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Elizabeth Blackwell Quotes

Elizabeth Blackwell was a British and American physician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social reformer, and was a pioneer in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.Blackwell was not initially interested in a career in medicine. She became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College in New York, in which the male students voted in favor of Blackwell's acceptance, albeit as a joke. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.Blackwell founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses, and the Infirmary developed a medical school program for women, providing substantial work with patients . Returning to England, she helped found the London School of Medicine for Women in 1874. Wikipedia  

✵ 3. February 1821 – 31. May 1910
Elizabeth Blackwell photo
Elizabeth Blackwell: 9   quotes 0   likes

Famous Elizabeth Blackwell Quotes

“The subject of love is always of the most absorbing interest to the younger and more active portion of a people; sexual passion, in its ennobling or debasing form, exercises irresistible attraction.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 10 https://books.google.com/books?id=7VlHAQAAMAAJ&q=irresistible#v=snippet&q=irresistible&f=false
Essays in Medical Sociology (1899)

“A serious difficulty in understanding how to educate and regulate the relations of sex arises from the fact that it is the relation of two equal but distinct halves of the human race, and exists in the dual form—male and female. Unless the distinctive characteristics and requirements of each of these equal halves are fully understood, the relation between them cannot be satisfactory.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 8 https://books.google.com/books?id=7VlHAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=regulate&f=false
Essays in Medical Sociology (1899)

“The essence of all religions is the recognition of an Authority higher, more comprehensive, more permanent than the human being. The characteristic of Christian teaching, however, is the faith that this Supreme Authority is beneficent as well as powerful. The Christian believes that the Creative Force is a moral force, of more comprehensive morality than the human being that it creates. Under the symbol of a wise and loving parent—the most just, efficient, and attractive image that we know of—we are encouraged to regard this unseen Authority as being in direct relation with every atom of creation, and as desirous of drawing each atom into progressively higher forms of existence.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

[Elizabeth Blackwell, Essays in Medical Sociology, https://books.google.com/books?id=7VlHAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=religions&f=false, 1, 1899, Library Reprints, Incorporated, 978-0-7222-1823-5]
Essays in Medical Sociology (1899)

“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honourable term 'female physician' should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 30 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA30
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

“If an idea, I reasoned, were really a valuable one, there must be some way of realising it. The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed great attraction for me.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 29 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA29
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

“It was at this time that the suggestion of studying medicine was first presented to me, by a lady friend. This friend finally died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once said to me,'You are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.'”

Elizabeth Blackwell

But I at once repudiated the suggestion as an impossible one, saying that I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book.
... My favourite studies were history and metaphysics, and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust.
pp. 27–28 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

“In carrying on the grand work of improving national health, extirpating loathsome disease, discovering and removing the causes of disease, the distinction must be carefully drawn between the object to be accomplished and the means by which it shall be attained. The object is a grand one; the method of accomplishing it must be equally so, i.e., it must be guided by moral principle.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 757 https://books.google.com/books?id=85o2AAAAMAAJ&pg=757
Medicine and Morality (1881)

“Every physician knows the numerous sources of error which may lead an able advocate to wrong conclusions. The difficult art of statistics, which is no simple arrangement of numbers, but often requires very elaborate calculations, may lend itself to error; the neglect of some facts, or the undue prominence of others, the comparison of dissimilar conditions, or observations made on too short a scale or for too short a period—all these various conditions must be considered as sources of possible error.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

p. 754 https://books.google.com/books?id=85o2AAAAMAAJ&pg=754
Medicine and Morality (1881)

“For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

Quoted in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.
Medicine and Morality (1881)

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