third day I was sent for and found her in an almost dying condition. It was late Saturday evening, and there was neither food nor fuel in the house. The woman was too ill to be removed, no aid could be obtained from the city before Monday, and then the legal allowance would be only two dollars in groceries and one dollar in money. Clothing, a bed and a nurse were absolutely needed. These were provided by private charity and the woman recovered, though it was said that three different physicians who were called in by the neighbors had declined to attend her as they considered it useless under such adverse circumstances to attempt to save her.

The first time this woman stepped out of doors she walked from the North End to the Hospital to see if we could not get work for her. Her husband, who had been released from the jail where he had been kept awaiting the result of her illness, had visited her and told her he should do nothing more for her. Also, Mrs. M., who had given her shelter, was about to be turned out of her rooms because she had not been able to work as usual to earn her rent.

It is true that all these sufferers were drunkards, but I mention their cases to show how the Hospital leads us into every path of reform.

In order to accomplish permanent good, it is necessary to remove the causes of evil. For this reason, we are deeply interested in every effort to dispel ignorance, promote temperance, and banish licentiousness and other vices, for all these have a direct influence on health or disease. We frequently find it necessary not only to watch over the individual case of illness but to see that the whole tenement is cleaned and ventilated; or, when this is impossible, we sometimes succeed in removing the whole family to a more healthful locality away from their old associates and the low, drinking saloons.

Thus it will be seen that our students have a large field of labor open to them—every woman whom we help to educate not only adds one to the band of workers but strengthens our position and enlarges our means of usefulness. Hence, it is all-important that we gain every possible advantage for our students, and it is hard to see denied to them the valuable opportunities so freely offered to young men in this city, for we feel that the very best America affords comes far short of our wants.

[17] The new Hospital is described in the annual report:

Although within the bounds of the city, thus giving the advantages of water, gas and the other conveniences of city life, the land is very high and commands an extensive and beautiful view of Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Brookline. It is also easily accessible both by horse and steam cars, and seems to combine all the important requisites of good air, light and easy access at a moderate price.

The beautiful exterior of the building is due to the taste and skill of our architects, Messrs. Cummings and Sears, who have successfully grappled with the problem of designing a hospital which shall be beautiful in proportion, form and color, and so contribute to the pleasure of all connected with it, without sacrificing either interior comfort or economy of means.

The excellence of the interior arrangements, especially of the wards and the nurses’ rooms (which differ from those of any hospital known to the Committee), is due to the Women Physicians who, having learned from long experience the needs of their patients, have striven to meet them by arrangements at once simple and ingenious.

Our first object was to secure an entire isolation of the lying-in patients from those of the medical and the surgical wards, so as to guard against all possible danger of infection passing from one to the other. This has been effected by a separate house, called the “Maternity Cottage” for the lying-in patients.

In this building, the two stories are so arranged that one can be thoroughly cleansed and aired while the other is in use. Our plan contemplates a second similar building as soon as our means will enable us to construct it. Then, in case of any threatened danger, one house can be entirely isolated, while all new patients are taken to the other. In this way, we can increase our Lying-in Department to any desirable extent without incurring the dangers attendant upon large hospitals.

The next consideration was to get as much sunlight as possible into the patients’ rooms and to give the nurses, who are all human beings and need to be cared for as well as others, good airy rooms in which to take their rest when rest is possible to them. For this reason, all the medical wards have been placed on the back of the house, which looks nearly south.

Each ward consists of two rooms—one for two beds and one for four—with a nurse’s room between. The nurse can thus often have the benefit of the solitude and quiet of her own room and yet be so close to her patients that nothing can escape her notice. A bathroom, also enjoying the sunshine, separates the two wards and can be used by the patients of either. These light, airy, sunny wards with their open fireplaces seem more like the rooms of a pleasant home than the dreary apartments of a hospital.

The house does not square exactly with the points of the compass, and the northern side is touched by the sun during some part of the day, thereby securing it from dampness. The eastern surgical ward projects beyond the other part of the house, and so gains a southern window for light and cheerful sunshine. A similar projection on the western side makes a pleasant parlor for the patients.

The rest of this side of the house is occupied by the patients’ admission room, tea kitchen, etc., in which sunshine is not so important.

The Children’s Ward, in the upper story, is a new feature of which we have long felt the want. It is large, airy and convenient.

The furniture of the wards was mainly provided by individuals and by various churches and societies in the city and vicinity. The wards were named after the donors, who promised to keep them in order and in repair, the names to be retained as long as the rooms were thus sustained.

