Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Feminist Physician

Transcript

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Feminist Physician · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Charles Chuck, Wayne Chwayne Bryant,
0:18
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry Jerome Roland, the Rizzy Uh, and I'm
0:23
Speaker 1: just Josh, like just Jack was just Jack? Wow. Okay,
0:28
Speaker 1: that's a heck, come an intro. Thank you. Let's do
0:30
Speaker 1: a little jazz hands there. Just call me Twayne Chwayne
0:33
Speaker 1: from now on, Chwayne. It's not awkward to pronounce. It's
0:38
Speaker 1: really close to schwing. Remember that schwing. Oh man, I
0:43
Speaker 1: totally forgot about it until just now. Schwing. Chuck Schwing, schwing.
0:49
Speaker 1: That's how you have to say it. No, you can
0:52
Speaker 1: say it anyway like schwing. Yeah. Well, what I really
0:55
Speaker 1: love is that we're talking about America's first woman physician,
1:02
Speaker 1: an amazing woman named Eliza, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had
1:06
Speaker 1: an amazing family and her story is incredible, and we're
1:10
Speaker 1: saying swinging at the beginning, right, especially considering that she
1:15
Speaker 1: was a m a h. Rather puritanical person in a
1:20
Speaker 1: lot of senses, she would probably not have been down
1:23
Speaker 1: with us saying swing no, no, because you know what. Uh,
1:30
Speaker 1: she and her family were Quakers, And I know some
1:34
Speaker 1: Quakers and have known some Quakers. They hate swing, they do,
1:38
Speaker 1: but you know what, they love being awesome. Yeah, yeah, no,
1:42
Speaker 1: I mean for sure, um this this, I get the
1:46
Speaker 1: impression that her entire family is a pretty good example
1:49
Speaker 1: of like a like a Quaker family. Quaker. Every Quaker
1:53
Speaker 1: I've known has just had it like had it all
1:56
Speaker 1: figured out. It seems like they're like the the Buddhists
1:59
Speaker 1: of the best. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. They also, Um,
2:06
Speaker 1: I think they also go by the Society of Friends,
2:08
Speaker 1: which says a lot too if Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
2:12
Speaker 1: And then if you remember correctly, Charles, our Pacifist episode
2:16
Speaker 1: focused heavily on the Quakers because they're big time Pacifists too.
2:20
Speaker 1: So Elizabeth Blackwell, just by virtue of having been a Quaker,
2:26
Speaker 1: was a pretty interesting like upstanding, upright person with with
2:31
Speaker 1: a good head on her shoulders. But she also like
2:34
Speaker 1: individually personally was a very amazing person. And not just
2:38
Speaker 1: the fact that she was the first licensed woman physician
2:44
Speaker 1: in America. Um, but to get there, she really had
2:48
Speaker 1: to blaze her own path and put up with a
2:50
Speaker 1: lot of bs. You might put it um, and and
2:56
Speaker 1: so much so that even in her um, her autobiography,
3:00
Speaker 1: which was published in when she was in her seventies,
3:03
Speaker 1: I think um, she called it pioneering work, um, and
3:08
Speaker 1: that was There's really no better way to put it.
3:10
Speaker 1: She was absolutely a pioneer, and not just getting herself
3:13
Speaker 1: established as a woman physician in America, but in making
3:17
Speaker 1: it so that there could be more women physician in America,
3:21
Speaker 1: physicians and more and more, much more. So let's start with, oh,
3:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, February three, what's significant about that date?
3:32
Speaker 1: She was born as a little baby uh, near Bristol, England.
3:36
Speaker 1: She was the third of nine children. Her mom was
3:39
Speaker 1: Hannah Lane, who came from a family of merchants who
3:43
Speaker 1: had some dough and her pops was Samuel Blackwell. He
3:46
Speaker 1: was a sugar refiner and also prosperous. And like we said,
3:50
Speaker 1: they were Quakers, which means that they were very cool.
3:55
Speaker 1: They were not then this was one. They were not
3:57
Speaker 1: down with slavery. They were activists against lay bree uh,
4:01
Speaker 1: they were abolitionists. They supported women's suffrage. Um. Her brother
4:05
Speaker 1: Henry married Lucy Stone, who was very famous women's rights activist.
4:10
Speaker 1: Her little sister Emily followed in her footsteps in medicine.
4:14
Speaker 1: Her sister in law, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, first female ordained
4:18
Speaker 1: minister in Protestant the Protestant denomination. Yeah, they're way ahead
4:24
Speaker 1: of their time. Yeah, and you can trace I mean,
4:25
Speaker 1: both of her parents seem to be pretty cool. Um,
4:28
Speaker 1: and you can trace their um the roots of of
4:32
Speaker 1: their sensibilities back to their parents. Like um, Samuel was
4:36
Speaker 1: a dissenter, like he was a Quaker, which is I
4:39
Speaker 1: guess the form of Protestantism. But he was definitely he
4:43
Speaker 1: didn't recognize like the sole religious authority of say, like
4:47
Speaker 1: the Church of England or anything like that. And so
4:49
Speaker 1: as a result, his children could not go to public school.
4:52
Speaker 1: He said, fine, I've got some money. I'm a prosperous
4:55
Speaker 1: sugar merchant. I'm going to hire the best tutors I
4:58
Speaker 1: can find. And not only that, I'm going to defy
5:02
Speaker 1: the conventions of England and have these tutors teach my
5:07
Speaker 1: daughters the same stuff that they're going to teach my sons,
5:11
Speaker 1: which unheard of. But that really formed the basis for
5:17
Speaker 1: especially Elizabeth's progression and education that she she came to
5:23
Speaker 1: expect to be taught just like she was a boy.
5:26
Speaker 1: Um because of how she was raised. Yeah, and you know,
5:31
Speaker 1: by all accounts, her parents were both pretty great. Her
5:33
Speaker 1: dad was a very caring individual. He thought that all
5:37
Speaker 1: kids of any gender should reach their full potential. Uh.
5:42
Speaker 1: He didn't physically punish his kids, which was weird at
5:44
Speaker 1: the time. People are like, why aren't you hitting your kids? Yeah,
5:48
Speaker 1: and he said, I don't believe in it. I've got
5:50
Speaker 1: a switch right here you can borrow. Really do not
5:53
Speaker 1: have a switch, That's what the deal is. He doesn't
5:56
Speaker 1: have a switch or paddle. Let's get him a switch.
6:00
Speaker 1: So he you know, they would had sort of like
6:02
Speaker 1: a demerit system in their house, and if you added
6:05
Speaker 1: up to too many demerits, you would have to do
6:08
Speaker 1: something like eat by yourself in the attic or something
6:12
Speaker 1: that sounds horrific, also like sticking a kid in the closet.
6:14
Speaker 1: But I think it was just a room removed from
6:17
Speaker 1: the family dinner. Yeah, it was just you have to
6:20
Speaker 1: go away from the family. We can't even bear to
6:22
Speaker 1: look at you. You make us want a puke. That's right.
6:24
Speaker 1: But everything changed when he lost his sugar refinery and
6:28
Speaker 1: a fire and said, you know, what, let's pack our
6:31
Speaker 1: bags and let's move to New York City. New York City.
