At the annual meeting at the close of the Hospital year, 1890, Dr. Zakrzewska again was called upon to present the report from the resident physician—this position being temporarily vacant.
Referring especially to the increasing work of the Hospital under women surgeons, she says:
The results thus far are so satisfactory that no other hospital can show a greater percentage of recoveries. Our reputation for successful operations increases; and the request is often made by patients that no men shall be present.
An old lady of seventy-nine years, the prolongation of whose life depended upon the immediate removal of a large ovarian tumor—an accidental fall having caused inflammation—insisted upon having even no consultation with men, nor any men present at the operation, saying, “I am old enough anyway to die, only I don’t want to suffer as I do now; and if the women can save my life for a while longer, I shall be grateful.” She was saved, and went home well in just four weeks from the day of operation.
Another change has come with this advance in the medical women’s world. Women now express the strongest confidence in women’s skill, entirely refuting the fears and opinions of former years that “women would never have confidence in their own sex.” The opposite condition has now become so manifest that when in a first consultation a patient decides at once and unreservedly to employ a woman surgeon, we are frequently obliged to remind her that her friends or her family may prefer to have a man perform the operation.
A patient was brought into my office from the carriage before the door. She seemed so weak and exhausted that I did not venture to speak frankly to her but called the friends into an outer room and informed them of the need of the removal of a large abdominal tumor without delay. After a short deliberation, they considered it best for me to inform the patient. I did so. A few moments of silence ensued, and then came the response, “Where can it be done? Will you do it?” Answering the latter question in the negative and the former by proposing our Hospital, she replied, “Well, take me there and I will have it done to-morrow.”
We did take her there, but the case was too grave for an operation on the morrow as important preparations were necessary. But in a few months the patient left the Hospital well, and when a half year later she came into my office, I did not recognize the changed woman.
Such cases are not infrequent now, and the gratitude of many a mother, wife, and daughter spreads throughout our land the fame of our Hospital, the skill of our surgeons, and the kindness of our nurses. The number of women surgeons is but few as yet, but I do not care to compete numerically with men. I simply repeat the claim which I made thirty-five years ago when pleading the cause of women physicians, namely, give to women whose qualifications and tastes lead them to study the healing art, the opportunity to develop such talents to the utmost on an equality with men.
It is due to the perseverance of woman’s nature and to the freedom of this country that such comparatively great results have been achieved in so few years. I, who saw at most a possibility in the dim future, am permitted to behold an idea realized—an idea for the materialization of which I expected simply to plow the ground before I passed away from this life, leaving it for others to cultivate. But see! Already, under the sunshine of free institutions and the favoring breezes of universal progress, we reap the fruits of our labor.
In June, 1892, a new Maternity Building was completed and dedicated. It was named the Sewall Maternity, in memory of that early and devoted friend of Dr. Zakrzewska and the Hospital, Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, and of his daughter, Dr. Lucy E. Sewall, who was, successively, Dr. Zakrzewska’s first student, assistant, and staff colleague.
The old Maternity was renovated and transformed into a home for the nurses, and it served this purpose until replaced by a new building in 1909. It was named the Goddard Home for Nurses in honor of the Goddard family—Miss Lucy Goddard, one of the incorporators of the Hospital and first president of the board of directors; George A. Goddard, for many years the devoted treasurer of the Hospital; and his mother, Mrs. M. Le B. Goddard, one of the earlier directors.
Some years later (1906), a wing was added to the Sewall Maternity, the Helen Morton Wing. This was named in honor of Dr. Helen Morton, classmate of Dr. Sewall and Dr. Zakrzewska’s second student, assistant, and staff colleague.
In the midst of the congratulations and rejoicings which followed the opening to women of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, the distrust which Dr. Zakrzewska had already voiced was, in 1893, given another justification by the action of the Columbian University of Georgetown, D. C. (now the George Washington University Medical School), which decided to close the doors that it had opened to women.
For at least ten years the medical department had been graduating women on equal terms with men. But there had always been three members of the faculty who were bitterly opposed to allowing women to study medicine on any terms. These three professors made the path of the women students as rough and stony as possible; and the male students, taking the cue from these professors, added discourtesies and affronts to hostility.
Finally, in the dissecting room, some of these students so debased themselves by offering insult, not only to the women medical students but also to the helpless bodies of their fellow beings who had been given to them for scientific study, that the faculty and trustees were obliged to take official notice of the occurrence.
Now, mark the administration of justice. The male students committed the offense which no one attempted to condone. Were the offenders punished? No. Neither were the innocent victims of the offense, the women medical students. But the whole sex of the innocent victims was selected to make vicarious atonement. The verdict was that the women then in the Medical School should be permitted to complete their course, but after that no more women should be admitted to the school.