WEBVTT - Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Feminist Physician 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.440 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:18.160 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Charles Chuck, Wayne Chwayne Bryant, 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.440 and there's Jerry Jerome Roland, the Rizzy Uh, and I'm 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:28.080 just Josh, like just Jack was just Jack? Wow. Okay, 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.920 that's a heck, come an intro. Thank you. Let's do 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.720 a little jazz hands there. Just call me Twayne Chwayne 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.240 from now on, Chwayne. It's not awkward to pronounce. It's 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.559 really close to schwing. Remember that schwing. Oh man, I 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:49.159 totally forgot about it until just now. Schwing. Chuck Schwing, schwing. 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:51.919 That's how you have to say it. No, you can 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.600 say it anyway like schwing. Yeah. Well, what I really 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:01.960 love is that we're talking about America's first woman physician, 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.520 an amazing woman named Eliza, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.160 an amazing family and her story is incredible, and we're 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.920 saying swinging at the beginning, right, especially considering that she 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:20.560 was a m a h. Rather puritanical person in a 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.640 lot of senses, she would probably not have been down 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:30.120 with us saying swing no, no, because you know what. Uh, 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.920 she and her family were Quakers, And I know some 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.040 Quakers and have known some Quakers. They hate swing, they do, 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.800 but you know what, they love being awesome. Yeah, yeah, no, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.240 I mean for sure, um this this, I get the 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.000 impression that her entire family is a pretty good example 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.960 of like a like a Quaker family. Quaker. Every Quaker 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.560 I've known has just had it like had it all 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.600 figured out. It seems like they're like the the Buddhists 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:05.960 of the best. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. They also, Um, 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.720 I think they also go by the Society of Friends, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.639 which says a lot too if Yeah, I'm pretty sure. 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.399 And then if you remember correctly, Charles, our Pacifist episode 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.640 focused heavily on the Quakers because they're big time Pacifists too. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.720 So Elizabeth Blackwell, just by virtue of having been a Quaker, 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:31.240 was a pretty interesting like upstanding, upright person with with 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.840 a good head on her shoulders. But she also like 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.520 individually personally was a very amazing person. And not just 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.880 the fact that she was the first licensed woman physician 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.799 in America. Um, but to get there, she really had 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:50.880 to blaze her own path and put up with a 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.480 lot of bs. You might put it um, and and 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.360 so much so that even in her um, her autobiography, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.600 which was published in when she was in her seventies, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.320 I think um, she called it pioneering work, um, and 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.200 that was There's really no better way to put it. 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.760 She was absolutely a pioneer, and not just getting herself 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.440 established as a woman physician in America, but in making 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.960 it so that there could be more women physician in America, 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:27.880 physicians and more and more, much more. So let's start with, oh, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.079 I don't know, February three, what's significant about that date? 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.600 She was born as a little baby uh, near Bristol, England. 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.320 She was the third of nine children. Her mom was 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.000 Hannah Lane, who came from a family of merchants who 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.360 had some dough and her pops was Samuel Blackwell. He 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.520 was a sugar refiner and also prosperous. And like we said, 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:55.200 they were Quakers, which means that they were very cool. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.560 They were not then this was one. They were not 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.120 down with slavery. They were activists against lay bree uh, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.280 they were abolitionists. They supported women's suffrage. Um. Her brother 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:10.280 Henry married Lucy Stone, who was very famous women's rights activist. 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.240 Her little sister Emily followed in her footsteps in medicine. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.680 Her sister in law, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, first female ordained 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:24.000 minister in Protestant the Protestant denomination. Yeah, they're way ahead 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:25.880 of their time. Yeah, and you can trace I mean, 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.120 both of her parents seem to be pretty cool. Um, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.320 and you can trace their um the roots of of 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.599 their sensibilities back to their parents. Like um, Samuel was 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.760 a dissenter, like he was a Quaker, which is I 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.400 guess the form of Protestantism. But he was definitely he 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.080 didn't recognize like the sole religious authority of say, like 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.720 the Church of England or anything like that. And so 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.719 as a result, his children could not go to public school. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.520 He said, fine, I've got some money. I'm a prosperous 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.840 sugar merchant. I'm going to hire the best tutors I 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.159 can find. And not only that, I'm going to defy 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:07.479 the conventions of England and have these tutors teach my 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.560 daughters the same stuff that they're going to teach my sons, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:16.840 which unheard of. But that really formed the basis for 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:23.279 especially Elizabeth's progression and education that she she came to 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.280 expect to be taught just like she was a boy. 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.000 Um because of how she was raised. Yeah, and you know, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.479 by all accounts, her parents were both pretty great. Her 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.520 dad was a very caring individual. He thought that all 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:42.120 kids of any gender should reach their full potential. Uh. 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.640 He didn't physically punish his kids, which was weird at 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.840 the time. People are like, why aren't you hitting your kids? Yeah, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.440 and he said, I don't believe in it. I've got 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.520 a switch right here you can borrow. Really do not 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.159 have a switch, That's what the deal is. He doesn't 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.000 have a switch or paddle. Let's get him a switch. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.200 So he you know, they would had sort of like 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.239 a demerit system in their house, and if you added 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.240 up to too many demerits, you would have to do 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.960 something like eat by yourself in the attic or something 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.880 that sounds horrific, also like sticking a kid in the closet. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.600 But I think it was just a room removed from 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.920 the family dinner. Yeah, it was just you have to 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.080 go away from the family. We can't even bear to 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.440 look at you. You make us want a puke. That's right. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.159 But everything changed when he lost his sugar refinery and 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.120 a fire and said, you know, what, let's pack our 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:36.799 bags and let's move to New York City. New York City. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.440 That's right, New York City. Do you remember back in 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.320 I don't know, like around two thousand and seven eight. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.279 I feel like it was right when we both started 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.120 working around how stuff works. That a sugar refinery and 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.720 Savannah blew up. Remember that I wrote an article about that. 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.080 It's like that sugar dust is is volatile, it can 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.400 can catch fire. And I'm wonder if that's what happened 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.159 to his sugar refinery. You okay, So they moved to 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.440 New York. They lived in New York and in Jersey 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.560 for six years. Yeah. And one of the cool things 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.520 that I liked about him he was he was a 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.160 little paradoxical. So he was a sugar refiner. He made 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.520 his money off of sugar refining. But the sugar industry 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:20.640 was based almost entirely on slave labor around the world. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.080 That's how sugarcane was grown, That's how I He didn't 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:26.480 use slaves, I can tell you that, but he still 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.480 made his money in an industry that was heavy, heavy 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.880 on slavery. And in fact, his children were such staunch 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.240 abolitionists even as young children they refused to eat sugar 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.280 because they knew that slaves had had a hand in 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.880 producing it, so they wouldn't even they wouldn't even need 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.920 it as kids. Little kids wouldn't eat sugar because of 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.760 of the slavery involved. Um, but he still made his 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.880 his money off of that. But Um, when he got 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.760 to America, one of the first things he tried was 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:01.239 to um introduce sugar beets, which don't really require slave labor. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.760 There's a much less labor intensive process of extracting sugar 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.000 from sugar beets, and this is really revolutionary at the time. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.800 Like they think they first isolated sugar from beats in 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.560 eighteen hundred, like thirty years before, and they had been 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.520 introduced to America just like two years before. He he 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.000 took this up, so he was on the cutting edge 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.880 of of sugar beat production. But it didn't actually work 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:30.760 out very well. No Um, he his original sugar refinery 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.240 went Um went south in eighteen thirty seven, so he said, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.440 let me move to Cincinnata and I'll get down on 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.679 the on the sugar beat thing. But just a few 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.040 weeks after they got the Cincinnati in August of eighteen 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.280 thirty eight, he died of a fever. And because he 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.240 had lost that sugar refinery and didn't have the next 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.040 sugar beat operation up and going, they didn't have a 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.840 lot of dough. His family was um left without a 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.160 lot of money. Yeah, which I mean, that's gotta be 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.000 really tough to go from wealthy to not, you know, 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.320 and just one fell swoop and but that's kind of 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:08.200 what happened with Elizabeth's family and UM. A few years later, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.679 she resolved, and she was twenty one, that she would 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.480 not be dependent on any man, that she was going 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.840 to be self sufficient, and she was never going to marry, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.199 and she wanted to make her own way. And I mean, 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.960 it's pretty tough not to trace that line directly back to, 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.200 you know, the state that her father left his family 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.360 and UM not in any way that you know that 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.400 was his own doing or his own fault, but that 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.200 was just the conventions of the time. And so for 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.920 a woman to resolve that she would make her own 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:41.240 way in life was very unconventional. But if Elizabeth Black 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.400 was anything, she was very unconventional, that's right. So she 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.120 and her mom and a couple of her sisters, they 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.240 were teachers for a little while and she eventually and 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:53.960 we this is kind of jumping ahead of it, but 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.600 she she did adopt a girl, a seven year old 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.920 Irish immigrant orphan that she named Kitty. Her name was 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.559 Katherine Barry and went by Kitty, and she was with 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.280 her for the duration of her life. But she never 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:09.120 got married, and she decided to become a doctor when 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.760 she had a really close friend who was dying said 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.560 you know what, I think that I might have lived 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.920 if I might have had a woman as a doctor, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.000 because they're more compassionate and I might have gotten better treatment. 