6:36
Speaker 1: That's right, New York City. Do you remember back in
6:40
Speaker 1: I don't know, like around two thousand and seven eight.
6:42
Speaker 1: I feel like it was right when we both started
6:44
Speaker 1: working around how stuff works. That a sugar refinery and
6:47
Speaker 1: Savannah blew up. Remember that I wrote an article about that.
6:50
Speaker 1: It's like that sugar dust is is volatile, it can
6:54
Speaker 1: can catch fire. And I'm wonder if that's what happened
6:56
Speaker 1: to his sugar refinery. You okay, So they moved to
7:00
Speaker 1: New York. They lived in New York and in Jersey
7:02
Speaker 1: for six years. Yeah. And one of the cool things
7:06
Speaker 1: that I liked about him he was he was a
7:09
Speaker 1: little paradoxical. So he was a sugar refiner. He made
7:12
Speaker 1: his money off of sugar refining. But the sugar industry
7:15
Speaker 1: was based almost entirely on slave labor around the world.
7:21
Speaker 1: That's how sugarcane was grown, That's how I He didn't
7:24
Speaker 1: use slaves, I can tell you that, but he still
7:26
Speaker 1: made his money in an industry that was heavy, heavy
7:29
Speaker 1: on slavery. And in fact, his children were such staunch
7:33
Speaker 1: abolitionists even as young children they refused to eat sugar
7:37
Speaker 1: because they knew that slaves had had a hand in
7:40
Speaker 1: producing it, so they wouldn't even they wouldn't even need
7:42
Speaker 1: it as kids. Little kids wouldn't eat sugar because of
7:45
Speaker 1: of the slavery involved. Um, but he still made his
7:49
Speaker 1: his money off of that. But Um, when he got
7:52
Speaker 1: to America, one of the first things he tried was
7:55
Speaker 1: to um introduce sugar beets, which don't really require slave labor.
8:01
Speaker 1: There's a much less labor intensive process of extracting sugar
8:05
Speaker 1: from sugar beets, and this is really revolutionary at the time.
8:10
Speaker 1: Like they think they first isolated sugar from beats in
8:12
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred, like thirty years before, and they had been
8:16
Speaker 1: introduced to America just like two years before. He he
8:19
Speaker 1: took this up, so he was on the cutting edge
8:22
Speaker 1: of of sugar beat production. But it didn't actually work
8:25
Speaker 1: out very well. No Um, he his original sugar refinery
8:30
Speaker 1: went Um went south in eighteen thirty seven, so he said,
8:34
Speaker 1: let me move to Cincinnata and I'll get down on
8:37
Speaker 1: the on the sugar beat thing. But just a few
8:39
Speaker 1: weeks after they got the Cincinnati in August of eighteen
8:42
Speaker 1: thirty eight, he died of a fever. And because he
8:45
Speaker 1: had lost that sugar refinery and didn't have the next
8:48
Speaker 1: sugar beat operation up and going, they didn't have a
8:51
Speaker 1: lot of dough. His family was um left without a
8:53
Speaker 1: lot of money. Yeah, which I mean, that's gotta be
8:57
Speaker 1: really tough to go from wealthy to not, you know,
9:01
Speaker 1: and just one fell swoop and but that's kind of
9:03
Speaker 1: what happened with Elizabeth's family and UM. A few years later,
9:08
Speaker 1: she resolved, and she was twenty one, that she would
9:11
Speaker 1: not be dependent on any man, that she was going
9:14
Speaker 1: to be self sufficient, and she was never going to marry,
9:17
Speaker 1: and she wanted to make her own way. And I mean,
9:20
Speaker 1: it's pretty tough not to trace that line directly back to,
9:23
Speaker 1: you know, the state that her father left his family
9:26
Speaker 1: and UM not in any way that you know that
9:29
Speaker 1: was his own doing or his own fault, but that
9:32
Speaker 1: was just the conventions of the time. And so for
9:34
Speaker 1: a woman to resolve that she would make her own
9:36
Speaker 1: way in life was very unconventional. But if Elizabeth Black
9:41
Speaker 1: was anything, she was very unconventional, that's right. So she
9:45
Speaker 1: and her mom and a couple of her sisters, they
9:48
Speaker 1: were teachers for a little while and she eventually and
9:52
Speaker 1: we this is kind of jumping ahead of it, but
9:54
Speaker 1: she she did adopt a girl, a seven year old
9:56
Speaker 1: Irish immigrant orphan that she named Kitty. Her name was
10:00
Speaker 1: Katherine Barry and went by Kitty, and she was with
10:02
Speaker 1: her for the duration of her life. But she never
10:04
Speaker 1: got married, and she decided to become a doctor when
10:09
Speaker 1: she had a really close friend who was dying said
10:13
Speaker 1: you know what, I think that I might have lived
10:17
Speaker 1: if I might have had a woman as a doctor,
10:20
Speaker 1: because they're more compassionate and I might have gotten better treatment.
10:24
Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Blackwell was like, WHOA that really speaks to me. Yeah.
10:29
Speaker 1: They they think that the woman was probably dying of
10:32
Speaker 1: uterine cancer, and she thinks that she would have She
10:36
Speaker 1: would have disclosed more of her condition post sooner, and
10:40
Speaker 1: at the very least she would have been more comfortable
10:42
Speaker 1: in her dying days being treated by a woman, rather
10:44
Speaker 1: than poked and prodded by some man um who who
10:48
Speaker 1: seemed to be less compassionate than she believed a woman
10:50
Speaker 1: would be. The thing about Elizabeth Blackwell is she, first
10:55
Speaker 1: of all, she was struck by this, and she was
10:58
Speaker 1: so struck struck by it that she moved her to
11:01
Speaker 1: want to become a doctor. But not only that, she
11:05
Speaker 1: had to overcome a natural, deep seated aversion to the
11:11
Speaker 1: idea of the body or anatomy or medicine. Like she
11:14
Speaker 1: was not at all interested in this to begin with,
11:17
Speaker 1: and in fact, she had an aversion to it, but
11:19
Speaker 1: she was so moved by that woman um and her
11:22
Speaker 1: experience that she resolved to overcome her disgust and her
11:26
Speaker 1: aversion at bodily functions and anatomy and become a doctor herself.
11:32
Speaker 1: It's pretty I mean, that's a really key detail. It
11:34
Speaker 1: is a hugely I mean that's enormous. Like not only
11:37
Speaker 1: she like she just wasn't a kid who wanted to
11:40
Speaker 1: be a doctor, Like I loved the side of blood
11:42
Speaker 1: and internal oregan so this kind of fits anyway. Yeah,
11:45
Speaker 1: she had to overcome an aversion to it, on top
11:48
Speaker 1: of overcoming the aversion that society had against a woman
11:52
Speaker 1: becoming a doctor, because at the time it was it
11:55
Speaker 1: was considered that a woman couldn't know enough about the
11:59
Speaker 1: human body to be a physician and still be considered
12:03
Speaker 1: a morally upright woman, that her morals were at risk
12:06
Speaker 1: of being corrupted just by knowing everything there is to
12:10
Speaker 1: know about the human body. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest,
12:14
Speaker 1: they would have to see a male penis as part
12:18
Speaker 1: of their training. PP. So, man, we're such children, we are.
