Ohio History Journal

edited by

JOHN B. GABEL

 

Medical Education in the 1890s:

An Ohio Woman's Memories

 

 

The material presented here is drawn from the unpublished papers

of a long-time Columbus physician, the late Ida May Wilson. Written in

1941 when she was in her seventy-seventh year, this excerpt records Dr. Wil-

son's memories of her medical education during the years 1894-1896 at the

Ohio Medical University.¹ Her description of the primitive training provided

as late as the 1890s by an accredited medical school (which "from the first

maintained a high place among the educational institutions of the State,"

according to one medical history²) will probably come as a surprise to most

readers. What will come as little surprise is Dr. Wilson's description of the

treatment accorded her as a woman presumptuous enough to enter upon the

study of medicine. The details of the indignities inflicted upon her by the

medical establishment and by her male classmates serve to confirm the

accuracy of two recent and important books on the history of women and

medicine in this country, Gena Corea's The Hidden Malpractice: How Ameri-

can Medicine Treats Women as Patients and Professionals and Mary Roth

Walsh's "Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply": Sexual Barriers in the

Medical Profession, 1835-1975.³

Ida May Wilson was born on a farm near Mt. Vernon, Ohio, in 1864 and

remained on the farm until she was nearly thirty years old. Her only formal

education during that time was secured in the one-room Bonar School (which

still stands on the Green Valley Road northwest of Mt. Vernon); her at-

tendance at even that humble academy was limited to a mere five years be-

cause of severe eye trouble and "repeated attacks of tonsillitis, a weak

stomach, and a poor appetite," as she says in her memoirs. Upon the death

of her father in 1893, the family (Ida, her older sisters Hettie and Stella, and

 

Dr. Gabel is Professor of English at The Ohio State University, Columbus.

 

1. The Ohio Medical University accepted its first class only two years before Ida Wil-

son enrolled there. It was established by disaffected staff members of the Columbus

Medical College and Starling Medical College upon the merger of the former into the

latter in 1892. In 1907 the Ohio Medical University and Starling Medical College were

themselves merged into Starling-Ohio Medical College, which became in 1914 the Col-

lege of Medicine of The Ohio State University.

2. The Ohio State University College of Medicine: A Collection of Source Material

Covering a Century of Medical Progress 1834-1934 (Blanchester, OH: Brown Publish-

ing Co., 1934), 235.

3. Gena Corea, The Hidden Malpractice: How American Medicine Treats Women as

Patients and Professionals (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1977). Mary Roth

Walsh, "Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply": Sexual Barriers in the Medical Pro-

fession, 1835-1975 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).

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54                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

their aged mother) moved to Columbus, where her brother Edwin Frazer

Wilson was established as a prominent physician. In the following year a

family decision was made that Ida too should become a medical doctor, and

at the age of thirty she enrolled for training at the Ohio Medical University.

Because Dr. Wilson was writing for her own eyes and because she had

had the benefit of but scant training in formal composition in her youth, the

text of her "memory book" required considerable editing in the interest of

readability.⁴ In the following excerpt it has been necessary to supply obvious-

ly missing words (more significant ones in brackets) and to normalize spelling

and punctuation and occasionally grammar. Space limitation has made neces-

sary the omission of a number of passages, concerned primarily with the

author's classmates and teachers; major omissions are indicated by asterisks,

minor ones by ellipsis marks.

The initial passage is included because it recounts Ida Wilson's first taste

of medical "education" when she was a nineteen-year-old farmgirl.

 

 

Ed always had for his room, in which to sleep or read, the little

southwest front upstairs bedroom, and he had his trunk up there too.

So in my bed-making tours . . . I found his trunk open one day, and

the bottom part was full of books. On investigating I found a whole

lot of things that had been a mystery to me; especially was the big

physiology entertaining. So the making of the beds was put off until

afternoons; and then I would open the door, which left a corner just

big enough for the big book and myself and where I could watch if

anyone was coming upstairs, and then I tried to make out what the

book said in big words. However, I had been a faithful reader of the

Bible and had in my study of that book learned quite a bit that I had

looked up in the dictionary, and then too Ed had a dictionary up there.

So secretly two whole summers I would put in a number of hours

with these books. I often wonder now if Mother would have objected

had she known why it took so long to make beds.

