(continued)
She at once commenced medical reading, under the direction of Dr. John Dixon, of Ashville, N. C., in whose family she was residing as governess. Removing the next year to Charleston, S. C., she supported herself by giving lessons in music, but continued to study, with regular instruction from Dr. S. H. Dixon, afterwards professor in the medical department of the New York University, and pursued it further under Drs. Allen and Warrington, of Philadelphia. She found the study deeply interesting, and followed it with ardor and thoroughness, while benevolence and singleness of purpose speedily overcame her aversion to the associations of disease.
Upon applying for admission to the medical schools of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, she was uniformly refused. From ten others the same answer was returned, until at Geneva the faculty submitted the question to the students, who unanimously voted for her reception, at the same time assuring her that nothing on their part should ever occur to wound her feelings while in attendance, -a pledge which they nobly kept. Entering, in 1846, she graduated in 1848, - the first woman who received the medical degree in the United States.
So violent, and so ignorant, too, was the opposition of her own sex, that during those two years no lady in Geneva would make her acquaintance; common civilities, even at the table, were denied her, and in the street she was deemed unworthy of recognition. Within the college walls she found nothing but friendliness and decorum; and on the evening, of public graduation the cordiality of the students in making way for her to receive her diploma, and pleasantly indicating their congratulations, was marked and respectful. The next morning (she was to leave town in the afternoon) her parlor was filled with ladies. Success had turned the tide. Doubtless, also, many, moved by the evident approval of her associates in study, were satisfied at last that her motives were honorable, and her abilities adequate to her work.
The same year, Miss Blackwell went to Europe, and entered as a student "La Maternité," at Paris, with special reference to obstetrics. She also studied in 1850 and 1851 at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in London. In the autumn of 1851 she returned, and commenced practice in New York city. Here again she experienced difficulties which only an indomitable will and the consciousness of a lofty aim enabled her to meet. With no such facilities from extended acquaintance and gradual entrance upon the work as subsequently favored Mrs. Lozier, she found a "blank wall of social and professional antagonism facing the woman physician which formed a situation of singular loneliness, leaving her without support, respect, or counsel." The title had been appropriated by such a class, that the sign was too generally supposed to indicate either a charlatan or an agent of infamy, and it was almost impossible to find a respectable boarding-house upon which her name would be allowed to appear.
Notwithstanding all the hindrances, however, her testimonials and soon-proved qualifications gradually gained for her the confidence of all classes, the co-operation of physicians, and an extent of practice entirely satisfactory. The Quakers were first to receive her; and among them she has ever since maintained a most desirable position. Contrary to her own expectation, and to the usual impression also, her services have not been limited to, nor even chiefly required for, diseases peculiar to her own sex, but she is called and relied upon generally as the regular family physician; and in that capacity her relation to a wide circle of families is permanent.
In 1859 she again visited Europe, gave a course of lectures in London on the connection of women with medicine, and was registered as a member of the British Medical profession.