[18] Dr. Dimock had been a student in the Hospital in 1867. As was the case with several other students, she thus at the beginning of her medical life came under the teachings of Dr. Zakrzewska. We may judge of the trend of these teachings from what Dr. Zakrzewska writes elsewhere as to her advice to Dr. Sewall when the latter wished to begin the study of medicine. She says:

“I advised her to lay a foundation by first studying natural history—biology, comparative physiology and microscopical anatomy.” And we are already familiar with the convictions of Dr. Zakrzewska that Europe at that time offered both to men and women better opportunities for a medical education than did the United States.

Susan Dimock differed from these other students in that she had more initiative, or more self-dependence, or less fear of circumstance and convention, or some other temperamental quality. Or perhaps it was the financial situation—that great lion in the path of women not trained in self-support—that she felt she could control, through Dr. Zakrzewska and other friends.

At any rate, the resulting reaction of Dr. Zakrzewska’s teaching upon this temperament was such that Susan Dimock decided to go abroad for her entire medical course, to study there and to be graduated there—almost the first American woman to take such a radical step, and one of a lengthening procession of women from many countries who were driven into temporary exile by their ambition to qualify themselves for their chosen profession, having found the best opportunities at home reserved for the exclusive use of their brothers.

She entered the University of Zurich, and after completing the required five years of study, received her degree, returning to Boston as the new building of the Hospital was in course of erection. She had paid particular attention to surgery and was intending to specialize in that branch.

[19] Dr. Keller was a graduate of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and she had been attending physician at the Woman’s Hospital in Philadelphia. She had also had considerable surgical experience in hospital and private practice.

[20] The New England Hospital Medical Society, later the New England Women’s Medical Society.

[21] Dr. Call was a student of the Hospital and later was graduated at the head of her class in the University of Michigan. She then spent a year studying in Europe before beginning work at the Dispensary.

[22] The twin sisters, Drs. Augusta and Emily Pope, after being graduated at the New England Female Medical College, went to Europe to study for an additional year, becoming connected with the Dispensary on their return. Both later received an honorary degree of M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

[23] Among the internes whose address in India was, unfortunately, not for long, was the charming Dr. Anandabai Joshee, the first Hindoo woman to seek medical education in America, and who had been graduated at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Coming to Boston in the summer of 1886, she served only a short time when her health failed. She returned to India to become physician in charge of the Female Ward of the Albert Edward Hospital in Kolhapur, but she died from tuberculosis a few months later, before reaching her twenty-second birthday.

[24] Dr. Clarke was a member of the board of trustees of the New England Female Medical College when Dr. Zakrzewska became a member of the faculty. He resigned this trusteeship when she resigned from the faculty, and his wife, Mrs. Anna H. Clarke, became a member of the board of directors of the New England Hospital which was founded immediately thereafter.

Mrs. Clarke remained a member of the board of directors until her death in 1897. Their daughter, Miss Lilian Freeman Clarke, was always interested in the Hospital and, as already stated, she assisted in organizing in connection with the Maternity the first hospital social service work in America.

[25] (p. 467)

  1. John Ware.
  2. Samuel Cabot.
  3. Walter Channing.
  4. Henry I. Bowditch.
  5. E. C. Rolfe.
  6. Edward Jarvis.
  7. Edward H. Clarke.
  8. Francis Minot.
  9. B. Joy Jeffries.
  10. Reginald H. Fitz.
  11. C. H. Osgood.
  12. G. G. Tarbell.
  13. Arthur T. Cabot.
  14. W. W. Gannett.
  15. James R. Chadwick.
  16. Geo. F. Jelly.
  17. J. J. Putnam.
  18. Maurice H. Richardson.
  19. Clarence J. Blake.
  20. F. B. Mallory.
  21. Vincent Y. Bowditch.
  22. W. F. Whitney.
  23. G. A. Leland.
  24. F. C. Shattuck.
  25. C. F. Withington.
  26. J. E. Goldthwait.
  27. Richard C. Cabot.

[26] In 1910, the Children’s Department obtained a building of its own in the Kimball Cottage. This was named for Miss Helen Kimball and for her father, Moses K. Kimball, who was a staunch supporter of the Hospital. Mrs. Cheney became president in 1887, upon the resignation of Miss Lucy Goddard, the first president, and continued in office till 1902 when she resigned and was succeeded by Miss Kimball.

[27] An interesting note in connection with the new Surgical Building was the receipt through Dr. Zakrzewska of a contribution of five hundred dollars towards its construction, from one of her classmates at the Cleveland Medical College, Dr. Cordelia A. Greene, then established at Castile, N. Y.

[28] Boston Herald, October 21, 1921.

[29] Boston Evening Transcript, March 30, 1922, quoting the Springfield Republican.