12:25
Speaker 1: So she said, all right, I'm gonna do this. I'm
12:27
Speaker 1: gonna get over this. I'm gonna be a doctor. How
12:29
Speaker 1: do I do this? I'll just go to medical school.
12:32
Speaker 1: Medical school said no, no, no, no, no, women can't
12:35
Speaker 1: go to medical school. Um, there are a few ladies
12:38
Speaker 1: around the country that are unlicensed physicians that worked as
12:41
Speaker 1: apprentices and learned their trade. But um, you're not going
12:44
Speaker 1: to go this traditional route. And medical school at the
12:47
Speaker 1: time was just weird anyway, which we'll get into a
12:50
Speaker 1: little bit later, but we I mean, we also got
12:52
Speaker 1: into it in our grave robbing episodes was similar to
12:55
Speaker 1: that time. It was crazy. It wasn't like it wasn't
13:01
Speaker 1: the I don't think doctors were as respected back then
13:04
Speaker 1: even No, they know, because they were the ones who were, um,
13:09
Speaker 1: who were cutting open bodies and just kind of figuring
13:12
Speaker 1: stuff out as they went along. And if you went
13:14
Speaker 1: to a doctor, there was like an eight percent chance
13:16
Speaker 1: you were walking out one limb short. Yeah. So she, uh,
13:21
Speaker 1: while she was a teacher. She boarded with um families,
13:25
Speaker 1: and that she did a lot of this stuff in
13:26
Speaker 1: the South, which we'll get too as well. But UM,
13:29
Speaker 1: two Southern physicians mentored her. Um, she still could not
13:33
Speaker 1: get into medical school. Of course, she had some physician
13:37
Speaker 1: friends who were Quakers. She asked them about it. They said,
13:40
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, but no, it costs too much.
13:43
Speaker 1: You're never gonna be able to get in. UM. What
13:46
Speaker 1: you should do is disguise yourself as a man and
13:48
Speaker 1: go to France. And she was like, not a bad idea.
13:51
Speaker 1: If that's the best advice somebody's giving you, you need
13:54
Speaker 1: to rethink the people who you take advice from. It
13:57
Speaker 1: sounds like she was game, though, but she just had
14:00
Speaker 1: to save money instead and apply to medical medical school
14:04
Speaker 1: in the United States. So and today dollars I did
14:09
Speaker 1: the the the old inflation calculator three grand back then.
14:13
Speaker 1: It would be about eighty five thou dollars today, So
14:17
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money. And she between I think,
14:20
Speaker 1: for a period of two or three years, went South
14:23
Speaker 1: and taught school and slave states, which was very hard
14:26
Speaker 1: for her to do in order to save money for
14:28
Speaker 1: medical school. She didn't know what she could get into anyway,
14:31
Speaker 1: right exactly. And the first the first place she taught
14:33
Speaker 1: in Kentucky, she only lasted a year. She's just found
14:36
Speaker 1: the social climate so intolerable. She she was really, you know,
14:42
Speaker 1: she couldn't put up with it. And I don't know
14:44
Speaker 1: how she was able to better in North and South Carolina,
14:48
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean she managed in two years to
14:51
Speaker 1: raise eighty three grand from teaching I guess rich kids
14:54
Speaker 1: in North and South Carolina. And she she um. But
14:58
Speaker 1: she also while she was there, she's, well, I want
15:00
Speaker 1: to teach the slave kids too. I'll do it pro bono.
15:03
Speaker 1: And they said, well, it's against the law for you
15:05
Speaker 1: to teach slave kids. And they said, but you can
15:08
Speaker 1: teach them Sunday school. And she said, fine, I'll do that.
15:12
Speaker 1: And there was a great quote um that came from her,
15:15
Speaker 1: uh in a letter to her family in and I'm
15:19
Speaker 1: not sure what state she was in, maybe even Kentucky,
15:23
Speaker 1: but she said, I assure you I felt a little
15:25
Speaker 1: odd sitting down before those degraded little beings, not saying
15:29
Speaker 1: they were naturally degraded, that they had been degraded by
15:32
Speaker 1: other people. I believe, to teach them a religion which
15:35
Speaker 1: the owners professed to follow whilst violating its very first principles.
15:41
Speaker 1: It really does. She was like, you know, these people
15:43
Speaker 1: are professed to be Christians, but are do not treat
15:48
Speaker 1: other people like Christians. And that's just such a Quaker
15:50
Speaker 1: thing to do. Huh, that is a very quicker thing
15:52
Speaker 1: to do. You want to take a little break, Yeah,
15:55
Speaker 1: let's do it. Okay, We're gonna take a break everybody,
15:57
Speaker 1: and we'll be back to tell you more about Elizabeth
16:00
Speaker 1: Blackwell's progress towards med school. So, Chuck, like you said,
16:21
Speaker 1: she um was mentored by a couple of doctors who
16:25
Speaker 1: she she stayed with while she was teaching in North
16:28
Speaker 1: and South Carolina, one of whom was actually a professor
16:31
Speaker 1: of medicine, so he had all the books. He was
16:34
Speaker 1: very encouraging to her. Um, he taught her everything he could.
16:38
Speaker 1: And that was, like you said, a way that a
16:39
Speaker 1: woman could become a physician, but an unlicensed physician. Um
16:45
Speaker 1: certainly not one that was that was in any way
16:48
Speaker 1: established as an actual legitimate physician. And that was ultimately
16:52
Speaker 1: her goal. Yeah. Like, she continued to get sort of
16:55
Speaker 1: tutored by different people in the South that she knew
16:58
Speaker 1: who were physicians, and it was great that these uh,
17:02
Speaker 1: these men encouraged her and tutored her. Said, here used
17:05
Speaker 1: my books. Um. But again, like you said, she wanted
17:08
Speaker 1: to do the real deal and and forge a path
17:11
Speaker 1: and not just kind of go the back door route.
17:14
Speaker 1: So she applied to all the medical schools in New
17:18
Speaker 1: York and Philly. She applied to twelve more in the Northeast.
17:22
Speaker 1: She was rejected by all of them, and on the
17:25
Speaker 1: thirtie application to Geneva Medical College in Western New York
17:30
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty seven, she was accepted. And I said,
17:34
Speaker 1: I raised my voice because she got accepted because it
17:38
Speaker 1: was a joke that uh well, everyone thought it was
17:44
Speaker 1: a practical joke. The professor there, the dean of the
17:46
Speaker 1: medical med school, basically said, hey, let's take a vote here.
17:50
Speaker 1: We'll have all the men here that go here vote
17:54
Speaker 1: on whether or not a woman can come to school here.
17:57
Speaker 1: And if every single person says yes, she can come here,
18:00
Speaker 1: and if one person says no, she won't. They all
18:03
Speaker 1: thought it was a prank from I guess the neighboring
18:07
Speaker 1: rival medical school the west Geneva. Yeah, they said, sure,
18:11
Speaker 1: let her in. And it wasn't a joke, and they
18:13
Speaker 1: did let her in. They they did, um, And apparently
18:17
Speaker 1: they were all very surprised. Like this almost sounds like
18:20
Speaker 1: an urban legend, but from what I saw, like this
18:22
Speaker 1: is across the board. What happened that they thought it
18:26
Speaker 1: was a practical joke and it turned out to be real.