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:29.199 And Elizabeth Blackwell was like, WHOA that really speaks to me. Yeah. 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.360 They they think that the woman was probably dying of 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.480 uterine cancer, and she thinks that she would have She 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.000 would have disclosed more of her condition post sooner, and 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.280 at the very least she would have been more comfortable 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.560 in her dying days being treated by a woman, rather 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.080 than poked and prodded by some man um who who 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.440 seemed to be less compassionate than she believed a woman 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:55.520 would be. The thing about Elizabeth Blackwell is she, first 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.040 of all, she was struck by this, and she was 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.400 so struck struck by it that she moved her to 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.640 want to become a doctor. But not only that, she 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:11.079 had to overcome a natural, deep seated aversion to the 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.600 idea of the body or anatomy or medicine. Like she 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.839 was not at all interested in this to begin with, 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.200 and in fact, she had an aversion to it, but 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.120 she was so moved by that woman um and her 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:26.880 experience that she resolved to overcome her disgust and her 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:32.120 aversion at bodily functions and anatomy and become a doctor herself. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.760 It's pretty I mean, that's a really key detail. It 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.480 is a hugely I mean that's enormous. Like not only 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.320 she like she just wasn't a kid who wanted to 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.760 be a doctor, Like I loved the side of blood 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.520 and internal oregan so this kind of fits anyway. Yeah, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.920 she had to overcome an aversion to it, on top 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.480 of overcoming the aversion that society had against a woman 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.280 becoming a doctor, because at the time it was it 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:59.440 was considered that a woman couldn't know enough about the 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.800 human body to be a physician and still be considered 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.720 a morally upright woman, that her morals were at risk 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.360 of being corrupted just by knowing everything there is to 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.520 know about the human body. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.040 they would have to see a male penis as part 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:24.719 of their training. PP. So, man, we're such children, we are. 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:27.840 So she said, all right, I'm gonna do this. I'm 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.839 gonna get over this. I'm gonna be a doctor. How 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.079 do I do this? I'll just go to medical school. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.080 Medical school said no, no, no, no, no, women can't 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.080 go to medical school. Um, there are a few ladies 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.360 around the country that are unlicensed physicians that worked as 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.760 apprentices and learned their trade. But um, you're not going 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.480 to go this traditional route. And medical school at the 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.400 time was just weird anyway, which we'll get into a 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.839 little bit later, but we I mean, we also got 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.600 into it in our grave robbing episodes was similar to 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.800 that time. It was crazy. It wasn't like it wasn't 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.640 the I don't think doctors were as respected back then 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:09.160 even No, they know, because they were the ones who were, um, 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.199 who were cutting open bodies and just kind of figuring 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.040 stuff out as they went along. And if you went 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.000 to a doctor, there was like an eight percent chance 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:21.840 you were walking out one limb short. Yeah. So she, uh, 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.040 while she was a teacher. She boarded with um families, 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:26.520 and that she did a lot of this stuff in 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.559 the South, which we'll get too as well. But UM, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.840 two Southern physicians mentored her. Um, she still could not 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.600 get into medical school. Of course, she had some physician 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.320 friends who were Quakers. She asked them about it. They said, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.280 that's a great idea, but no, it costs too much. 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.240 You're never gonna be able to get in. UM. What 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.319 you should do is disguise yourself as a man and 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.320 go to France. And she was like, not a bad idea. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.680 If that's the best advice somebody's giving you, you need 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.000 to rethink the people who you take advice from. It 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.160 sounds like she was game, though, but she just had 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.320 to save money instead and apply to medical medical school 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.080 in the United States. So and today dollars I did 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.760 the the the old inflation calculator three grand back then. 