“I would not encourage any woman to study medicine, with the expectation of practising, who is not ready and willing—ay, anxious and determined—to go through the same severe drill of preparation, the same thorough discipline, as is required of man before he is crowned with the honors of an M. D.”
A Female Pioneer.
Among the first successful female physicians of Boston, where she was born in 1805, is Harriot K. Hunt, M. D. Her father was a shipping merchant, who, by honesty and uprightness died comparatively poor, for riches are not always to the upright. Her mother is described by Rev. H. B. Elliot, “as one possessing a mind of remarkable qualities, argumentative, practical, independent, and, withal, abounding in tenderness and genial brightness.” In 1830 we find Miss Hunt not only thrown upon her resources for her own livelihood (her father having left but barely the house that gave them shelter to be called their own), but the support and care of an only and invalid sister, somewhat her junior, were also entirely dependent upon her labors. As a school teacher she met the former, as a student and nurse she finally surmounted the latter. “What! more pedagogues turned doctors?”
After nearly three years’ employment of various physicians on the part of the elder sister, and the extreme suffering from the “distressing and complicated disease,” and, what was worse, the “severest forms of prescriptions of the old school of physic” for the same time by the younger sister, the Misses Hunt were led to investigate for themselves. They purchased medical works, which they read early and late.
In 1833 Harriot leased her house, and entered the office of a doctress, Mrs. Mott by name, in the double capacity of secretary and student. The younger sister became a patient of Mrs. Mott’s. The husband of Mrs. Mott was an English physician, who, with his wife to attend the female portion of his patients, had established himself in Boston. Mrs. Mott was without a thorough medical education. “She made extravagant claims to medical skill in the treatment of cases regarded as hopeless.” In 1835 Dr. Mott died, and Mrs. Mott returned to England. Under the treatment of the latter the invalid sister had so much improved in health as to be able to “walk the streets for the first time in three years;” yet where is the “old school doctor,” or the veriest charlatan, that would give her the credit she so seemingly deserved in this case. Both were her opponents. Even the students of the neighboring medical school were “pitted against her.” The old adage respecting his Satanic majesty having the credit due him, did not seem to apply to her case. But Mrs. Mott was more than a match for their cunning, if not for their scientific theorizings, as the following anecdote will show.
“Three wise men of Gotham,” that amiable lady, Mrs. Goose, tells us, “went to sea in a bowl; and had the bowl been stronger, my song would have been longer.” This has its parallel in the three wise students of H——, who laid their wise heads together, and went to see—Mrs. Mott, the doctress, of Hanover Street. One was to pretend that he had some peculiar disease, for which he, with his anxious friends, wished to consult the “wise woman.” They entered the doctor’s office, and demanded to see the doctress. This was an open insult to the woman, as she only gave her attention to females and children. Nevertheless, Mrs. Mott, whose olfactory nerves were not so obtuse as to prevent her from distinguishing the aroma of that peculiar little animal quadruped of the genus Mus, obeyed the summons, and entered the presence of the three wise Æsculapians.
Now the fun began. Not the fun that was to be at the expense of the “ignorant old female quack,” however.
One of the gentlemen arose, and after a profound bow, began, with some embarrassment, to state his case.
“But wait just a moment,” the doctress interrupted. “You intimate that it is a peculiar case. My fee for consultation in such cases is three dollars. Please hand over the money, and proceed.”
This was an unexpected demand. They had thought to have a little fun, expose the woman’s ignorance, and have a “huge thing” to tell to their class-fellows, and not pay for it! Mrs. Mott was a woman, but she possessed powerful magnetic influence, and held fast to the point, viz., her fee for consultation; and to the chagrin of the patient (?), and the astonishment of his chums, the three dollars were paid over to the doctress.