York Infirmary Research Articles

Pioneering Physician: Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and the Path to Medical History.

Elizabeth Blackwell was a remarkable and courageous woman who made significant contributions to medicine, education, and the rights of women. Blackwell achieved significant milestones in the medical field by being the first female physician in America and the first woman to be listed on the United Kingdom medical register. Despite facing challenges, discrimination, and barriers, she founded the London School of Medicine and the New York Infirmary for Women and Children to provide better education and health benefits for women and children. She lived during a time when women were expected to stay in the home; yet, she went on to become a doctor and professor.

A Doctor for Rural America: The Reforms of Frances Sage Bradley

Barbara Barksdale Clowse's biography of the physician and rural health care reformer Frances Sage Bradley (1862–1949) complicates the narrative of Progressive Era female reformers working to “uplift” the rural poor through improvements from the top-down. A Doctor for Rural America offers an insightful and impressively balanced view of Bradley as a reformer who developed connections and trust with rural families but who also grew frustrated and disillusioned by the sociopolitical structures that limited the impact of her work. Clowse organizes the biography chronologically with an underlying theme of Bradley's personal and professional reinventions that began with the death of her husband in 1896. After Horace Bradley's death, Frances Bradley found herself as a single mother looking to enter the work force. Bradley pursued a medical career, becoming one of the first women to graduate from Cornell Medical School. Her previous training at New York Infirmary immersed Bradley in the progressive...

Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessMary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century AmericaEllen S. More, Ph.D.Ellen S. MoreSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D.Published Online:1 Aug 2011https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.62.8.pss6208_0982AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century AmericaBittelCarla; Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2009, 328 pages, $40Excepting only Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman medical graduate in the Anglo-American world, Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906) was the most distinguished female American physician of the 19th century. Yet outside the world of medical history, her name is barely known today. Although Carla Bittel's erudite biography may not remedy Putnam Jacobi's obscurity among the general public (this is a book for historians of science, medicine, or women's history; for graduate students; and for physicians with an interest in the history of the profession), it represents an extraordinary scholarly achievement and sheds light on a figure who was known for her science as much as for her activism on behalf of women.Putnam Jacobi was born into a prominent and intellectually accomplished family; her father founded the publishing house G. P. Putnam's, and Mary Putnam, as the eldest of 11 children, was expected to make her mark—an unusual attitude at a time when women were more often seen only as “helpmates.” But her choosing medicine—rather than literature, her first love—challenged even her progressive family's dedication to the creed of personal achievement. In 1860, when she began her education, not only were female physicians a rare and controversial phenomenon, but medicine itself was struggling to cast off its reputation as unsystematic and unscientific. Putnam Jacobi dedicated her career to the advancement of both women's rights and medical science; her success in creating a convergence between these two causes made her career the more remarkable. She utilized scientific experimentation, writing, and teaching to demonstrate her claims for women's capacity to be worthy physicians, scientists, and citizens.From an early age, Putnam Jacobi invoked science to justify progressive social change, as when she rejected her family's Calvinist predestinarianism on the grounds that “new cells” are always capable of becoming something different from their parent cells. The lesson for her was that even people who inherited past sins “could be molded into better souls.” Science, therefore, formed the underpinnings of her progressive politics as well as the basis on which she composed the gender script of her life.Not content with doctoral degrees in pharmacy (1863) or medicine (1864) from American institutions, she became the first woman to graduate from the École de Médecine in Paris in 1871. Upon her return to New York, she began practicing medicine, teaching at Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell's Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Through her scientific publications and active participation, she successfully won admission to the elite medical societies of her time. Soon after her return to New York, too, she met and married the noted pediatrician and political progressive Abraham Jacobi, with whom she had three children. Finally, Putnam Jacobi became a forceful voice for women's suffrage and women's higher education. For example, her famous essay “On the Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation” of 1876, which was awarded Harvard's Boylston Prize, described her taking a long series of pulse readings to demonstrate that women were not weakened during menstruation. Thus, contrary to Dr. Edward Clarke of Harvard, female physiology did not justify lesser opportunities for education, suffrage, or employment. Bittel has woven these strands together into a fascinating volume.The reviewer reports no competing interests.Dr. More is head of the Office of Medical History and Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, and is with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 62Issue 8 August 2011Pages 982-982 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 August 2011 Published in print 1 August 2011

Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America (review)

Reviewed by: Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz Carla Bittel . Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America. Studies in Social Medicine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. xv + 328 pp. Ill. $40.00 (978-0-8078-3283-7). In this well-conceived, intelligent, and thoughtful biography, Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906) emerges as an extraordinary woman who made major contributions in medicine and reform. She was a woman in the mold of Margaret Fuller. What to other women were obstacles were to her challenges. Seemingly destined for a literary career as the daughter of publisher George Palmer Putnam, she determined to become a physician. After study at the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York and Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (from which she graduated in 1864), she traveled to France with her sights on the University of Paris. Unwelcome at first, her persistence pushed the school to allow her to enter the École de Médecine in 1868 as its first female student. She graduated in 1871 with a bronze medal for her thesis. All the while, she wrote fiction for income and reports on French medicine for the New York Medical Record and, radicalized by reading and friendship, became caught up in revolutionary fervor. She returned to New York [End Page 302] to form a private practice and teach at the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. She became active professionally, publishing her medical writings and joining physicians' societies. In 1873 she married Abraham Jacobi, an émigré from the 1848 revolutions and the founder of pediatric medicine in the United States. The two shared philosophical positivism, radical politics, and enthusiasm for medicine. They had three children, losing one shortly after birth and another from diphtheria as a child. Jacobi came to national attention in 1876 when her essay, The Question of Rest for Women during Menstruation, won Harvard's honored Boylston prize and appeared the following year under the Putnam imprint. Bittel offers a new understanding of Jacobi as one who employed the methods of science and the laboratory to prove women's equality. In an era whose dominant voices trumpeted the importance of sex differences, Jacobi insisted on their relative insignificance. For example, because she understood menstruation as a nutritive, not a reproductive, event, she contended that women generally did not need to protect themselves by ceasing work or study during their monthly flow. To the contrary women needed physical and mental activity to attain true health. In her nuanced and careful discussion of Jacobi's many writings, Bittel clarifies that Jacobi was hardly neutral in her research and reporting: like her medical opponents, she deployed scientific investigation to prove her social and political understandings. Left understated is a critical difference: Jacobi went beyond her adversaries' reliance on case studies to devise and perform laboratory tests and gather statistical data. Jacobi's enthusiasm for a medicine based on laboratory research and focus on nutrition provides the key to her position on many controversial issues: her willingness to perform ovariotomies, her support of vivisection, and her advocacy for the creation of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Jacobi's belief in equality led her to support women physicians and ultimately to become a strong voice for suffrage. Bittel effectively treats aspects of Jacobi's intellect and character that proved particularly helpful to some women who sought her help to relieve mental suffering. Jacobi brought a respectful attitude that potentially enabled women to imagine lives of activity and purpose. One embellishment left unattended in this account is that, seemingly alone among American physicians treating hysteria, Jacobi absorbed the insights of German psychiatrist Wilhelm Griesinger. As seen in her 1881 paper, "The Prophylaxis of Insanity," his work enabled her to view mental health and illness on a continuum and imagine a complex relation between body and mind. This minor omission does not really detract from this beautifully rendered biography. Bittel brings to her subject not only expertise in U.S. history but also a deep understanding of American medical education and practice. She sets Jacobi firmly within the contexts of...

