The first time this woman stepped out of doors she walked from the North End to the Hospital to see if we could not get work for her. Her husband, who had been released from the jail where he had been kept awaiting the result of her illness, had visited her and told her he should do nothing more for her. Also, Mrs. M., who had given her shelter, was about to be turned out of her rooms because she had not been able to work as usual to earn her rent.
It is true that all these sufferers were drunkards, but I mention their cases to show how the Hospital leads us into every path of reform.
In order to accomplish permanent good, it is necessary to remove the causes of evil. For this reason, we are deeply interested in every effort to dispel ignorance, promote temperance, and banish licentiousness and other vices, for all these have a direct influence on health or disease. We frequently find it necessary not only to watch over the individual case of illness but to see that the whole tenement is cleaned and ventilated; or, when this is impossible, we sometimes succeed in removing the whole family to a more healthful locality away from their old associates and the low, drinking saloons.
Thus it will be seen that our students have a large field of labor open to them—every woman whom we help to educate not only adds one to the band of workers but strengthens our position and enlarges our means of usefulness. Hence, it is all-important that we gain every possible advantage for our students, and it is hard to see denied to them the valuable opportunities so freely offered to young men in this city, for we feel that the very best America affords comes far short of our wants.
[17] The new Hospital is described in the annual report:
Although within the bounds of the city, thus giving the advantages of water, gas and the other conveniences of city life, the land is very high and commands an extensive and beautiful view of Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Brookline. It is also easily accessible both by horse and steam cars, and seems to combine all the important requisites of good air, light and easy access at a moderate price.
The beautiful exterior of the building is due to the taste and skill of our architects, Messrs. Cummings and Sears, who have successfully grappled with the problem of designing a hospital which shall be beautiful in proportion, form and color, and so contribute to the pleasure of all connected with it, without sacrificing either interior comfort or economy of means.
The excellence of the interior arrangements, especially of the wards and the nurses’ rooms (which differ from those of any hospital known to the Committee), is due to the Women Physicians who, having learned from long experience the needs of their patients, have striven to meet them by arrangements at once simple and ingenious.
Our first object was to secure an entire isolation of the lying-in patients from those of the medical and the surgical wards, so as to guard against all possible danger of infection passing from one to the other. This has been effected by a separate house, called the “Maternity Cottage” for the lying-in patients.
In this building, the two stories are so arranged that one can be thoroughly cleansed and aired while the other is in use. Our plan contemplates a second similar building as soon as our means will enable us to construct it. Then, in case of any threatened danger, one house can be entirely isolated, while all new patients are taken to the other. In this way, we can increase our Lying-in Department to any desirable extent without incurring the dangers attendant upon large hospitals.
The next consideration was to get as much sunlight as possible into the patients’ rooms and to give the nurses, who are all human beings and need to be cared for as well as others, good airy rooms in which to take their rest when rest is possible to them. For this reason, all the medical wards have been placed on the back of the house, which looks nearly south.
Each ward consists of two rooms—one for two beds and one for four—with a nurse’s room between. The nurse can thus often have the benefit of the solitude and quiet of her own room and yet be so close to her patients that nothing can escape her notice. A bathroom, also enjoying the sunshine, separates the two wards and can be used by the patients of either. These light, airy, sunny wards with their open fireplaces seem more like the rooms of a pleasant home than the dreary apartments of a hospital.
The house does not square exactly with the points of the compass, and the northern side is touched by the sun during some part of the day, thereby securing it from dampness. The eastern surgical ward projects beyond the other part of the house, and so gains a southern window for light and cheerful sunshine. A similar projection on the western side makes a pleasant parlor for the patients.
The rest of this side of the house is occupied by the patients’ admission room, tea kitchen, etc., in which sunshine is not so important.
The Children’s Ward, in the upper story, is a new feature of which we have long felt the want. It is large, airy and convenient.
The furniture of the wards was mainly provided by individuals and by various churches and societies in the city and vicinity. The wards were named after the donors, who promised to keep them in order and in repair, the names to be retained as long as the rooms were thus sustained.
[18] Dr. Dimock had been a student in the Hospital in 1867. As was the case with several other students, she thus at the beginning of her medical life came under the teachings of Dr. Zakrzewska. We may judge of the trend of these teachings from what Dr. Zakrzewska writes elsewhere as to her advice to Dr. Sewall when the latter wished to begin the study of medicine. She says:
“I advised her to lay a foundation by first studying natural history—biology, comparative physiology and microscopical anatomy.” And we are already familiar with the convictions of Dr. Zakrzewska that Europe at that time offered both to men and women better opportunities for a medical education than did the United States.
Susan Dimock differed from these other students in that she had more initiative, or more self-dependence, or less fear of circumstance and convention, or some other temperamental quality. Or perhaps it was the financial situation—that great lion in the path of women not trained in self-support—that she felt she could control, through Dr. Zakrzewska and other friends.
At any rate, the resulting reaction of Dr. Zakrzewska’s teaching upon this temperament was such that Susan Dimock decided to go abroad for her entire medical course, to study there and to be graduated there—almost the first American woman to take such a radical step, and one of a lengthening procession of women from many countries who were driven into temporary exile by their ambition to qualify themselves for their chosen profession, having found the best opportunities at home reserved for the exclusive use of their brothers.