This is a letter written by Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in American History to attend and graduate from Geneva medical college. In this letter she is writing to Anne Isabella Milbanke about the rights of female physicians. In this letter she says:
"I do not wish to give [women] a first place, still less a second one--but the most complete freedom, to take their true place whatever it may be." She believed that people should be judged based on intelligence and ability rather than sex. Blackwell was a true pioneer for women, proving that women could do the same jobs and receive the same education as their male counter-parts.
"I do not wish to give [women] a first place, still less a second one--but the most complete freedom, to take their true place whatever it may be." She believed that people should be judged based on intelligence and ability rather than sex. Blackwell was a true pioneer for women, proving that women could do the same jobs and receive the same education as their male counter-parts.
This is a first hand account of the first operation performed under general anesthesia in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital by Isaac Francis Galloupe, M.D.. This discovery was also America's first contribution to international medical practices, and was the beginning of modern surgical practices. Dr. Morton, a dentist, administered ether, which he had used previously with success. This was one of the first accounts of a medicine that worked to suppress the pain of a patient undergoing surgery in human history. Before this discovery, most surgery could not be performed because of the patient thrashing in pain, which is why Dr, Galloupe and other physicians watching were "thunderstruck."
This is a picture of a typical 19th century medical tool kit. This features some tools similar like the ones we have today, like scalpels, and others like the manual bone saw that are time specific. In the 19th century, they did not have anesthetic until 1846, and even after then it was not commonly used. This meant that it was not possible to do many surgeries because of the pain it caused, so the surgeries had to be done quickly and thus on the battlefields it was common practice to amputate rather than fix what was wrong.
This is a picture depicting the centuries old practice called "bloodletting." Doctors would make an incision into typically the patients arms and let them bleed a certain amount before they stopped. The idea behind this practice is that by letting the blood out, you would rid the body of it's disease. It was thought that the cause of the disease was an imbalance in the four "humors" which were blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Towards the end of the 19th century, most doctors had stopped using the bloodletting technique as it was replaced by new advancements.
Above is an advertisement from 1885 for medicinal drops made of cocaine which, in this case, is being used to treat toothaches. It was not uncommon for drugs that we know now are dangerous to be used throughout history. Most narcotics that in today's world are known to be harmful and addictive were used for medical purposes before there were laws against it.