 

*       *       *

It was while we lived on Oak St. that it was settled that I should

study medicine. Ed had wanted Hettie to take up that work, but she

after thinking it over for a year decided it was not to her liking. So

 

 

 

4. On the first page of the document Dr. Wilson wrote, "This book of memories and

some history was not written for any one to be bothered to read. Was just written to

pass lonely hours away, in the latter years of rather a long uninteresting life, for just

the writer. It is just to keep memory green ...." The book concludes with the ac-

count of Dr. Wilson's medical training and its immediate aftermath. The "memory

book" and other papers of Dr. Wilson are now in the division of Special Collections of

The Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus, Ohio.

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Medical Education in the 1890s                              55

 

though I had been very sick with remitting fever⁵ the spring before

and never gotten over it (and was also weakened down with a bad

attack of tonsillitis which left me with a pain in my side so I was not

fit to do anything), yet Ed decided that I should study the medical

profession. So he brought me an anatomy and I studied it all summer,

and in the fall he took me up to the Ohio Medical University on Park

St.

And so in 1894-1895-1896 . . . my time was spent mostly in the

study of medicine. Even in the summer months I attended clinics in a

big house turned into a hospital. And also Dr. C. M. Taylor founded a

class in general medicine, and all of us in the city went to his class.

One year Ed was attending physician for an afternoon clinic in the

basement of the O.M.U. building, and I went there every weekday

afternoon. Mother by that time had moved up on Highland St. and

Stella had come home and was in school at O.S.U. So she could walk

up to her classes and I could walk down to the O.M.U. And also in

the summer I could attend the operations in the aforementioned hos-

pital and the summer course that was given for six weeks in the O.M.U.

My health grew better as I had something interesting to do, though

when I was in the medical school I weighed only ninety-five pounds

(but in the three years only missed two days of school).

Our class had sixty men and at first only four women. Mrs. [Re-

becca] Combs was up toward fifty and was something of a practical

midwife and doled out some medicine with that. Then there were

Mrs. Jessie Smith, Miss [Emma] Young, and myself. In a mixed class,

for a girl who had been raised very modest on a farm, the work in

the college was very embarrassing at times. Besides the men studying

medicine, there were about ten or twelve dentistry students that

took anatomy and therapeutics and physiology with us, so our recita-

tion room would be full of men. We four women would sit up in the

front rows. During the three-years course two other women came into

our class, Miss Lowery and Miss [Nettie] Belau. Miss Lowery failed,

so did not graduate. In the class ahead of us there were two other

women in the junior year while we were freshmen, a Miss [Leona]

Barnes and a Miss [Olive] Brown. They were quite helpful during

the trials of the freshman year.

The school was on the plan of the country school of that age. In-

stead of just lectures and use of notebooks, questions were asked;

and when called on we got up and answered. Some teachers would

 

 

 

5. A remitting (or remittent) fever is one that periodically abates and then returns to

full intensity.

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56                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

take the list and start at A and go down as far as the hour's recita-

tion would go, then the next hour . . . would go down from there.

So my name being in the W's and Miss Young's in the Y's, we always

knew when we had best study up more carefully, for we knew our

time was coming.

There were very few professors, as they wished to be called, that

were at all like teachers. In fact they often did not know their subject

as well as some of the better students in the class. In fact they de-

pended on the occasional examination to find out what we really knew.

The O.M.U. was formed by disgruntled men who had taught in

Starling Medical School and the old Columbus College of Medicine,

and every physician who paid $250 was put in as a professor of some-

thing, whether he knew his subject or not. . . . The man [Myrwood]

Dixon who attempted to teach general medicine was certainly a frost,

as he showed he had not read up on his subject maybe since he left

school. Bacteriology and pathology were another frost. The study of

bacteriology was in its infancy, and in our class the microscopes were

locked up; so we had no chance to see a germ that was known even

in those days. They did have a few boughten [sic] slides showing the

tuberculosis germ, and the diphtheria germ was known and the anti-

toxin was just a new thing. In pathology we studied the book but

never did see any slides with the microscope. Poor old Dr. [Harvey]

Fraker got so balled up by such students in our class as Ed Riley and

Lee Chapman, who had the capacity to seem to learn the lessons by

heart and were not afraid to take it up in class when our professors

did not know their subject. I often knew the M.D.s were wrong but

lacked the nerve to call them down...   Our man Dr. [Darlington]

Snyder, who taught us chemistry, taught us the same thing every week.

