Woman's work in America

by Unknown

The employment of women physicians in insane asylums is a very valuable measure from which we may hope great good in the future. At present, the most interesting instance of such work that has come to my notice is in the State Hospital for the Insane at Norristown, Pa., where Dr. Alice Bennett, with two women assistants, has charge of over eight hundred patients. Her carefully tabulated statistics throw much light on important questions regarding the causes of insanity and the probability of restoration. Dr. Bennett has introduced beneficial improvements in the treatment of patients in the direction of more freedom and more social life and opportunity of employment. She says in her last report, “No mechanical restraint (by which is meant enforced limitation of free movements of the body by means of jackets, muffs, straps, etc.) is at any time made use of in this department.... There are times in the history of many cases, when temporary separation from external cause of irritation is beneficial and necessary.... Brush making, basket making, sewing and mending, kindergarten occupations for the feebler-minded and melancholy, and the ever-present “housework,” in all its forms, engage about half the whole number of patients at one time or another. The officers and patients have also organized a ‘Lend a Hand Club.’ Dr. Bennett has arranged for a large number of patients to take their meals together, and finds the arrangement very beneficial.”

Some of those who are working for the sick have preferred the name of “Hospital Association.” Such is the St. Luke’s hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., said to be the first one in the State. The officers are women, but the physicians and a board of trustees are men. The main purpose of this association seems to be to relieve the wants of strangers, who so often go to Florida seeking health, but sometimes in vain.

The Women’s Homœopathic Association of Pennsylvania was formed for a distinctively reformatory purpose. Its government is composed of women, with the exception of an advisory board of men. The medical faculty is composed of both men and women. This account is given of its origin:

“The motive of starting a women’s association was, largely, to correct the abuses that grow out of institutions managed by men. It is here now and has been for many years the custom for hospital or other charitable institutions to have an auxiliary board of women managers, whose duties are to look after the housekeeping department and raise money either by giving entertainments or begging—the expenditure of the money so raised, and general management of hospital work, is considered beyond a woman’s ability. This prevents a voice in the higher administration. Some of the women, whose names appear as incorporators of the hospital of this association, desired to open an institution where women could, when in sickness and sorrow, be in the care of women. Out of 213 patients cared for during 1888, 153 were charity cases, 45 partial pay, and 15 cases full pay.”

The “Philadelphia Home for Incurables” was established by women, but its bounty is not confined to them; it admits men as patients. With the exception of a superintendent of the men’s department, the management is entirely in the hands of women. This is an effort to meet the crying need of a home for chronic sufferers. Each patient pays one hundred dollars and is kept during her life.

Much other work of the same nature as that I have described is, doubtless, doing in our vast country, of which no account has reached us. One of the many “Women’s Clubs” has taken the subject of hospitals into serious consideration. While rejoicing in every such effort, I would like to add a word of caution that every enterprise should be most carefully considered, and the work never allowed to fall below the recognized standard of merit.

When the pioneer hospitals were opened, no other clinical advantages were free to women; now the hospitals are beginning to open their doors to them. The report of the city hospital of Boston says, “The propriety of women practicing as physicians or surgeons, and their comparative ability and fitness to pursue this profession, are not questions for the trustees to consider in the official management of the hospital; they must recognize the fact that women are becoming practitioners in all the schools of medicine; that they are admitted to the Massachusetts Medical and other State societies, and are recognized as practitioners by the community at large; and that they are admitted in common with male students to other leading hospitals of the country. The trustees therefore feel that there is no sufficient reason why women should not be admitted to the public instruction in the amphitheater on the same terms as men, except as to certain operations from which a reasonable sense or regard for propriety may exclude them.” This advance in public opinion is most gratifying; but, even when all hospitals are open to women students, the value of those of which I have spoken will not be lost; they will still have special work to do, both in education and charity.

This movement for the clinical education of women in hospitals begun in America, has extended to Great Britain, Switzerland, and Germany, and is now being rapidly introduced into India, where the Women’s Hospital is found to be a most important agent in educating and elevating the women of India.

The lamented Dr. Amandibai Joshee, who was the pioneer of medical education for Hindoo women, was a student at the Philadelphia college and an interne at the New England Hospital.

An excellent hospital in Burlington, Vt., was planned and endowed by a woman (Miss Mary Fletcher), who gave it her personal supervision. It had no direct bearing on women’s education, but was open to all classes of patients. Since Miss Fletcher’s death it is called by her name. It is mainly intended for residents of the State, although other patients are received if it is not full. It has no women physicians, but a board of women visitors. It has an amphitheater for clinical instruction, and its buildings are large and convenient.