'The Female Malady': Notes on the Continuing Debate

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article History NotesFull Access'The Female Malady': Notes on the Continuing DebateLucy Ozarin, M.D., M.P.H.Lucy OzarinSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., M.P.H.Published Online:16 May 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.43.10.0020Should DSM-V, which is now under development, contain a rubric denoting symptoms that may be related to menstruation? Expert opinions differ today and have shifted dramatically over decades of medical history.DSM-I (1952) and DSM-II (1968) listed“ psychophysiological conditions” of the various systems but with no descriptions. DSM-III (1980), which offered a new approach to psychiatric nomenclature, proposed the rubric “somatization disorder,” but again with no symptom descriptions. DSM-III placed “late luteal phase dysphoric disorder” in an appendix and suggested further study. DSM-IV (1994) used the term“ premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” keeping it in the appendix, and noted criteria including mood changes, social and occupational impairment, and estimates that the condition affects 3 percent to 5 percent of women. DSM-IV-TR (2000) retained the DSM-IV entry, still in an appendix. The classification of menstruation-related conditions is under study for DSM-V, which is expected to be published in 2012.“The female malady,” as it was sometimes called, has been noted by physicians for many years. Regina Morantz-Sanchez in her 1985 book about women physicians, Sympathy and Science, wrote that physicians, influenced by the culture of their time, treated the menstrual phenomena as a disease and prescribed rest. Guerin wrote in 1875, “There is no physiological condition so nearly resembling disease as that which produces every month in an adult woman a change so profound that it has been looked upon as an expression of a morbid condition.” Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D., an American (1830-1922), wrote that women subject to periodic infertility were unfit for any responsible effort of the mind and that this periodic infertility may produce temporary insanity. He called it a morbid condition that demands rest.In 1876, Harvard University awarded its Boylston Prize for an essay titled“ The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation.” The paper had been submitted anonymously by Mary Putnam-Jacob, M.D. (1842-1906). She based her essay on the findings of a survey that provided replies from 268 women about their family and personal medical histories, education, occupation, and menstrual experiences. The essay reviewed the medical literature, available statistics, and a detailed analysis of the survey findings, including laboratory and sphygmogram examinations.Putnam-Jacob proposed that nutritional inadequacies and nerve irritation were responsible for menstrual symptoms and that exercise and adequate nutrition were remedies. About 20 percent of the survey respondents stated that menstruation was a period of suffering, but 67 percent said that they were aware of few if any symptoms. She concluded that “nothing in the nature of menstruation [implies] the necessity or even the desirability of rest for women whose nutrition is normal.”Putnam-Jacob was a remarkable woman. She was born into the Putnam publishing family, and her interest in chemistry led to a degree in pharmacy in 1863, followed by a medical degree in 1864 from the New York Infirmary for Women. Dissatisfied with her medical training, she went to Paris in 1864, spent two years attending medical lectures and clinics, and in 1866 was the first woman admitted to the Ecole de Médecin. She graduated in 1871 with a bronze medal for her thesis.Returning to New York, she began a medical practice and taught at the New York Infirmary for Women. She was the second woman admitted into the New York Medical Society (Elizabeth Blackwell preceded her) and the first woman admitted to membership in the New York Academy of Medicine. She later chaired the academy's neurology section. She published nine books and 120 articles, some of which dealt with psychiatric topics, such as hysteria and prevention of insanity.It is ironic to note that Harvard University, which did not admit women to its medical school until 1945, awarded a major prize to a woman physician anonymously in 1876. ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Elizabeth Blackwell and the 150 th Anniversary of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children

Elizabeth Blackwell and the 150 th Anniversary of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children

ARLEENMARCIA TUCHMAN. Science Has No Sex: The Life of Marie Zakrzewska, M.D. (Studies in Social Medicine.) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2006. Pp. xiii, 336. $34.95

This thoughtful, informed, and highly readable biography describes an important figure in U.S. women's history and the history of medicine. Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska (1829–1902) emigrated to the United States in 1853, having practiced as an accredited hospital midwife in her home city of Berlin, Germany. She sough the M.D.—available to women at this time only in the United States—and a clinical practice. But despite the degree's theoretical availability, few medical schools accepted women. Zakrzewska's personal desire for opportunities identical to men's quickly became a larger quest for female equality. Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell, practicing physicians, helped her enter the Cleveland Medical College. After graduation in 1856, she worked in the Blackwells' New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Moving to Boston in 1859, she practiced first at the New England Female College and then, in 1862, at the New England Hospital for Women and Children—only the third woman-run hospital in the country—where she was both chief physician and chief administrator for many years. By the time she retired, in 1899, the medical profession had changed so much that her mid-century radical ideas seemed deeply conservative.

Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945)

Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945)

The election of Sarah McNutt as the first woman member of the American Neurological Association.

The authors investigated the early women physicians of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and their role in shaping the career and accomplishments of their student and later colleague, Dr. Sarah J. McNutt. These influences eventually led McNutt to be inducted into the American Neurologic Association (ANA). McNutt was educated at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children by early women physicians including Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell and Mary Putnam Jacobi. McNutt worked to improve the educational opportunities for practicing physicians and nurses by developing postgraduate lectures and organizations. With her early colleagues she developed the New York Infirmary for Women and Children into a reputable hospital and woman's medical college. One of the consultants to the New York Infirmary for Women and Children was Royal W. Amidon, secretary of the ANA in 1883. McNutt's close association with the Clinical Society of the New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital brought her into direct contact with other prominent ANA members including C.L. Dana and W.A. Hammond. In 1884, McNutt was nominated by Amidon and Hammond as the first woman member to the ANA and was elected. Her ANA thesis was Double Infantile Spastic Hemiplegia. McNutt was elected into the ANA at a time when women physicians were first being recognized and included into mainstream medicine. Her historic election acknowledged her accomplishments and highlighted the proactive role of the early ANA in forging new medical policies in the United States.

472 HEPATITIS B DURING PREGNANCY: IDENTIFICATION OF HIGH RISK GROUPS

Recent studies confirming the efficacy of hepatitis B immune globulin for the prevention of neonatal hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection have highlighted the need for identifying high risk pregnant women in the United States. During the period March to November 1980, of 300 pregnant women of Chinese extraction at New York Infirmary Hospital who were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), 43 (14.3%) were positive. Of 37 HBsAg-positive women who were tested for ‘e’ antigen (HBeAg), 18 (48.6%) were positive. Of 236 women who were tested for both HBsAg and its antibody (anti-HBs), 132 (56%) had evidence of present or past HBV infection; 13.5% HBsAg-positive and 42.5% anti-HBs-positive. About 98% of the women were born outside the United States, 80 to 90% from Mainland China and Hong Kong and the others from Taiwan, Burma, Macau and other islands. Their length of stay in the USA ranged from 3 months to 15 years. In view of these findings Chinese women should be routinely tested for HBsAg during pregnancy.

Infrared Thermometry for Testicular Temperature Determinations

Infrared Thermometry for Testicular Temperature Determinations

Medical Women and Social Reform-A History of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children

No abstract available for this article.

Caring for a Young Addict with TETANUS

MS. BOYER is a graduate of Peter Bent Brigham Hospital School of Nursing, Boston, Mass, and has B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University, N.Y. She worked for three years as clinical supervisor of the respiratory intensive care unit at Harlem Hospital, N.Y., and is now director of Inservice education at New York Infirmary.

Massive exchange transfusions in hepatic coma with recovery.

A 34-year-old white male was admitted to the New York Infirmary with signs and symptoms of acute hepatitis of several weeks' duration. At the outset the process was benign, but in a few days the jaundice deepened, the serum bilirubin rose to a level of 52, and the venous ammonia level was elevated to 10.7 µg. About this time coma ensued, which became more pronounced and the patient appeared moribund. The usual supportive therapy—including use of steroids—failed to demonstrate a beneficial effect. Exchange transfusions by the direct method were, therefore, begun and a total of 97 pints of blood were required. After this the patient awoke and continued to improve within a few days. During the transfusions, fever developed, which caused great concern but appeared to be related to the blood given and was of pyrogenic origin related to the method of administration. This case demonstrates the possible usefulness of exchange transfusions in severe hepatic coma and also emphasizes the fact that one must exercise patience and give continued exchanges until clinical symptoms are improved. The amounts employed in this case are far in excess of any other reported in the literature.

