A Woman's Quest: The life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D.

by Marie E. Zakrzewska

In order to answer your letter of July 27 carefully, I must dictate it because an affliction of my eyes prevents me from writing myself. My health is pretty good, and the very best of oculists declare my eyes to be good, still the least use of them for reading or writing gives me so much pain that it prevents sleep and unfits me for thinking business.

The proposed crusade against the mediocre medical colleges has been recognized as necessary, not only by myself but by all the physicians connected with the New England Hospital. Perhaps the fact that we are working independently of all colleges has given us a more impartial opinion in regard to these schools. We have, I think, the best chance to judge of the results which these schools produce because we receive the young graduates for the practical training.

Perhaps you will remember that I wrote you four or five years ago how discouraged I felt about the manner in which the different female medical colleges educated and inspired their students and how derogatory the result was to the whole movement.

... The proposition to raise one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of securing admission into a male college could be carried out quite easily, comparatively speaking. In Massachusetts alone, it could be done if Harvard would consent to add a small class of women to its medical department. The fact is that when a few years ago the New England Female Medical College here in Boston was broken up, there came unofficially from some one in authority in Harvard the proposition to take it, provided the public would endow it with one hundred thousand dollars.

In such case, the female students would be educated in their own building which was two miles from the building for men. However, the examinations of the women students for entrance into the college were to be the same as those for the men, and the instruction was to be given by the same professors—in fact, Harvard Medical College repeated for the benefit of women alone.

I did not favor such an arrangement but actually discouraged it, because it seemed to me disastrous to the whole spirit of woman’s work in the profession.

I feared that after trial professors of acknowledged rank might declare that teaching six or twelve women was not satisfactory, although it might recompense them financially, and that therefore they would either give it up entirely or leave the instruction to the younger teachers.

I could not advocate a school exposed to such a risk because if the instructors of Harvard Medical College should become more prominent in the woman’s branch while the professors took the lead in the men’s branch, it would give both the students and the public the impression that the women were of secondary importance.

Another attempt to open Harvard to women has been made within a year or two by a lady who proposed to give ten thousand dollars towards a fund which would pay for a class of women in the medical department.

Many discussions concerning this proposition came up in the different meetings which were held in consequence of this offer. The result was always the same, namely, divided opinions—entirely against the admission of women at all; against their admission with men; and against the formation of a small class of women alone.

The only encouraging part of the discussion was that those who were entirely opposed to women’s studying were a very small minority, while those against coeducation were less firm in their opposition. Besides, I am perfectly sure that if the younger men who now hold positions as instructors at the College could cast their votes and could influence the Directors’ decisions, there would be more chance for the admission of women.

The New England Female Medical College was absorbed into the Boston University Medical Department, an inferior school and a homeopathic one, which has no other merit than that it admits men and women on equal terms to all its advantages; therefore, it does not injure the movement for women any more than it does the profession at large.

Our Hospital does as good a work as any hospital carried on by medical men. We have now two good women surgeons, and all kinds of operations are performed as a matter of course, without being considered extraordinary occurrences, as was formerly the case.

I can safely say that the Hospital work, which we enlarge as fast as our means will permit, has become a power throughout the country, and the Hospital in all its appointments is more or less acknowledged as the most complete of any under the control of women physicians.

This is as good a picture of the situation here in Boston as I am able to give you. If we had gained admission into the Massachusetts Medical Society, we would stand on equal footing with the best part of the profession.

In some of the smaller towns of Massachusetts, young women physicians have been admitted into the county societies, and these being a part of the Massachusetts Medical Society have thus opened a discussion which will eventually lead to the admission of women into the parent society, which is another step towards getting admission into Harvard Medical Department.

On October 1, Dr. Smith who was graduated in Zurich will take the position of resident physician with us, and we shall try to persuade other educated women to study in Zurich so that we can fill this post with such graduates and thus overcome little by little the opposition to coeducation.

Can you not see from these statements that the raising of money alone will not suffice to bring about the equally good education of women and men? To be sure, if I had a sum large enough to endow a medical college, I could bring about coeducation and thorough scientific study by getting men of the best talent from both Europe and America, but one hundred thousand dollars would be only a drop in the bucket towards such an enterprise.

