My dear Friend,—Your kind interest in our hospital cheers me. Very few persons understand the soul of this work, or the absolute necessity which lies upon us to live out the ideal life to the utmost of our power. My work is undoubtedly for the few. It is labour in the interlinkings of humanity, and is necessarily difficult of appreciation by the mass of people, and is very slow in gaining their esteem. It has been a most toilsome lesson to translate my thought into the common language of life. I labour at this translation perpetually, and still remain too often incomprehensible. I will not degrade the central thought of this work, but I seek in every way to accommodate it wisely to the practical common-sense feeling of the people.
My sister is a noble helper, and we shall stand, I trust, shoulder to shoulder through many years of active service. I shall have the pleasure of soon forwarding to you a report of our last year’s proceedings; this will give the simple facts of our hospital life.
Allow me to remain, with very true affection,
Your friend,
Elizabeth Blackwell.
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND REVISITED
1858
The ten years during which this pioneer medical work had been steadily carried on had thus firmly established the new departure as a useful innovation in the United States. The reform was at that time steadily growing, not only in New York, but also in Philadelphia and Boston, under the guidance of able bodies of women. We were now desirous of learning what openings existed in England for the entrance of women into the medical profession. We knew that much interest had been felt there in the progress of the American work, and we had been urged by friends in Europe to give some account of it.
It was determined, therefore, in August 1858 that I should again revisit my native land and urge the importance of this medical work. Soon after my arrival in Europe I took the occasion of a visit made to a sister in Paris to prepare carefully a series of three addresses to be delivered in England, showing what was being done in medicine by women in the United States, and the reasons for that work. The first of these addresses was on the value of physiological knowledge to women, the second on the value of medical knowledge, and the third on the practical aspect of the work as established in America and its adaptability to England. Whilst engaged in the preparation of the lectures I entered into relations with the large-hearted Countess de Noailles, whose devotion to sanitary reform and generous support of benevolent enterprises were equally remarkable. This lady was very desirous that a country sanatorium for women should be established in England or France, being firmly convinced that hygienic conditions in their fullest application were the chief necessity in the successful treatment of special diseases. This lady wrote to an old friend in Paris: ‘I wish to direct all my efforts to this object. Let me know as soon as possible what it would cost to establish a small hospital for women and children either in France or England, under Miss Blackwell’s direction.’ She also requested one of her noble French relatives to make my acquaintance. The interview is thus described in a letter to Dr. Emily in New York.
Paris: 1858.
Yesterday I saw Madame —— by appointment at her own house. A. says she is a daughter of the Prince de P.; to me she seemed a stout, black-eyed Frenchwoman of forty-five, cordial in manner, speaking English well, and knowing as much of England and Anglo-Saxon nature as a Frenchwoman ever can know. We conversed energetically for two hours. She is seriously interested in the entrance of women into the medical profession, a wish founded in her case on the moral degradation which she has observed amongst her own acquaintance from the practice of being treated by men in female complaints. The fact which most struck her in all I told her was your amputating a breast; in this she actually triumphed. Her face became radiant with the intense satisfaction of the thing, for it proved to her by a fact what she wanted to believe, but could only accept intellectually from all my reasons—viz. the necessity of letting the midwife drop, and striking unflinchingly for the highest position. This one fact, worth to this sort of nature a host of arguments, gave her real faith in the physician. She opened freely her objections, or rather difficulties, and I met them one after another; and this difference I observed in the encounter with the cultivated European nature—when I gave her a reason she understood it and accepted it; it did not go in at one ear and out at the other as with more frivolous people; there is some soil or substance you can plant in in this stouter nature. As years ago with Lady Byron, so with this lady, it was of some use talking to her. She propounded, of course, foolish as well as serious ideas; thus she thought that women physicians should never marry; she also would be shocked to see me with a garland on my head dancing in a ball-room, and she thought they should be devoted, like the sisters of charity, &c. I combated her idea of abnegation for a while, and put in a feeler to see if she could take in a higher notion; but finding it was impossible, I at once ceased the attempt, and allowed her to hold to her own highest idea, which I could see was tinged by her French nature. Of course it wearied me a little, and I wanted after a while to expand my lungs and breathe freely; but I certainly made a strong impression upon her. She thanked me and shook my hand again and again at parting, and said that she should not think of letting this be our last interview, and she should write to Madame de Noailles the very next day. She had asked me previously if I was resolved in any case to go back to America, and I had told her ‘No,’ but described at the same time the excellent beginning we had made there. I feel convinced that I shall have some proposition in relation to my (or rather our) establishment in London. What, then, ought we to say should such an offer arise? I will accept nothing that is not offered to us both, on that I am quite determined; we cannot separate in practice.