Comprehensive treatment of the older disabled reader

In September, 1964, the New York Infirmary Reading Clinic began a three-year pilot reading program for older adolescents, 14V2 to 19 years of age, who were actual or potential school drop-outs. Since the Reading Clinic is a service of the Child Guidance Clinic, Department of Psychia try, it is concerned with the total adjustment of these young people and uses all the disciplines and facilities of the Hospital as needed in treating them.

Part III the treatment of reading disabilities at the New York infirmary reading clinic

Part III the treatment of reading disabilities at the New York infirmary reading clinic

The skin. A clinicopathologic treatiseThe Skin. A Clinicopathologic Treatise.. AllenArthur C., M.D., Associate Pathologist, Memorial Hospital; Associate Attending Pathologist, Memorial Cancer Center, New York City; Associate Professor of Pathology, Cornell University Medical School, Sloan-Kettering Division; Consultant Pathologist, Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital and New York Infirmary, A volume of 1,048 pages, with 495 full-page illustrations and a frontispiece in color. Published

The skin. A clinicopathologic treatiseThe Skin. A Clinicopathologic Treatise.. AllenArthur C., M.D., Associate Pathologist, Memorial Hospital; Associate Attending Pathologist, Memorial Cancer Center, New York City; Associate Professor of Pathology, Cornell University Medical School, Sloan-Kettering Division; Consultant Pathologist, Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital and New York Infirmary, A volume of 1,048 pages, with 495 full-page illustrations and a frontispiece in color. Published

The Skin. A Clinicopathologic Treatise

The Skin. A Clinicopathologic Treatise Get access The Skin. A Clinicopathologic Treatise. By Arthur C. Allen, M.D., Associate Pathologist, Memorial Hospital; Associate Attending Pathologist, Memorial Cancer Center, New York City; Associate Professor of Pathology, Cornell University Medical School, Sloan-Kettering Division; Consultant Pathologist, Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital; Consultant Pathologist, New York Infirmary. 1048 pp., 495 full-page illus., frontispiece in color. $25.00. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Company, 1954. Ira Gore Ira Gore West Roxbury, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Clinical Pathology, Volume 25, Issue 8, 1 August 1955, Page 955, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/25.8.955a Published: 01 August 1955

THE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF CANCER IN WOMEN The L. Duncan Bulkley Lecture

Director, Kate Depew Strang Cancer Prevention Clinics, Memorial Cancer Center and New York Infirmary; Clinical Prof. of Preventive Medicine, Cornell Univ. Medical College

The 1946 Year Book of Physical Medicine

Journal Article The 1946 Year Book of Physical Medicine Get access The 1946 Year Book of Physical Medicine. By Richard Kovacs, M.D., Professor of Physical Medicine, New York Polyclinic Medical School and Hospital; Attending Physical Therapist, Manhattan State, Harlem Valley State, Columbus and West Side Hospitals; Visiting Physical Therapist, New York City Department of Correction Hospitals; Consulting Physical Therapist, New York Infirmary for Women and Children, Mary Immaculate Hospital, Jamaica, N. Y., St. Charles Hospital, Port Jefferson, L. I., Hackensack Hospital, Hackensack, N. J., and Alexian Brothers Hospital, Elizabeth, N. J.; Senior Consultant in Physical Medicine and Medical Rehabilitation, Veterans’ Administration. Cloth. Price, $3.75. Pp. 399, with illustrations. Year Book Publishers, Inc., 304 S. Dearborn St., Chicago 4, 1947. Physical Therapy, Volume 27, Issue 4, July 1947, Page 275, https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/27.4.275 Published: 01 July 1947