Dr. Tyng continued as assistant surgeon, and her progress was so satisfactory that Dr. Storer writes:
During July and August, I shall be able to visit the Hospital only on Saturdays. During my absence, I wish Dr. Tyng, in accordance with her duties as assistant surgeon, to take my place as concerns both the Dispensary and the Surgical Wards. Of course, operations of any magnitude will be reserved until the days of my attendance.
In the midst of this peaceful development and orderly progress, clouds suddenly gathered and a tempest broke forth, with much lightning though with little thunder. This was followed by the clearing of the air characteristic of the passing of tempests in this latitude but, as sometimes happens, a marked change in the local landscape was the result.
The storm center seems to have been Dr. Storer. It is often difficult to explain misunderstandings and disagreements. Frequently, no one person seems to be definitely responsible. Electric conditions develop from many causes; minor frictions occur; an accident produces a spark; and an explosion follows.
Dr. Storer was connected with the Boston Lying-in Hospital before that institution suspended operation. He later became connected with the New England Hospital as already related, beginning then to specialize in the diseases of women. He worked assiduously in his department, and he accepted the letter of his obligations to the Hospital.
Subsequent history shows that this acceptance did not include the convictions of the spirit. Perhaps a psychoanalyst of to-day would trace the ultimate explosion to the “complex” resulting from conflict between this letter and spirit.
Or, perhaps (as suggested by the primary resignation of Dr. Cabot) it was a technical disagreement as to the limits of the respective domains of attending and consulting staffs—always a subject filled with delicate potentialities.
Or, perhaps, as claimed by Dr. Mary Putnam-Jacobi (Woman’s Work in America, published in 1891), a most careful and conscientious observer with the true scientific spirit, it was because the successful outcome of Dr. Storer’s operations fell too often below the boldness of his conceptions of them. (Dr. Sewall in this year says in her report as resident physician, “Only three deaths have occurred among our patients, and all these took place in the surgical wards after hazardous operations.”)
Be the explanations—one or all—as they may, the first outward manifestation of the storm was the receipt by the board of directors of the following letter from Dr. Samuel Cabot, the early and long-tried friend of the Hospital who had from the beginning served as consulting surgeon:
Boston, June 2, 1866.
To the Board of Directors of the New England Hospital For Women and Children.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Feeling as I do the very warmest interest in the cause of female education and advancement, and believing as I do that the path of medicine and surgery, as well as every other path to honor and profit, should be open to women as well as to men—still, I feel constrained to send you my resignation of the office of Consulting Surgeon to the New England Hospital for Women and Children with which you have honored me, and to request you at your earliest convenience to accept it and to appoint my successor.
I cannot enter into any explanation of my reasons for this step, and can only ask you to believe that it is from no loss of interest in the cause you represent nor from any dissatisfaction with the ladies connected with the Hospital.
Very respectfully
Your obedient servant,S. Cabot.