One of his pets was, "That log on your father's farm throws off as

much carbon dioxide as when it is burned in the fireplace." Well, we

heard that same thing every day he came before us to teach, though

he was a teacher in some small-town schools. [Arthur] Evans, our

obstetrical teacher, was fairly good; but it was easy for me, as I at-

tended the summer schools and learned my subjects pretty well. ...

Ed told S. B. Taylor, our demonstrator of anatomy, that he was

not teaching us anything, as the parts we were dissecting were not

injected or well preserved. So one night S. B. T. brought a dead

woman before the whole student body and lectured on the subject as

he did a little dissection on it. And then he called on several men to

come down and pass a catheter.⁶ Some were seniors, some juniors;

6. To pass a catheter is to insert a catheter (flexible tube) through the urethra

and ureter into the bladder for the purpose of drawing off urine.

• 4
 

Medical Education in the 1890s                            57

 

but he singled me out, the only freshman and the only woman, to

come way down in the amphitheater to pass the catheter. Well, I did

it and got it in the right place, though I was about the only one that

did not have to try twice. But I was so mad and so bored-that was the

reason for my success. Also one night Taylor told me to stand up and

I did, and he spent nearly the whole hour asking me questions. We

covered most of the anatomy and the physiology of the human body.

After the thing was over I said to him, "Well, Dr. Taylor, I hope you

are gratified in the way you treated me tonight." He said, "I did treat

you pretty rough, but Dr. Wilson said you were not learning anything

in anatomy and I find out you know quite a bit." I never liked him

since. But Ed just laughed about it as if it were a good joke.

No, the three long years in the study of medicine were no joke to

me. Many of the men who came from the farms would do up the city

all night and come to recitations the next day half dead and had not

even studied their books. And they got along better at times with

many of our professors than we who studied and knew our subjects.

And at the time of a written lesson, such men would often have it

secretly written out or would depend on a night's study before the

writing had to be done. Of course we in the class knew who were

the good students, but our teachers many of them never knew or

cared ..

On our first call to see the birth of a baby, there were two of the

men and myself. And our teacher, Dr. Evans, had us all listen to the

foetal heart. As usual the men listened first. Dr. Evans placed the

stethoscope on the right place and then one after the other listened

and could all hear it. Then came my turn, and Dr. Evans was sarcastic

because I could not hear it. So he listened again and moved the stetho-

scope and again I could not hear it, but I tried to get out of it by

saying maybe I was not sure what it would be like. Well, the labor was

long and tedious. We were there all night; and in the early morning,

when the baby finally came, it was all macerated and had probably

been dead for a week. Well, we all went home. No one dared to

mention the dead baby, nor did we know that a dead baby makes a long

hard labor. But next day Murphy, one who had no trouble hearing the

heartbeats, was telling all around that he really wasn't sure any of

the time that he heard the heartbeats, but that once he thought maybe

he did. The professor or the other men never explained why they

heard the right sounds. So medical colleges seemed to be at that time

such that you could or could not learn as you chose. If you studied,

you learned; if you expected to learn by being taught, that was some-

thing else, as we say now in 1941.

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58                                             OHIO HISTORY

Among us women Mrs. Jessie Smith knew her lessons by heart, the most perfect student of my acquaintance. In fact, she took all the prizes that were offered except one that Chapman claimed. Yet she called on me in later years and said she could never make a living in medicine. She had no confidence in herself and the people seemed to know it.   *      *      * None of the men in our class cared much for [my friend Stanley] Allen. He would not sit back with the men but up where we women were. The men were very rough; they would tear coats to pieces and grab good clothing. Poor [Samuel] Tootle, one of the class, always had one or the other of his coatsleeves ripped out half way. ... I

• 6
 

Medical Education in the 1890s                              59

 

can't mention all the highlights of the class of 1896. Some were just,

as the men say now, too damned dumb to be mentioned.

 

*      *      *

A Miss Belau entered the class in the second year. She was a full

German blond, hair of gold and very fair, and was quite loudly dressed.

