Then as I told him of the plan of establishing a dispensary which could have a small number of indoor patients, in fact, the nucleus of a hospital for which Dr. Blackwell had already obtained a charter from the Legislature, his enthusiasm created not only hope but courage.
He spoke so ardently of Boston as being liberal and “the hothouse of all reforms” that I proposed visiting that noble city in the interest of our plans and asked him for introductions, as I knew only Dr. Harriot K. Hunt and Mrs. Severance, the latter recently removed to Boston from Cleveland. He gave me a list of names of Boston ladies—Miss Lucy Goddard, Miss Mary Jane Parkman, Miss Abby May and Mrs. E. D. Cheney.
When I look over my diary and see that the time of my receiving my degree and leaving Cleveland was in March and that this proposition to go to Boston was only three months later, it seems a fact impossible to believe. For the restlessness caused by the want of opportunity to further our desires seemed to turn days into weeks and weeks into months. I find in one of my notes the words, “It seems an impossibility to find friends for our cause; nobody seems to feel the need of hospital or dispensary for the practical training of women physicians. Even our gentlemen friends in the profession say women must find this training for themselves among the poor.”
I may here remark, perhaps, a fact which amused me greatly. So far, I had had but very little opportunity to write prescriptions, but whenever I gave any I added my initials, M. E. Z., as signature, thus proving my responsibility. Every time such a prescription was received by an American apothecary, a messenger called to inquire the meaning of those mystical signs. And when I explained that it was my name which was too long to write in full, I was told that signatures to prescriptions were not customary or needed. However, I continued to sign mine, for I felt from the very outset that I must establish the position of being responsible for all I did, so that in case of trouble from either patient or apothecary I could protect myself. So I never followed the then prevailing custom of giving prescriptions without indicating for whom they were intended and by whom they were issued. Perhaps I may add that my practice by the end of the year had brought me one hundred and twenty dollars.
The earnestness with which Dr. Blackwell advocated not only the necessity of having women as physicians but also their thorough education and training for practice was convincing to a few friends, who promised to assist with subscriptions as soon as the idea had taken shape and had materialized itself in a building in which the experiment could be tried.
Nobody has fathomed the depth of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell’s soul as I have had the opportunity to do. On our delightful long walks she was the speaker, and her reasoning was so sound, her determination so firm, her love for humanity so true, that she seemed to me a prophet of no ordinary insight and foresight. Even now, when doubts arise in me whether women will develop fully all the chances provided for their higher scientific education, I recall her words and quiet my doubts, remembering that what one woman has done, thousands can do and will do. To me she was, and is, not preëminently the physician but the philanthropic philosopher, the standard bearer of a higher womanhood.
To such a nature, it is given to inspire others with an idea or an ideal but not the faculty of execution or organization. I was able to supply these latter qualities, and, encouraged by the description of Boston’s liberal element, I proposed to Dr. Blackwell to search for a house which would suit our purposes and to get an estimate of the rent and the expense of furnishing it, so as to have a definite sum for which to beg, since simple statements were not sufficient.
[Dr. Blackwell refers to such complementary relations in a letter to Dr. Zakrzewska, written in later years, in which she alludes to the days here described and says:
“I work chiefly in Principles, and you in putting them into practical use; and one is essential to the other in this complex life of ours.”
Again she refers to these days, “as we sat in Fifteenth Street planning those everlasting bazaars,” and she writes: