Medical Discovery

Hi! My entry  for this week is about MEDICAL DISCOVERY. I choose this topic because I will tell you about the first British-born woman who received the medical degree in the United States. The woman that i want to talk about is Elizabeth Blackwell.

     Elizabeth Blackwell was born on  3 February 1821  in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England UK. She was the first woman to graduate from medical school, a pioneer in promoting the education of women in medicine in the United States, and a social and moral reformer in both the United States and in the United Kingdom.

Let's know her background guys!

    In 1832, Blackwell and her family moved to the United States, first settling in New York and later moving to Cincinnati, Ohio. After her father’s death in 1838, Blackwell (who was versed in French and German), her mother and two older sisters all worked as educators to make ends meet. 

PRIVATE LIFE 
       
    None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence.^[1] When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do."^[2] Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.^[2]
There was one major controversy, however, in Blackwell's life: Alfred Sachs, a Jewish man of 26 from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs, and was mildly jealous of Blackwell.^[22] Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book

 

 

LAST YEARS AND DEATH

     Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 volumes. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled.^[23] On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.

 HISTORICAL of her ACHIEVEMENT!

     While in her mid-20s, Blackwell had a friend suffering from a terminal disease who had felt embarrassed going to male doctors, lamenting that she would have fared better having a female physician. Deeply affected by her friend's words and struggling with an affair of the heart as well, Blackwell opted to pursue a career in medicine. But the road to becoming a doctor was not an easy one. As some other women did at the time, she studied independently with doctors before getting accepted in 1847 to Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. Her acceptance was deemed by the student body as an administrative practical joke.

 

SOURCES

1.  http://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-blackwell-9214198
2.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackwell

Hey thank you for spend your time to read this blog and don't forget to comment down below what  you want me to write to add more information  about this entry. See ya!