18:28
Speaker 1: And that is how she ended up going to medical school. Unbelievable.
18:31
Speaker 1: So when she showed up, she was taking this quite seriously.
18:35
Speaker 1: She was twenty six already, she spent some time like
18:38
Speaker 1: living around seeing the country. Um. Just she was twenty six,
18:42
Speaker 1: Like this says a lot about a person, oversay, like
18:45
Speaker 1: twenty or nineteen or something like that. And so she
18:48
Speaker 1: when she showed up, um, not only was she a
18:50
Speaker 1: little more mature, probably than some of her contemporaries, she
18:53
Speaker 1: also um was she was well aware of the convention.
18:59
Speaker 1: She was breaking challenges and the obstacles that laid ahead
19:02
Speaker 1: of her. Um. And there's a pretty good report like
19:06
Speaker 1: the fact that she showed up at medical school made
19:09
Speaker 1: the papers, and in fact, the Boston Medical Journal even
19:12
Speaker 1: wrote up something about the facts that that she was yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: that she was there taking medical classes. The Boston Medical
19:18
Speaker 1: Journal said that she comes into the class with great composure,
19:22
Speaker 1: takes off her bonnet and puts it under the seat,
19:25
Speaker 1: exposing a fine phrenology. Are you kidding me? You're talking
19:29
Speaker 1: about the shape of her head. Yeah. Yeah, But this
19:32
Speaker 1: is the Boston Medical Journal at the time. Hopefully the
19:35
Speaker 1: b m J has um has officially uh stopped using
19:40
Speaker 1: phrenology in any way, shape or form. But we'll have
19:43
Speaker 1: to We'll have to get a subscription and find out.
19:46
Speaker 1: So we talked earlier about the fact that medical school
19:49
Speaker 1: at the time was really different. Um, it sounds like
19:51
Speaker 1: animal house or something. It was very raucous. Uh. Apparently
19:56
Speaker 1: when they were lecturers, you would make crewe jokes out loud,
20:01
Speaker 1: and no matter what you're talking about. It sounds like
20:03
Speaker 1: a bunch of children taking sex at or something. Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: and like the sixth grade. But apparently Blackwell's effect on
20:10
Speaker 1: the whole, like every class she went into was everyone
20:13
Speaker 1: took it a lot more seriously because she was there. Yeah.
20:17
Speaker 1: Because again, like if you were a man, you acted far, far,
20:21
Speaker 1: far differently around a woman. Um at the time, where
20:24
Speaker 1: you were just much more genteel. It was just the
20:26
Speaker 1: social convention and so you had to bite your tongue
20:30
Speaker 1: in medical school. If if um, Elizabeth blackwells in your class,
20:35
Speaker 1: where you just did that was just kind of the
20:36
Speaker 1: effect that she had on class just by being a woman.
20:39
Speaker 1: But even beyond that, there was this whole view that like,
20:45
Speaker 1: these guys were somehow contributing to this woman's moral corruption
20:50
Speaker 1: by even being in the same class with her, let
20:53
Speaker 1: alone being the instructor teaching her. And so one of
20:56
Speaker 1: the things she ran into in med school was she
20:58
Speaker 1: would sometimes be asked to go step outside because this
21:02
Speaker 1: particular lecture is a little rough, and Elizabeth Blackwell did
21:06
Speaker 1: not truck to that at all, and very adamant that. Remember,
21:10
Speaker 1: she was educated like a boy by the tutors her
21:12
Speaker 1: father hired. She had a full expectation to be left
21:16
Speaker 1: out of absolutely nothing. At med school. She was to
21:19
Speaker 1: be a full physician, and so she was to learn
21:22
Speaker 1: everything that any physician would learn. And eventually, over time
21:25
Speaker 1: she kind of overcame this genteel opposition to her presence
21:30
Speaker 1: by her professors in male classmates. Yeah, and I think
21:34
Speaker 1: in no small part due to her serious take and
21:37
Speaker 1: her fastidiousness in her uh the fact that in the
21:42
Speaker 1: end she graduated first in her class. Yeah, this says
21:44
Speaker 1: a lot. She was the best student in nine. She
21:47
Speaker 1: graduated first um ultimately earned the respect of her fellow students.
21:54
Speaker 1: Not to say that it was a um it was
21:57
Speaker 1: a cake walk. There were still plenty of jerks there, Uh,
22:00
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of them had animosity towards her.
22:03
Speaker 1: Remember a cake walker's racist? Is it really? Yeah? I
22:07
Speaker 1: remember we did a we did a show on what
22:11
Speaker 1: was it? I can't remember them, Like words that have
22:15
Speaker 1: different origins than you would think, are different meanings than
22:17
Speaker 1: you would think. You remember, Yeah, I think I do
22:20
Speaker 1: remember that. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm sorry for interrupting you.
22:25
Speaker 1: That's okay. So it was no pie walk. Still plenty
22:31
Speaker 1: of jerks. Uh. There were some men there that um
22:35
Speaker 1: would um would laugh at her, some in there that
22:38
Speaker 1: would support her, some men that would jeer at her,
22:41
Speaker 1: some men that would help her out. But like I said,
22:44
Speaker 1: in the end, she she got that degree first in
22:46
Speaker 1: her class. Apparently, and I don't know if this is
22:48
Speaker 1: the movie version, but the medical school's dean bowed to
22:53
Speaker 1: her when she accepted her diploma, and everyone busted out
22:56
Speaker 1: in applause. Yeah, that's what a newspaper account us that
23:00
Speaker 1: who from the correspondent who was there, and they also
23:03
Speaker 1: added and brother Bluto became Senator Blue tar Very. It's
23:09
Speaker 1: that wrapped everything up. Do you think that movie age
23:11
Speaker 1: as well? We're talking about Animal House again. I haven't.
23:14
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. You know what I should say? Sorry,
23:17
Speaker 1: in a while. I'm not sure. Okay, I could have
23:21
Speaker 1: seen it plenty of times, but I haven't seen it in
23:22
Speaker 1: in a while. I'm sure it doesn't it can't. Uh.
23:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I think it's kind of timeless. Um. However,
23:32
Speaker 1: I've heard certain people that I won't name say it
23:36
Speaker 1: doesn't age well. Noel, oh yeah, yeah, nol didn't think
23:41
Speaker 1: you think there's a there's a raft of comedies from
23:43
Speaker 1: that era that just are not funny. Now wait, not
23:46
Speaker 1: funny or political? No, no, no, not funny. Oh gotcha?
23:51
Speaker 1: It doesn't age well as in, like, why is this?
23:53
Speaker 1: Why do people think this is a comedy classic? It's
23:55
Speaker 1: not even that good? Gotcha? Gotcha? Okay, yeah, I'll have
23:58
Speaker 1: to watch it again. I haven't, I haven't seen it.
24:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I think it's kind of timeless
24:01
Speaker 1: in its comedy. I mean, sure, there are parts that
24:04
Speaker 1: don't age well in every other respect like any comedy
24:07
Speaker 1: made before like four years ago. Sure, that's what I know.
24:10
Speaker 1: Like like the last five minutes, I thought that's what
24:14
Speaker 1: you were talking about. No, I mean it's entirely possible,
24:16
Speaker 1: because I've seen some comedies where I'm like, this is
24:18
Speaker 1: this is not at all funny, like spies like us
24:20
Speaker 1: give me a break? Not good. No, I haven't seen
24:23
Speaker 1: it in a long time. It's not good. See now
24:27
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to watch some of those oldies. Yeah, I do.
24:31
Speaker 1: My dad taught me. Well, but if you, uh, if
24:35
Speaker 1: if you want to continue to cherish any movie that
24:37
Speaker 1: you used to love, I would not risk it. No,
24:40
Speaker 1: we'll see. Unless it's Ghostbusters. That definitely holds up. Friend. Yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: that new one looks good too. Was the new one
24:48
Speaker 1: the sequel sort of? So it's technically Ghostbusters three? Yeah?
24:56
Speaker 1: Or four? I mean we are Wait was there a third?
24:59
Speaker 1: It was just the first two? Yeah, the second There
25:02
Speaker 1: was the first two and then the third one had
25:04
Speaker 1: like I think Kate McKinnon, different universe, didn't it. Yeah? Yeah,
25:10
Speaker 1: that was that was just a reboot, which was great,
25:13
Speaker 1: I thought. But this new one is a sequel many
25:16
Speaker 1: years later, and I think it's one of their grandkids. Um,
25:21
Speaker 1: you know, stuff starts happening. It looks good. Paul reads
25:24
Speaker 1: in it, okay, and what's his name's kid? Reitman's kid
25:27
Speaker 1: is directing it. It's a oh, he's great Jason. Yeah,
25:29
Speaker 1: it's a Jason, rightman, jam. So that's good stuff. That
25:33
Speaker 1: might he might be a little too high high brow
25:35
Speaker 1: for a Ghostbusters. Well, hey, I can tell you you
25:39
Speaker 1: know who's spinning in her grave right now about a
25:41
Speaker 1: thousand RPMs. Who Elizabeth black Wow, I know, I'm so sorry,
25:45
Speaker 1: Dr Blackwell. Should we take a break. I don't know
25:48
Speaker 1: who knows anymore? All right, let's take a break and
25:50
Speaker 1: we'll stop talking about dumb old movies right after this. Alright, so, Chuck,
26:11
Speaker 1: I think where we officially left off. Um, Elizabeth Blackwell
26:16
Speaker 1: received her diploma. The the dean of the medical school
26:21
Speaker 1: stood up and bowed, and the auditorium broke out into applause,
26:24
Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome. Um. Apparently she when she although
26:30
Speaker 1: she won over her classmates, there were still like a
26:32
Speaker 1: lot of women actually at the time who were not
26:34
Speaker 1: very happy with what she'd done. But she said, nuts
26:37
Speaker 1: to you guys, I'm gonna move to Paris. And London,
26:42
Speaker 1: and I'm going to pursue my my practice there to start,
26:46
Speaker 1: that's right, which is a great idea. And when she
26:49
Speaker 1: got there, they said, wow, you were a real deal
26:52
Speaker 1: doctor and you have a medical degree. Here be a midwife. Yeah,
26:57
Speaker 1: a woman saccar blue. Yeah she was, uh, she was
27:00
Speaker 1: led into midwife ree and nursing um. But she's like
27:05
Speaker 1: really sort of trying to be revolutionary here because all
27:08
Speaker 1: she sees are these men walking around not washing their
27:12
Speaker 1: hands at all, and she's like, you know, what is
27:16
Speaker 1: probably super important is personal hygiene and preventative care. And
27:20
Speaker 1: they're like, what's that? Yeah, well they literally were what's that?
27:24
Speaker 1: Because this was early eighteen fifties and remember a Great
27:29
Speaker 1: Stink episode, So they were still operating under the miasma
27:34
Speaker 1: theory that it was like bad vapors and smells that
27:38
Speaker 1: made you sick. So her idea that it was like
27:41
Speaker 1: that hand washing was part of this preventative medicine was
27:45
Speaker 1: really ahead of its time. And so in in addition
27:48
Speaker 1: to being a woman who they were just discrediting out
27:51
Speaker 1: of hand anyway just for being a woman, they were
27:54
Speaker 1: also saying, like you're talking cookie stuff. Everybody knows it
27:57
Speaker 1: smells that make you sick. Your nut job over there
28:00
Speaker 1: and deliver a baby. And she's like, but I haven't
28:03
Speaker 1: washed my hands, Like we just told you. It doesn't matter.
28:06
Speaker 1: Babies are dirty. As long as your hands don't stink,
28:09
Speaker 1: it's fine. Yeah, we should also mention it's right about
28:12
Speaker 1: here where she lost sight in her left eye from
28:17
Speaker 1: an accident that I can barely even talk about. Oh,
28:20
Speaker 1: I want to, can I please? So she contracted purulent ophthalmia,
28:26
Speaker 1: which is which is an infection of the eye, and
28:30
Speaker 1: her I became infected because she was tending to an
28:33
Speaker 1: infant who I guess had some sort of wound that
28:36
Speaker 1: was infected, and pus escorted in her left eye from
28:40
Speaker 1: the infection and in facted her left eye to such
28:43
Speaker 1: a terrible degree that she became blind in her left eye. Yes,
28:47
Speaker 1: and that is that is sad, but really sad because
28:51
Speaker 1: she was not able to become a surgeon, which is
28:54
Speaker 1: what she really wanted to do. It's also said that
28:56
Speaker 1: there was a baby with an infection a pussy and actually,
29:00
Speaker 1: let's not forget about that baby. H That baby grew
29:04
Speaker 1: up to be Roy Cone. She she moved to the
29:11
Speaker 1: that's really good, um, she moved to the UK then
29:14
Speaker 1: from Paris, and this is where she hooked up with
29:16
Speaker 1: a little buddy named Florence Nightingale. Yeah, who deserves her
29:20
Speaker 1: own episode two. Totally, they became good friends. They were like,
29:23
Speaker 1: you like to wash your hands? I do too, isn't
29:26
Speaker 1: it awesome? Let's go do it together. That's kind of
29:30
Speaker 1: the long and short of it. They sat around and
29:32
Speaker 1: saying ABC S or I don't want no scrubs wash
29:35
Speaker 1: their hands, and they were both like, why are none
29:38
Speaker 1: of these men doctors ever washing their hands? And they
29:41
Speaker 1: were both like, because they're dummies. Yeah, just give him
29:44
Speaker 1: a few years in germ theory will be developed and
29:46
Speaker 1: then they'll listen to Louis past year or not exactly.
29:50
Speaker 1: But I think that's pretty awesome. It's almost like, um,
29:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, Einstein and somebody else meeting, you know,
29:58
Speaker 1: like just it's cool to know that these too, like
30:00
Speaker 1: legendary figures met and we're friends at one point in time. Oh, totally,
30:05
Speaker 1: it's almost like a movie, you know what I'm saying.
30:07
Speaker 1: This totally should be a movie. I'm surprised it's not
30:10
Speaker 1: yet agreed. Maybe Jason Rightman could direct it. That's right,
30:15
Speaker 1: and maybe uh, uh, what's who's the guy that wolverine? Yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: maybe Hugh Jackman can be in it. He would play
30:27
Speaker 1: um Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, that's right. And Jared from Subway
30:31
Speaker 1: can play the pus baby. Yeah, everything would come full
30:35
Speaker 1: circle and the universe would collapse in on it and
30:37
Speaker 1: then the Sharknado would kill them all. So she uh
30:42
Speaker 1: is pals with Florence Nightingale. She decides, you know what,
30:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to New York one and I
30:49
Speaker 1: really want to get a practice going there. Um. She
30:53
Speaker 1: got back, and of course discrimination against women in the
30:57
Speaker 1: doctor in industry was still there. So she did and
31:00
Speaker 1: have a lot of opportunities. She didn't have a lot
31:02
Speaker 1: of patients, she didn't have a lot of other doctors
31:05
Speaker 1: that she could even exchange ideas with. Um, and so
31:09
Speaker 1: she started applying for jobs instead of starting her own
31:12
Speaker 1: practice at the women's department in a big city dispense dispensary.
31:17
Speaker 1: But she was not h she was not hired. No,
31:22
Speaker 1: and I had to look up a dispensary is it
31:23
Speaker 1: like a charity or public clinic? So this ambition, yeah,
31:28
Speaker 1: this this woman's ambition, this first woman doctor in the
31:31
Speaker 1: United States now UM. Her ambition was to help the poor.
31:37
Speaker 1: That was that was what she wanted to do her.
31:40
Speaker 1: Her her missions in life were to help the poor,
31:43
Speaker 1: help women retain their chastity and purity in the hopes
31:48
Speaker 1: of um having a good moral impact on the world
31:52
Speaker 1: around them, and then to make it so that more
31:57
Speaker 1: women could become doctors from like she was like a
32:00
Speaker 1: fireless fighter and champion of all of these things. And so,
32:04
Speaker 1: in typical Elizabeth Blackwell fashion, when she was turned down
32:07
Speaker 1: for a job at a dispensary, she just opened her
32:11
Speaker 1: own dispensary, that's right, and a little single rented room.
32:14
Speaker 1: She saw patients a few afternoons each week. It was
32:18
Speaker 1: incorporated in eighteen fifty four, where they moved to a
32:20
Speaker 1: small house uh there on the lower east Side East
32:23
Speaker 1: Village area of Tompkins Square. Her sister, we mentioned that
32:27
Speaker 1: she followed. I believe at the very beginning that she
32:29
Speaker 1: followed in her sister's footsteps. By this point she was
32:32
Speaker 1: doctor Emily Blackwell. She got her degree at Western Reserve
32:36
Speaker 1: University of Cleveland, and she joined her in eighteen fifty
32:40
Speaker 1: six with another doctor, Dr Marie oh Zack. Zack Suska.
32:50
Speaker 1: That's the doctor Seuss pronunciation. That's a tough one. I
32:53
Speaker 1: would say, zach zach redska, okay, zakrevska, all right. And
32:58
Speaker 1: they all opened the New York Infirmary for Women and
33:01
Speaker 1: Children on Bleaker Street there in the West Village in
33:05
Speaker 1: seven yep. And now you can go left out of
33:09
Speaker 1: the doorway and hit a Swatch store and see and
33:14
Speaker 1: go get a sandwich at La pan quoity in. I
33:17
Speaker 1: saw this Watch joke coming because I did the old
33:19
Speaker 1: Google or two and I was like, I guarantee you
33:21
Speaker 1: that poked out to Josh. But what's crazy? So sixty four,
33:24
Speaker 1: at least as far as the Google company is concerned,
33:27
Speaker 1: there before Bleaker Street doesn't exist anymore. But that means
33:31
Speaker 1: that it was subsumed by either Um, the Kith Clothing
33:35
Speaker 1: or the the Swatch store. Somebody took over this. But
33:39
Speaker 1: there's a think the Swatch store did in eight there's yeah,
33:44
Speaker 1: they were all on chains um, but the the the
33:48
Speaker 1: there's a there's a physical structure that's still there. That
33:52
Speaker 1: was the first um women run infirmary or clinic, I
33:58
Speaker 1: should say, in New York, and what became one of
34:01
Speaker 1: the first um, women's medical schools amazing in the country.
34:07
Speaker 1: Not the first, but one of the first. UM. And
34:10
Speaker 1: there's no plaque, there's no sign, there's no nothing. But
34:13
Speaker 1: the building is that not that I could see, but
34:15
Speaker 1: the building is still there. You can still visit the
34:17
Speaker 1: spot where poor people went and Dr Elizabeth Blackwell treated them.
34:21
Speaker 1: Yeah with one eye. Yeah, let's not forget that one
34:24
Speaker 1: of sight in one eye, I should say. So she
34:27
Speaker 1: starts going, She's like, I want to do this in
34:29
Speaker 1: England to my home country. Let me, I'm gonna go
34:33
Speaker 1: back and forth. I'm gonna try and raise some money
34:35
Speaker 1: to do the same thing over there. Um. At the
34:38
Speaker 1: same time, she's also taking on and it's amazing what
34:41
Speaker 1: you can do when you don't get married and have
34:44
Speaker 1: to be subserving it to a man. Right, Like, she
34:47
Speaker 1: was living single, so she had nothing but time. You know,
34:50
Speaker 1: she had this this adopted daughter. But I imagine that
34:53
Speaker 1: she grew she helped her mom out with this stuff. Yeah,
34:56
Speaker 1: and in their off time they would watch Living Single together.
35:00
Speaker 1: So she was getting on other social reform movements. Um,
35:04
Speaker 1: all kinds of things to do with women's rights, family planning,
35:07
Speaker 1: even way back then. Uh, hygiene always Um, did we
35:12
Speaker 1: mention eugenics and how deep she got in that? Do
35:14
Speaker 1: we even know? I looked and I could not see,
35:19
Speaker 1: because you would think there'd be people that would say, like, oh,
35:21
Speaker 1: a little bit blackwell her, but listen to this eugenic
35:24
Speaker 1: stuff she was into. I saw basically one of those
35:28
Speaker 1: things where it was this. This list was repeated basically
35:31
Speaker 1: in the same order across the internet. So I have
35:35
Speaker 1: no idea how much she was into eugenics, but I
35:38
Speaker 1: do know I did get an impression of her as
35:42
Speaker 1: far as women's rights were concerned. Um, she was a
35:47
Speaker 1: feminist through and through, absolutely a feminist, but she was
35:52
Speaker 1: also a moralist and a prude and died in the
35:56
Speaker 1: wool prude, and so she was really concerned with the
36:00
Speaker 1: um the moral purity. Yeah, I guess the moral purity
36:05
Speaker 1: of women, because her her whole thing was if a
36:09
Speaker 1: if a woman has basically had sex out of wedlock,
36:13
Speaker 1: she has corrupted her moral She's traded in her morals,
36:16
Speaker 1: and now she's going to be interested in men. She's
36:18
Speaker 1: gonna think about other men rather than her husband her
36:21
Speaker 1: She's not going to be able to focus on her home,
36:24
Speaker 1: and so the home will start to come apart because
36:28
Speaker 1: this woman had sex out of wedlock before she got
36:31
Speaker 1: married or whatever. And so there that's one home broken.
36:34
Speaker 1: And if more and more women do this, then all
36:36
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the whole country's morals are corrupt and
36:39
Speaker 1: there there's nothing but crime and and drinking and all
36:43
Speaker 1: sorts of horrible things that come out of it. And
36:45
Speaker 1: she definitely identified men as a aggressor in this that
36:50
Speaker 1: it was definitely men who came along and like persuaded
36:53
Speaker 1: girls to have sex out of wedlock because these girls
36:56
Speaker 1: were not too naive to know the ramifications and consequence
37:00
Speaker 1: is so she tried to in books and pamphlets and
37:04
Speaker 1: lectures and all this Warren mothers to warn their their
37:07
Speaker 1: daughters away from men like this and also teach them
37:10
Speaker 1: about the consequences of having like premarital sex and also
37:13
Speaker 1: basically identifying as you know, men as as the aggressors
37:17
Speaker 1: the wolves in this situation. But so she was super
37:21
Speaker 1: into that, and she was very widely and well received
37:24
Speaker 1: because her line of thinking was very in line with
37:27
Speaker 1: Victorian super rigid morals. But um, at the same time,
37:32
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's difficult to reconcile with just straight
37:38
Speaker 1: ahead feminism that you know, of the type that we're
37:41
Speaker 1: used to today. But there's really no one who could
37:45
Speaker 1: who could discredit her as a feminist. No, I mean
37:47
Speaker 1: feminist in a Victorian way, was exactly. It was a
37:50
Speaker 1: time where you couldn't be like girl, own your sexuality
37:54
Speaker 1: and like you asked the man to marry you like
37:56
Speaker 1: that just didn't happen at all. So this was the
37:59
Speaker 1: opposite of that. Whe she was Toudy, she was also
38:01
Speaker 1: what would be known today as a feminist for life,
38:04
Speaker 1: staunch anti abortion feminist. As a matter of fact that
38:07
Speaker 1: if you read her diary in a certain way, you
38:10
Speaker 1: can make the case that one of the reasons she
38:12
Speaker 1: became a doctor is because she read an article about
38:15
Speaker 1: a woman who was an abortionist at the time who
38:18
Speaker 1: was termed a female physician, which I guess was code
38:21
Speaker 1: for women abortionists that back then, and she was so
38:25
Speaker 1: appalled by this that she wanted to reform the term
38:29
Speaker 1: female physician to mean an actual like just a woman doctor,
38:33
Speaker 1: a general doctor. Um. And that's one of the things
38:36
Speaker 1: that drove her too. So um, yeah, she was a
38:39
Speaker 1: very complicated character. Reminds us right, But I think she
38:43
Speaker 1: reminds us that over time, when you become a legend,
38:47
Speaker 1: the you know, a legend grows up around you, and
38:50
Speaker 1: you know, the different edges get you know, smoothed over
38:54
Speaker 1: or overlooked or whatever. And people are complicated and complex
38:57
Speaker 1: and that's the way that it should be, and they
38:59
Speaker 1: should be under stood as such. You know. Yeah, but
39:02
Speaker 1: none of that under undermines her, depending on your your
39:06
Speaker 1: way of thinking, I don't think anything undermines her that
39:10
Speaker 1: she did or thought undermines the work that she did
39:13
Speaker 1: and the good that she did well, of course not.
39:15
Speaker 1: And I think maybe people should try to remember what
39:18
Speaker 1: it might be like to be a trailblazing feminist in
39:21
Speaker 1: the forties through eighties. You know, so the Civil War,
39:26
Speaker 1: that was very nice, he said, good job, I hope
39:29
Speaker 1: so God Uh, civil war rolls around. She and her
39:34
Speaker 1: sisters trained nurses for the Union for their hospitals. She said,
39:39
Speaker 1: you know what, what we really need is a medical
39:41
Speaker 1: school for women. Um, and so she continued to try
39:45
Speaker 1: and get support from Britain. She finally raised enough backing
39:49
Speaker 1: in America to add that medical school to her women's
39:53
Speaker 1: hospital in New York in eighteen sixty eight. This was
39:56
Speaker 1: this one you were talking about the UM. The New
39:59
Speaker 1: York Infirmary was finally established with fifteen students nine faculty,
40:05
Speaker 1: and she was the professor of hygiene and her sister
40:09
Speaker 1: Emily was taught, uh was the out well taught obstetrics
40:15
Speaker 1: and diseases of women. Yeah. She handled all of the
40:18
Speaker 1: surgery too at the clinic. Oh Emily did, Yeah, because
40:22
Speaker 1: her sister couldn't write. But UM, so think about this, like,
40:26
Speaker 1: she established not just this UM, this uh, this clinic,
40:31
Speaker 1: this dispensary, but also a college to teach women doctors. Right,
40:36
Speaker 1: and not only did she do that in New York,
40:38
Speaker 1: she did it in London too. After after she had
40:41
Speaker 1: managed to establish this, she said, okay, Emily you got this.
40:45
Speaker 1: I'm moving back to England and I'm going to do
40:48
Speaker 1: this over here. Yeah. And what it did was it
40:51
Speaker 1: provided about a thirty two year stop gap until when
40:56
Speaker 1: medical schools Cornell University UM finally began accepting women into
41:01
Speaker 1: their program. So for thirty two years she was running
41:05
Speaker 1: the show and she was providing that UM almost said service.
41:10
Speaker 1: But it kind of is in a way, you know,
41:12
Speaker 1: until medical until mainstream medical schools began catching on. Yeah, no,
41:17
Speaker 1: for sure, And UM, the fact that that she was
41:22
Speaker 1: establishing this college, like that this was one of her
41:26
Speaker 1: big dreams and and focuses and drives. It just kind
41:30
Speaker 1: of goes to underscore the fact that, like she she
41:32
Speaker 1: was trying to make it so that more women could
41:35
Speaker 1: become doctors. Yeah, that's just it's just easy to overlook
41:38
Speaker 1: when you're like, oh, well she went and became a
41:40
Speaker 1: doctor herself and then she did doctoring. She also simultaneously
41:43
Speaker 1: was trying to expand access to um medical training for
41:48
Speaker 1: women as well to become a licensed physician, and she
41:50
Speaker 1: did in a big way UM In eighteen sixty nine,
41:53
Speaker 1: when she was in her late forties, she uh this
41:56
Speaker 1: is when she established the London practice. She had passed
42:00
Speaker 1: on the New York Medical College to her sister at
42:02
Speaker 1: that point, and founded the National Health Society in eighteen
42:06
Speaker 1: seventy one and was one of the first champions of
42:10
Speaker 1: prevention is Better than Cure um, which is a very
42:13
Speaker 1: obviously important thing today in all of medicine, but at
42:16
Speaker 1: the time it was kind of a revolutionary kind of
42:19
Speaker 1: way to go about things. They're all about cures, and
42:22
Speaker 1: she was one of the first people standing up and
42:23
Speaker 1: be like, hey, let's not get to the point where
42:26
Speaker 1: we need to cure by preventing things with handwashing and
42:29
Speaker 1: lifestyle and hygiene. Yeah, wash your hands, yeah, what's your problem? Uh.
42:34
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventies she finally set up a private practice
42:37
Speaker 1: in London and UM in eighteen seventy four, along with
42:43
Speaker 1: physicians Sophia Jex Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, established that
42:47
Speaker 1: London School of Medicine for Women. Yeah. So again she
42:52
Speaker 1: did this in New York. She also did it in London.
