... We will grant that some exceptional women are as interested in our science as ourselves; that some of them have those peculiar qualities, that especial temperament, that gives them not merely a taste for anatomy and surgery but courage to face the greatest dangers and anxiety in surgery; and that there are some women who are able to go out in inclement weather and brave the storm. We may grant that women, some of them, may have had peculiar means or favorable opportunities which allow them to get this same education that men have. We may grant, and grant it freely, that in some matters, women intellectually, are as completely mistresses of their subject as we are masters of ours.
But, beyond this there is a point that is fundamental to the whole matter ... and that is, this inherent quality in their sex, that uncertain equilibrium, that varying from month to month according to the time of the month in each woman that unfits her for taking these responsibilities of judgment which are to control the question often of life and death ... women from month to month and week to week vary up and down; they are not the same one time that they are another.
To this, Dr. Gibbons of San Francisco replied:
If we are to judge of this proposition by the arguments of my friend from Boston, I think it would prove conclusively the weakness of his side of the question.... Is it not a fact that a large majority of male practitioners fluctuate in their judgment, not once a month with the moon, but every day with the movement of the sun....
Thus are some of the humorous pages of history made.
However, this seems to have been the last time that the subject of women as members was discussed in that Association. In 1876, the first woman delegate (Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, from the Illinois State Medical Society) was seated amid cheers. And in 1877, Dr. Henry I. Bowditch of Boston, in his presidential address, congratulated the Association that women physicians had been invited to assist in the deliberations.
CHAPTER XXX
New England Hospital students granted the privilege of visiting Massachusetts General Hospital—Letter from University of Zurich stating women are admitted on equal terms with men—Extracts from letter by Dr. Zakrzewska to Dr. Sewall on vacation in Europe—Sophia Jex-Blake collects endowment for four free beds—Dr. Samuel Cabot resumes his position of consulting surgeon—Dr. Zakrzewska resigns from service at the Dispensary, being succeeded by Dr. Helen Morton—Dr. Zakrzewska shares her service at the Hospital with Dr. Sewall who is appointed second attending physician—Land bought in Roxbury for new Hospital buildings. (1866-1871.)
Returning to our chronicle of 1866, the immediate consequence of the foregoing tempest was that the Hospital remained for the rest of the year without either attending or consulting surgeon, the surgical cases being treated by the assistant surgeon, with the aid of Dr. Samuel Cabot (acting unofficially), and by the attending and resident physicians—Dr. Zakrzewska and Dr. Sewall.
The annual report of this year notes the receipt of the first annual report of the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, founded by Dr. Mary Harris Thompson.[12] This institution may be called the oldest hospital daughter of Dr. Zakrzewska, a previous attempt by Dr. C. Annette Buckel[13] to open a woman’s hospital being obliged to yield in its infancy to the greater interests excited by the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Buckel giving her services to the Sanitary Commission.
An important event of the year 1866-1867 was the granting to the New England Hospital students of the privilege of visiting the Massachusetts General Hospital under certain restrictions.