Meanwhile, we have another bright prospect in the admission of women to the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. Although the medical students are not in the same classrooms, yet the lectures and the opportunities for women are precisely the same as those for men.

The lectures are given in separate lecture rooms, except in chemistry. The students of both sexes work together in the laboratory and are present at most of the clinics. The work in the dissecting-rooms is quite separate, and occasionally the women are not present at some special operations.

The movement for educating women as physicians has become so widespread that I think it impossible to work for the elevation of the standard of their medical education in any other way than by having the leading women of each state keep in view as their final aim the opening on the basis of coeducation of the best medical colleges.

The number of persons now interested in the whole movement is so great and the labor to raise money to maintain the institutions, even such as they are, has required so much nerve and strength that even to hint at their abolition or their absorption in male colleges might have a detrimental effect in dispiriting the public who, taken as a whole, are not yet settled on the question of coeducation.

The American people, both men and women, have to work out the different problems of advancing their interests without having them favored or opposed by a fixed social class whose prerogative it is to exercise a controlling influence on any standard set up.

The medical education of women must now take its chance for growth like all the other questions of woman’s rights, yes, even of men’s rights, politically speaking. We are, with all the rest, passing through the phase of crystallization, and only the merit or the capacity of the individual can act to bring about a good and lasting effect.

We must grow at present by every one of us doing her utmost best from day to day; and if the principle is a correct one that it is within women to exercise their faculties according to their inclinations the same as men do, it cannot be overthrown. I do not want to give you the impression that I wish to be pessimistically indolent; on the contrary, I want you to understand that I include in that “utmost best” criticism as well as denunciation of the imperfect or mediocre and readiness for any crusade for the better, for the higher, and for the perfect ideal.

The physicians connected with our Hospital have formed a Society,[20] and have framed a constitution which admits to membership both men and women. So far we have only women members, and there are only a very few in the society who are not connected with the Hospital, because we mean to be as careful and as stringent as possible.

I wish I could visit you this winter and talk all these matters over, as I really need a rest of a year, not because I am sick but because I feel that I may be, as the strain upon my nerve power has been so intense for thirty years that relaxation is needed if I want to end my life in usefulness.

For the present, I cannot do anything more than to plan for such a recreation, but when the moment comes to carry out this plan, I shall write to you in order to make arrangements for us to meet in a way which will give us time and comfort.

The ten thousand dollars referred to in the above letter was offered in 1878 by Miss Marian Hovey toward the new building which Harvard was about to erect, she making the condition that women should be admitted as students.

According to Dr. Chadwick, the Corporation referred the communication to the Board of Overseers who in turn referred it to a committee consisting of President Eliot, Alexander Agassiz, Dr. Morrill Wyman, J. Elliot Cabot and Dr. LeBaron Russell. In 1879, majority and minority reports were presented, the latter by Dr. Russell alone.

The majority report recommended acceptance of the trust offered by Miss Hovey, and presented an outline of conditions which were thought to be desirable to govern the admission of women students.

It further stated that of twenty-one members of the Medical Faculty who expressed their views in writing, six were in favor, with restrictions; three were in favor of making the experiment but had strong doubts of its expediency or success; five were opposed, but were willing to try the experiment under certain conditions; seven were strongly opposed. Thus, fourteen were at least willing to try the experiment conditionally, while seven were unconditionally opposed.

The minority report opposed acceptance of the trust and advised that the medical women should establish their own school, modeling it upon the Harvard school.

A vote of the Board of Overseers was immediately taken upon the adoption of the majority report, the vote standing seven to nine. It was then voted to reconsider the motion two weeks later.

Meantime, a meeting of the Medical Faculty was held and the admission of women was negatived in two resolutions, one by a vote of thirteen to five and one of fourteen to four.

Following this action of the Medical Faculty, the Board of Overseers at their next meeting voted (17 to 7):

That the Board of Overseers find themselves unable to advise the President and Fellows to accept the generous proposal of Miss Hovey.