42:54
Speaker 1: She agitated for legislation to be passed in eighteen seventy
42:57
Speaker 1: six to allow women to get medicals to agrees. Um.
43:01
Speaker 1: She was the first woman added to the medical register
43:05
Speaker 1: in England. UM. So she did this in two continents.
43:10
Speaker 1: She opened up the door for women to become doctors
43:13
Speaker 1: on two different continents at about the same time. And UM.
43:18
Speaker 1: Ultimately she stopped had to stop practicing, She had to
43:21
Speaker 1: stop seeing patients. UM because she had something called billiary colic,
43:26
Speaker 1: which is where gallstone blocks the bile duct, which is
43:30
Speaker 1: not good for you. Um. And apparently it's a very
43:34
Speaker 1: painful condition and especially back then before they could do
43:37
Speaker 1: a lot with it or so you break it up
43:39
Speaker 1: with lasers or something. It could knock you out of
43:42
Speaker 1: out of your career, and it did for for decades.
43:45
Speaker 1: I think she had billiary colic um twenty or thirty
43:50
Speaker 1: years before she died. She basically didn't practice for the
43:54
Speaker 1: last twenty years. Uh, and very sadly. In nineteen o seven,
43:58
Speaker 1: at the ripe old age of eighty six, which is great. Um,
44:02
Speaker 1: she had an accident. She fell down a flight of
44:04
Speaker 1: stairs and was mentally and physically disabled after that. Lived
44:08
Speaker 1: a few more years after that, uh, and then eventually
44:12
Speaker 1: died of stroke in nineteen ten. Yeah, that was a
44:17
Speaker 1: great great lady. Yeah, there's a statistic here in eighteen
44:21
Speaker 1: eighty one, so she'd moved to the UK permanently in
44:27
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. In eighty one there were only twenty
44:31
Speaker 1: five registered women doctors in England and Wales, but thirty
44:36
Speaker 1: years later nineteen eleven, it was up to four. There
44:40
Speaker 1: you have it now, I would guess that there's at
44:43
Speaker 1: least double that m probably more probably so. So hats
44:48
Speaker 1: off to Dr Elizabeth Blackwell. Um, way to go. My
44:52
Speaker 1: bonnet is often under my seat. Oh that's a fine phrenology.
44:55
Speaker 1: You've just exposed their child. Thank you. Uh. If you
44:58
Speaker 1: want to know more about Dr Elizabeth black Well, there's
45:00
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff on the Internet, including a
45:03
Speaker 1: site that we used, among others, famous scientists dot org
45:07
Speaker 1: check them out, and scientists is plural. I just have
45:10
Speaker 1: a thick tongue, so sometimes it's tough to add that
45:12
Speaker 1: extra asset. And since I said I have a thick tongue,
45:15
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener. Mayl uh. This is from
45:21
Speaker 1: Isaac Hey, guys, I am on day two of six
45:24
Speaker 1: weeks of staying home in quarantine. I live in Seattle, Washington,
45:29
Speaker 1: which was the place where the first North American coronavirus
45:31
Speaker 1: case was. There have been rumors at my school I'm
45:34
Speaker 1: in the seventh grade that would close for cleaning. But
45:37
Speaker 1: six weeks is nearly all the third quarter. I've got
45:39
Speaker 1: a long stretch of time ahead of me, and I've
45:42
Speaker 1: spent most of that time playing video games. Great, reading,
45:47
Speaker 1: great in listening to stuff you should know. Nice. It's
45:51
Speaker 1: a nice three pronged approach, a little fun, little knowledge,
45:55
Speaker 1: and little goofy knowledge. I listened to nearly ten episodes
45:59
Speaker 1: today own there will be plenty more rushing through my
46:02
Speaker 1: ear holes. So I wanted to say thank you for
46:04
Speaker 1: helping me through a worry sometime. I loved the Seattle Show.
46:08
Speaker 1: That is from Isaac. Isaac, buddy, glad, we're there for you,
46:12
Speaker 1: hanging there, be safe, wash your hands and the fact
46:17
Speaker 1: that you use the word ear holes means that you're
46:19
Speaker 1: the coolest kid. I know. Yeah, you're pretty cool, Isaac.
46:22
Speaker 1: We appreciate that. I wonder what video game is playing, Chuck.
46:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just finished Red Dead Redemption and
46:28
Speaker 1: now I'm onto a new and I've been gaming a
46:29
Speaker 1: bit lately. I heard that Red Dead Redemption is like
46:32
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing games ever. But it's just
46:35
Speaker 1: so good and and highbrow like a Jason Rightman film,
46:39
Speaker 1: that it's it's boring, unlike a Jason Rightman film. M
46:43
Speaker 1: I didn't have you heard that? Well, I've played part two.
46:46
Speaker 1: I did not get the first one, although I might
46:48
Speaker 1: go I think it was part two that I'm talking about.
46:50
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, Okay, good good. I'm glad to hear that,
46:53
Speaker 1: because I like to think that things that are well
46:55
Speaker 1: done aren't boring. You know. Yeah, I had to learn
46:57
Speaker 1: to shoot animals, and which was not fun. It hunting
47:01
Speaker 1: is a part of it. Really. Yeah, I never shot
47:03
Speaker 1: a funny though. Maybe you had to like put him
47:05
Speaker 1: out of the misery or something because they were rapid.
47:07
Speaker 1: Oh that too. If you have a if you crash
47:10
Speaker 1: your horse, you might have to do the right thing.
47:11
Speaker 1: You know what I means, right, you have to strangle it. Yeah,
47:14
Speaker 1: it's very sad because you get very attached to these horses.
47:16
Speaker 1: I'll bet do you name them? Yeah, you name him
47:20
Speaker 1: like you actually name them for fun or like they
47:22
Speaker 1: come with names or they like the game makes you
47:24
Speaker 1: name your horse when you go to a stable. You
47:26
Speaker 1: can upgrade your horse in a lot of ways with
47:28
Speaker 1: the saddles and stuff, and then you can also you
47:31
Speaker 1: can also name your horse when you get to a
47:33
Speaker 1: stable and type it in and then your horse name
47:36
Speaker 1: is up there. Did you name any Josh? I did not.
47:39
Speaker 1: I feel bad now. I had three or four horses
47:41
Speaker 1: and the name of them all variations of my wife
47:43
Speaker 1: and daughter's names. But I'll you'll be next. I appreciate that,
47:47
Speaker 1: but you'll be like, oh, yeah, Josh turned lame. I
47:50
Speaker 1: guess I have to put him out of his misery. Yeah,
47:52
Speaker 1: Josh run over by a train. Let me know how
47:56
Speaker 1: Josh turns out? Okay in video game, I will okay uh,
47:59
Speaker 1: And Isaac thanks again for writing in and like Chuck said,
48:02
Speaker 1: stay safe, stay smart, uh, and wash your hands and
48:05
Speaker 1: don't panic. It doesn't sound like you are. If you're
48:08
Speaker 1: like Isaac and you're hanging out listening to Stuff you
48:10
Speaker 1: Should Know, we want to hear from you. You can
48:12
Speaker 1: send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on
48:15
Speaker 1: the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts at
48:17
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
48:23
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
48:26
Speaker 1: For my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:29
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.