The first day she came to class, she was in a vivid scarlet dress with

a black velvet Eton jacket, sleeveless of course. With her yellow hair it

was a striking dress, and the men could not keep their thoughts or

eyes on the doings of the class. I remember [Andrew] Bonnett, up

in the forties, big fat fellow, was sitting next to me and he leaned

over and said, "There comes a gay one," and I felt sure a man of his

age and place in life knew more than I did. So I never palled around

with Miss Belau.

 

 

*      *      *

Two of us dissected [each cadaver part], as they did not have

enough stiffs to give a part to each one. So when we were at work,

one would look up in the anatomy, the other dissect on one day;

and then we would exchange works the next day, so that both of us

had equal chance to use the knife and the book. The dissecting board

was in the shape of a cross, so that the eight of us could work at one

time, though the head was generally removed so as to give more

room  ..

My first dissection was on a woman, the lower portion. It was late

in the spring and there were only a couple of us in the dissecting room,

which was located on the top floor of the college building. I had

never seen but one dead person, and the experience of going into

such a place was not very pleasant. But it had to be done. That dis-

section was done alone, as the college was soon to close [for the

summer]; but as it was not injected or in a very good shape, [my

brother] Ed kicked up a racket. So in the fall I was given another lower

part, so that I dissected two leg portions, one alone, one with some-

body else. Also in the first dissection we had only a senior to see that

it was done right. But I was so interested in the study of medicine

that I would not be hurried, so I worked long after the others were

taking exams and getting ready for graduation. In fact I finished

[that dissection] during a summer term. It was lonesome up there in that

old big room; only a couple of us were working, and the warm

weather did not make it pleasant to work on a dead body that had

never been cured in the pickling vat or in anyway injected. So it was

not easy to tell the arteries from the veins or really from the nerves,

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60                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

but we did the best that could be done under the circumstances.

When I dissected the upper half, Dudley Dunham and I were

partners. He was in a class under mine, but he was a fine student

and there to learn-quite different from many others. We had a fine

subject for the work; it was injected so that every artery was perfect

to work out. We spent a long time on the stiff, mostly about three

hours after the last afternoon class. Every artery, every nerve was

dissected out, even down to the fingertips. That dissection has been

invaluable to me in all these years, as we found out why the crazybone

(as we used to call it) hurt. . . . Our dissecting of this part was so

successful that every blood vessel was traced from the heart to the

tree in the lungs and to the tips of the fingers. All was so nicely done

that Drs. W. J. Means and R. Harvey Reed and C. M. Taylor all

came up to see and really to learn about the nerve and blood supply

to the heart, lungs, and arm to the finger tips.

The other quarter or the other leg I dissected was that of a negro

who was found dead with strychnia poisoning and was not injected,

but he had just died a day before and was not hard to dissect. I did

not learn so much on him; it was mostly done at night and with not

much demonstrating by Dr. [John] Barnes, husband of the Barnes in

a class ahead. He had moved in from the country and was appointed

as assistant demonstrator. Well, he did not know any anatomy so of

course could not teach any. He was in fact very annoying to the

women pupils, as he was always getting them cornered up in an

angle of the dissecting cross and putting his arm around the pupil

and his head on her shoulder or else squeezing an arm or getting hold

of a hand. He did it not only to me but down the line for three or

four years-that was told by other pupils.

My first experience of seeing a naked man was during the last

half of my freshman year. We lived out on Oak St., and it was a long

way to get to the Medical University. So I would stay until after the

last class in the afternoon; generally the last was over about four

o'clock. One afternoon it was posted on the bulletin board that Dr.

[Stewart] McCurdy was to hold a class of the whole college on regional

anatomy (that's not the right name, but it was intended to mark off

on the human body the heart and lungs and kidneys and so on). So

we all met at the amphitheater. As I was waiting in the hall for the

classes to be through reciting, Johnson, a colored man who was janitor

of the dissecting room, came upstairs and grinning at me said, "You

all going to the recitation this afternoon?" I said yes. He just halted

a few minutes, then grinned and went on. So we all gathered for the

class, and after a very good lecture from Dr. McCurdy he said,

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Medical Education in the 1890s                             61

 

"Bring that man in," and Johnson came in stark naked-a splendid

figure, black and well developed. It was my first sight of a naked man;

I had seen some operations on men in the operating room, but most

of them had been well covered. Well, I gave one look, then looked

down in my lap. But when the Doctor began to lecture, drawing chalk

marks as to the region of the heart and outlining the lungs, it was

very interesting. But the men of the college thought it was smart to

be annoying, so they began to throw beans at Johnson; and of course

they stung his flesh. And though Dr. McCurdy tried his best to get

them to listen and behave, it was no use; so he dismissed the class.