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.200 It would be about eighty five thou dollars today, So 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.240 that's a lot of money. And she between I think, 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:23.040 for a period of two or three years, went South 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.680 and taught school and slave states, which was very hard 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:28.480 for her to do in order to save money for 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.240 medical school. She didn't know what she could get into anyway, 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.800 right exactly. And the first the first place she taught 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.680 in Kentucky, she only lasted a year. She's just found 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.640 the social climate so intolerable. She she was really, you know, 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:43.960 she couldn't put up with it. And I don't know 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.440 how she was able to better in North and South Carolina, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.320 but yeah, I mean she managed in two years to 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.720 raise eighty three grand from teaching I guess rich kids 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.480 in North and South Carolina. And she she um. But 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:00.520 she also while she was there, she's, well, I want 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.280 to teach the slave kids too. I'll do it pro bono. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.720 And they said, well, it's against the law for you 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.760 to teach slave kids. And they said, but you can 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.880 teach them Sunday school. And she said, fine, I'll do that. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.640 And there was a great quote um that came from her, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.520 uh in a letter to her family in and I'm 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.640 not sure what state she was in, maybe even Kentucky, 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.920 but she said, I assure you I felt a little 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.400 odd sitting down before those degraded little beings, not saying 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.040 they were naturally degraded, that they had been degraded by 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.920 other people. I believe, to teach them a religion which 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.760 the owners professed to follow whilst violating its very first principles. 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.840 It really does. She was like, you know, these people 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.000 are professed to be Christians, but are do not treat 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.720 other people like Christians. And that's just such a Quaker 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.760 thing to do. Huh, that is a very quicker thing 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.600 to do. You want to take a little break, Yeah, 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.840 let's do it. Okay, We're gonna take a break everybody, 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.480 and we'll be back to tell you more about Elizabeth 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:21.280 Blackwell's progress towards med school. So, Chuck, like you said, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.200 she um was mentored by a couple of doctors who 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:27.960 she she stayed with while she was teaching in North 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.280 and South Carolina, one of whom was actually a professor 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.960 of medicine, so he had all the books. He was 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.640 very encouraging to her. Um, he taught her everything he could. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:39.880 And that was, like you said, a way that a 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:45.080 woman could become a physician, but an unlicensed physician. Um 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.800 certainly not one that was that was in any way 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.200 established as an actual legitimate physician. And that was ultimately 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.360 her goal. Yeah. Like, she continued to get sort of 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.760 tutored by different people in the South that she knew 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.080 who were physicians, and it was great that these uh, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.000 these men encouraged her and tutored her. Said, here used 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.119 my books. Um. But again, like you said, she wanted 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.920 to do the real deal and and forge a path 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.119 and not just kind of go the back door route. 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.959 So she applied to all the medical schools in New 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:22.080 York and Philly. She applied to twelve more in the Northeast. 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.399 She was rejected by all of them, and on the 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:30.480 thirtie application to Geneva Medical College in Western New York 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.440 in eighteen forty seven, she was accepted. And I said, 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.679 I raised my voice because she got accepted because it 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:44.159 was a joke that uh well, everyone thought it was 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.199 a practical joke. The professor there, the dean of the 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.120 medical med school, basically said, hey, let's take a vote here. 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.000 We'll have all the men here that go here vote 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.920 on whether or not a woman can come to school here. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.880 And if every single person says yes, she can come here, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.360 and if one person says no, she won't. They all 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.639 thought it was a prank from I guess the neighboring 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.840 rival medical school the west Geneva. Yeah, they said, sure, 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.600 let her in. And it wasn't a joke, and they 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.760 did let her in. They they did, um, And apparently 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.040 they were all very surprised. Like this almost sounds like 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.280 an urban legend, but from what I saw, like this 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.040 is across the board. What happened that they thought it 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:27.960 was a practical joke and it turned out to be real. 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.480 And that is how she ended up going to medical school. Unbelievable. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.160 So when she showed up, she was taking this quite seriously. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.640 She was twenty six already, she spent some time like 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:42.160 living around seeing the country. Um. Just she was twenty six, 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.679 Like this says a lot about a person, oversay, like 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.159 twenty or nineteen or something like that. And so she 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.399 when she showed up, um, not only was she a 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.159 little more mature, probably than some of her contemporaries, she 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:58.920 also um was she was well aware of the convention. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.720 She was breaking challenges and the obstacles that laid ahead 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.800 of her. Um. And there's a pretty good report like 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.240 the fact that she showed up at medical school made 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.400 the papers, and in fact, the Boston Medical Journal even 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.400 wrote up something about the facts that that she was yeah, 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.879 that she was there taking medical classes. The Boston Medical 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.560 Journal said that she comes into the class with great composure, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.560 takes off her bonnet and puts it under the seat, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.840 exposing a fine phrenology. Are you kidding me? You're talking 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.520 about the shape of her head. Yeah. Yeah, But this 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.400 is the Boston Medical Journal at the time. Hopefully the 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:40.200 b m J has um has officially uh stopped using 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.800 phrenology in any way, shape or form. But we'll have 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:45.720 to We'll have to get a subscription and find out. 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.160 So we talked earlier about the fact that medical school 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.639 at the time was really different. Um, it sounds like 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.760 animal house or something. It was very raucous. Uh. Apparently 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.600 when they were lecturers, you would make crewe jokes out loud, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.200 and no matter what you're talking about. It sounds like 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.120 a bunch of children taking sex at or something. Yeah, 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.280 and like the sixth grade. But apparently Blackwell's effect on 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.879 the whole, like every class she went into was everyone 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.440 took it a lot more seriously because she was there. Yeah. 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.560 Because again, like if you were a man, you acted far, far, 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.800 far differently around a woman. Um at the time, where 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:26.760 you were just much more genteel. It was just the 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.520 social convention and so you had to bite your tongue 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:35.160 in medical school. If if um, Elizabeth blackwells in your class, 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:36.919 where you just did that was just kind of the 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:38.960 effect that she had on class just by being a woman. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:44.720 But even beyond that, there was this whole view that like, 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:50.320 these guys were somehow contributing to this woman's moral corruption 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.120 by even being in the same class with her, let 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.080 alone being the instructor teaching her. And so one of 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.880 the things she ran into in med school was she 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.719 would sometimes be asked to go step outside because this 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.560 particular lecture is a little rough, and Elizabeth Blackwell did 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.040 not truck to that at all, and very adamant that. Remember, 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.359 she was educated like a boy by the tutors her 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:16.400 father hired. She had a full expectation to be left 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.399 out of absolutely nothing. At med school. She was to 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.000 be a full physician, and so she was to learn 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.840 everything that any physician would learn. And eventually, over time 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.200 she kind of overcame this genteel opposition to her presence 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:34.080 by her professors in male classmates. Yeah, and I think 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.320 in no small part due to her serious take and 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.919 her fastidiousness in her uh the fact that in the 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.800 end she graduated first in her class. Yeah, this says 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.119 a lot. She was the best student in nine. She 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:53.760 graduated first um ultimately earned the respect of her fellow students. 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.840 Not to say that it was a um it was 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.880 a cake walk. There were still plenty of jerks there, Uh, 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.520 and you know a lot of them had animosity towards her. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.200 Remember a cake walker's racist? Is it really? Yeah? I 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.120 remember we did a we did a show on what 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.119 was it? I can't remember them, Like words that have 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.800 different origins than you would think, are different meanings than 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.879 you would think. You remember, Yeah, I think I do 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:25.560 remember that. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm sorry for interrupting you. 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:31.920 That's okay. So it was no pie walk. Still plenty 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.760 of jerks. Uh. There were some men there that um 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.840 would um would laugh at her, some in there that 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.080 would support her, some men that would jeer at her, 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:44.160 some men that would help her out. But like I said, 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.119 in the end, she she got that degree first in 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:48.720 her class. Apparently, and I don't know if this is 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:53.399 the movie version, but the medical school's dean bowed to 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.760 her when she accepted her diploma, and everyone busted out 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.080 in applause. Yeah, that's what a newspaper account us that 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:03.520 who from the correspondent who was there, and they also 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:08.840 added and brother Bluto became Senator Blue tar Very. It's 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:11.400 that wrapped everything up. Do you think that movie age 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.240 as well? We're talking about Animal House again. I haven't. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.480 I haven't seen it. You know what I should say? Sorry, 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.239 in a while. I'm not sure. Okay, I could have 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:22.879 seen it plenty of times, but I haven't seen it in 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:27.119 in a while. I'm sure it doesn't it can't. Uh. 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:32.600 I don't know, man, I think it's kind of timeless. Um. However, 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:36.120 I've heard certain people that I won't name say it 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:40.600 doesn't age well. Noel, oh yeah, yeah, nol didn't think 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.440