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

by Marie E. Zakrzewska

In order to show the importance of this step, it is necessary to explain more fully the history and organization of the school.

About 1735, Justina Ditrichin (the wife of Siegemund, a distinguished civil officer of Prussia) was afflicted with an internal disease which baffled the skill of the midwives, who had pronounced her pregnant, and none of whom could define her disorder. After many months of suffering, she was visited by the wife of a poor soldier, who told her what ailed her; in consequence of which, she was cured by her physicians.

This circumstance awakened in the mind of the lady an intense desire to study midwifery, which she did; and afterwards practiced it with such success that, in consequence of her extensive practice, she was obliged to confine herself solely to irregular cases. She performed all kinds of operations with masterly skill and wrote the first book on the subject ever published in Germany by a woman. She was sent for from all parts of Germany, and was appointed body-physician to the Queen and ladies of the court of Prussia and Mark Brandenburg.

Through her influence, schools were established in which women were instructed in the science and the art of obstetrics. She also taught many herself, and a very successful and respectable practice soon grew up among women. After her death, however, this was discountenanced by the physicians, who brought it into such disrepute by their ridicule that the educated class of women withdrew from the profession. This left it in the hands of ignorant pretenders who continued to practice it until 1818. At this time, public attention was called to the subject and strict laws were enacted by which women were required to call in a male practitioner in every irregular case of confinement, under penalty of from one to twenty years of imprisonment and the forfeiture of the right to practice.

These laws still continue in force. A remarkable case is recorded by Dr. Schmidt of a woman who, feeling her own competence to manage a case committed to her care, did not send for a male physician as the law required. Although it was fully proved that she had done everything that could have been done in the case, her penalty was imprisonment for twenty years. Two other cases are quoted by Dr. Schmidt, in which male practitioners were summoned before a legal tribunal. It was proved that they had not done that which was necessary, yet their penalty was no heavier than that inflicted on the woman who had done exactly what she ought.

At this time (1818), it was also made illegal for any woman to practice who had not been educated. This brought the profession again into repute among women of the higher classes. A school for midwives, supported by the government, was established in Berlin, in which women have since continued to be educated for practice in this city and in other parts of Prussia. Two midwives are elected each year, by a committee, from the applicants, to be educated for practice in Berlin. And as they have to study two years, there are always four of these students in the school, two graduating every year. The remainder of the students are from the provincial districts.

To be admitted to this school is considered a stroke of good fortune, as there are generally more than a hundred applicants, many of whom have to wait eight or ten years before they are elected. There is, besides, a great deal of favoritism, those women being generally chosen who are the widows or wives of civil officers or physicians, to whom this chance of earning a livelihood is given in order that they may not become a burden on the government. Though educated apart from the male students while studying the theory of midwifery, they attend the accouchement ward together, and receive clinical or practical instruction in the same class from the same professor.

The male students of medicine are admitted to the university at the age of eighteen, having first been required to go through a prescribed course of collegiate study and to pass the requisite examination. Here they attend the lectures of various professors, often of four or five upon the same subject, in order to learn how it is treated from different points of view. Then, after having thus studied for a certain length of time, they present themselves for an examination by the professors of the university, which confers upon them the title of M.D., without the right to practice. They are then obliged to prepare for what is called the State’s examination, before a Board of the most distinguished men in the profession appointed to this place by the government; these also constitute the medical court. Of this number, Dr. Schmidt was one.

Dr. Schmidt approved my resolution and expressed himself warmly in favor of it. He also recommended to me a course of reading, to be commenced at once as a kind of preliminary education. And although he had no influence with the committee of the city government who examined and elected the pupils, he promised to call upon some of them and urge my election. But despite his recommendation and my father’s position as civil officer, I received a refusal, on the grounds that I was much too young (being only eighteen) and that I was unmarried.

The latter fault I did not try to remove; the former I corrected daily; and when I was nineteen, I repeated my application and received the same reply.