A week after that he tried it again, but the men again threw corn

and beans. Once Johnson jumped over the railing and slapped one

fellow and choked another. Again Dr. McCurdy dismissed the class;

and though he later had recitation in orthopedic surgery, he never

tried again to teach the location of the different organs on the human.

Dr. McCurdy did not live in Columbus but came once a week from

Pittsburgh. It seemed too bad that he could not have taught us as he

intended to, as his lessons would have been invaluable to everyone,

old or young.

One day we were all told to come up to the operating room for a

surgical clinic; so the whole school went to the amphitheater. And

after one operation Dr. [W. J.] Means said now there would be an-

other operation, a private one on a man, and he would ask all the

women to leave the room. So we all (there were only about six of us) got

up to leave and the men all hissed us. I told Ed about it and he said,

"The next time just sit still; they don't send the men out when operat-

ing on women." So a few days after that Means again asked the

women to leave. I sat still. Miss Young got up and said, "Are you not

going?" I said, "No-not just to be hissed and catcalled. If the teachers

can't hold their classes right, I will just stay." So she sat down, but

Mrs. Combs and one other left and again were hissed. Dr. Means

kept looking at me; but I just sat tight, and as far as I know neither he

or any other one thereafter asked the women to leave.

One summer after we moved up on Highland St. where I could

walk to school and where Stella could walk up to the University,

Dr. [J.F.] Baldwin asked all pupils in the city during the summer to

come up twice a week to see him operate. The hospital then was

. . . close to our house, so I went twice a week. One day he said,

"Miss Wilson, I am going to operate on hemorrhoids on a man. If

you don't care to stay, why you can go." But I did not budge, and

he said afterwards, "Well, you didn't care to go." I said, "No, I

have never seen that operation on a woman, so I thought it just as well

to see it, even on a man." He laughed and said, "Guess you are

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62                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

right, so after this just stay and see all you can." So that too was

settled.

But the study of medicine was neither pleasant or funny-just hard

work and at times disgusting and hateful. But when my backbone got

weak, Ed always stood behind me and told me what to do. My greatest

fight was in our last senior half before graduating. An old German

physician, Dr. [George] Stein, was to teach us venereal diseases. He

was quite old-head white as snow-and was a graduate of the Uni-

versity of Pennsylvania, but an oldtimer and no teacher. Our first

recitation was all taken up with filthy stories, and our men haw-

hawed until it was a regular rumpus. The next recitation all the

junior men filed in and took all the chairs, some sitting two on one

chair. So when I went in, there was no place for me to sit; so I stood

part of the time and then leaned against the window. Again there

was no lesson from the book, just a history of filthy cases. Of course

that class of diseases is filthy to begin with, but the men made so

much noise that they could have been heard over in Goodale Park.

So after the third lesson of the same sort, I went to see Dr. Means

and asked if I could be excused from such a class where nothing was

learned. He said no-if women studied medicine, they would have to

take their medicine and that was all. So then I called on Dr. John

Edwin Brown, the Dean of the medical part of the school. He told

me too that there would be no excuse for my not attending class. If

I did not go, I would receive no diploma. I said, "Dr. Brown, do you

mean to tell me that when a recitation is held in such a way that it's

an entertainment for half of the school, with nothing but laughing

and hand-clapping and no textbook used-." He said, "That's what

I mean. You attend class or you do not graduate." I said, "Suppose I

pass an examination in that subject at the end of three months?" But

again he said that would not do.

So then I went to Dr. Baldwin, the Chancellor, and I said, "I am

not prudish and want to learn all I can; but I can learn more at home

studying my books than I can standing up listening to vulgar stories."

So he said, "There's a faculty meeting tomorrow and the matter will

come up. I will let you know." So Dr. Dickson Moore said to [my

friend] Allen, "Is the recitation not proper?" And Allen said, "It's

pretty bad-in fact, no lessons so far." So Ed and Moore and Dr. C. M.

Taylor went to the meeting to try and see what they could do. Ed

[later told me that] Dr. Baldwin said there were some complaints had

come in about how some of the classes were conducted which should

be looked into. Dr. Means jumped up and said yes, one of the women

students had complained to him; but if women got out of their place

and studied medicine, they would have to take it as they found it.

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Medical Education in the 1890s                              63

 

Dr. Brown also said he believed too that all classes should be at-

tended by all pupils. Many more expressed their opinion of women

in medicine. Then Dr. Baldwin got up and he said, "Gentlemen, the

complaint came from one of our best and most attentive pupils. She

has attended my clinics, summer and winter, no matter what the

operation, and I find her grades are almost 100 percent. And when a

pupil of that kind makes a complaint, there is something the matter."

Then Ed said he turned to Dr. Stein and said, "Doctor, tell the board

some of the last stories you entertained the class with, and is it true

that you are entertaining not only the seniors but the juniors?" Then,

Ed said, the old Doctor said, "Well, I just told these two stories last

time," and then he told them-and Ed said the men beat the juniors

laughing! But Dr. Baldwin held them down and on a vote said I

did not need to attend, but also scored Dr. Stein for holding such a

rowdy class. I missed just one session. Then Allen told me that there

was no one allowed in the room but seniors and that where Stein

was not a teacher, yet he was giving them hard questions from the

textbook. So I went back and at the end of the year passed my ex-

amination, and the incident was closed. But [Ed's wife] Bess said Ed

and Dickson Moore could be heard laughing when they changed cars

at High St., but he never would tell her what his stories were. And

now I can't remember what they were, but it's best to forget.

Several years later I attended a medical convention up at Put-in-

Bay and Dr. Stein was there, and one evening there was to be a big

banquet. Late in the afternoon the old Doctor was very much alone;

no one seemed to know him. But later he saw me and came over and

shook hands, and we had quite a talk. And he asked me if I was going

to the banquet. I said I was not sure; if I found some other woman who

was going I would go, but I did not care to just go alone. So he, much

to my surprise, invited me to go with him; he said he too was alone.

So we walked in to the banquet together, much to the enjoyment of

some of the Columbus M.D.s. [Andrew] Timberman was the one that

told me that one or two at the table where he was had known of my

fuss with the old fellow in my college days, and there was lots of

laughing at the old Doctor and me as his partner. Well, we had a good

supper and their laughing did no harm. I think that was the last time

I ever saw him. After I went back in his class he was extremely

polite to me, showing he could be a man. But after his first few

recitations the men would all go up and slap him on the back and tell

him how much they enjoyed his class, and he just felt he was doing

the thing right. But after the rubbing down Dr. Baldwin gave him, he

saw that teaching medicine was earnest and not for gathering a

crowd.

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64                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

It was March 17, 1896, that we graduated. Counting dentists and

all, there were sixty of us. And to us of the medical department it

was quite an event. Three years of eight months of study was for me

not an easy part of my life.

 

 

*      *      *

I never had a vacation-no, hardly a holiday in all of that time. After

we moved up on Highland St., I walked to the school twice a day

(and when dissecting, every evening). I paid all my own way except

board and room, as of course I lived at home. But I helped with the

housework though I was sick quite a good deal; but I only missed

two days of recitations in the regular terms of the three years between

September 1893 and March 17, 1896. And during those three years I

learned much more of human nature than I did practical medicine,

for after graduation I found out that most of what we learned from

books and professors never fit any of the cases that came to my door.

Theory is fine but the practice of medicine is something else very

different indeed. I was of course in and about and under Ed's teaching

and experience, and I often wonder how those just starting without

my opportunity ever got on. There must have been a lot of blunder-

ing.

 

*      *      *

After graduation in 1896 my life was rather one of a loafer. The

sign on Twentieth St. did not attract many.⁷ There was a small room

off of the sitting room that was fixed up for an office. One of my

first cases was the son of our washwoman, who had quite a serious

case of typhoid fever; he was a little negro about five years old. His

fever ran a course for over four weeks; in all he was sick about six

weeks. There was no money in that case.

For my graduating present Mother gave me a thermometer and

Ed gave me a phonendoscope, but I can't remember all. But I do

remember my first case was a little negro boy-not the one with

typhoid but another-and he bit my brand new thermometer right in

two, much to my disgust. Often I was called over on Bolivar St.

between Eighteenth and Nineteenth St. Mud almost to my shoe tops

-and in those days we wore high-laced or buttoned shoes. Often the

call would come at midnight or later, and poor Mother was much

 

7. Dr. Wilson first hung out her shingle at her brother's office on Twentieth St. in

Columbus. She later had a combination office and dwelling constructed to her specifica-

tions at 1562 N. High St.; the building had, and still has, "WILSON" set prominently

in brick on its front wall.

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Medical Education in the 1890s                                       65

 

more frightened than ever I was; for in some ways being frightened

was not in my makeup.

Dr. Wilson worked as office helper for her brother and only sporadically as a

physician for nearly two years following her graduation. Finally she received

two substantial offers of employment, one to be a medical missionary in China,

the other to be superintendant of nurses at a hospital in Charlotte, North

Carolina. On her brother's advice she accepted the latter and worked in

Charlotte for a year. While there, she (the only woman among 112 applicants)

took and passed the North Carolina state medical examination.

After my return from Charlotte in June, 1899, my ambition was to

be a nurse, instead of a physician, as I liked hospital work. And of

course having had no practice before my adventure in Charlotte,

there seemed nothing to do in the profession of medicine for me. So I

wrote to several Eastern hospitals to see about entering for training as

a nurse. Ed came in one day, picked up a couple of the addressed

envelopes, then laid them down and went and sat down in his middle

office. There was no one waiting for him, and he called out, "Come in

here, kid, I want to talk to you." So I went in and he said, "Why do

you want to be training for a nurse? You have your profession,

learned after three long years of study. I have watched you long

enough to know you will make a physician if you will just stick to it.

A nurse is on duty twenty-four hours out of the day. In medicine you

make a visit and leave your orders and let the others take the worry.

You will not make a fortune in medicine, no one does; but in time

you will make a living. But it will come slow. You can be here in my

office without any expense to you. My books, my instruments, my drugs

are all here for your use. So just cut out right here the idea of being a

nurse."

Well, the die was cast. The letters were torn up, and two weeks

later my little sign was tacked up on the outside of the office. And a

new life had begun all over.

Dr. Wilson subsequently became the first physician appointed (at no salary)

to the Florence Crittenton Home (for unwed mothers) in Columbus. In 1902

she took the lead in organizing the Women's Medical Club of Columbus,

the purpose of which was to promote the advancement of women in the

medical profession.⁸ She enrolled for post-graduate medical training in 1912

 

8. On August 17, 1941, an illustrated article concerning Dr. Wilson, entitled "Fifty

Years as a 'Hen Medic,'" appeared in the Columbus Citizen. On the basis of interviews

with Dr. Wilson and (apparently) other members of the Club, the unidentified author

wrote, "Members of the Woman's Medical Club will not discuss nor admit discrimi-

nations. They seek. no favors and resent women who do. Every physician, whether man

or woman, has to work to make his or her own place in the professional field. They see

no objection to the small percentage of girl students accepted each year at Ohio State

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66                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

and again in 1918. She volunteered for government service during World War

I and was assigned to emergency work in Fayetteville, North Carolina,

during the influenza epidemic and then to the New York Foundling Hospital.

Though hardly a political person, Dr. Wilson engaged in restrained cam-

paigning for Warren G. Harding in 1920 and marched in a suffragist parade

in Marion, Ohio, wearing a purple and yellow sash and carrying a "Vote for

Women" banner. She traveled about the country extensively during her long

lifetime, most notably in her seventy-third year when she sailed via the Panama

Canal to California, bought a Model A Ford and toured for several months,

then drove back alone to Ohio. She continued in general medical practice

until after World War II, by which time she was in her eighties. Dr. Wilson

died in Columbus in 1955.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

University Medical School. In their opinion, the board must choose carefully from among

the applicants, selecting women who are most likely to succeed in professional work."

This sentiment serves to illustrate Gena Corea's comment, "In newspaper stories about

female doctors, I often see that same denial [that discrimination has occurred]. The

woman says she has never been discriminated against and then adds, 'Of course there

was that time when . . .' After describing several such incidents, she dismisses them

as insignificant," The Hidden Malpractice, 43.

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