Today I'm excited to welcome guest blogger Sarah Lamb as she shares about medicine in the 1870s and how that history plays into her book.

Women in Medicine in the 1870s

My historical romance book, Caroline, is set in the 1870s, in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. A real town, Cottonwood Falls is still quite tiny, with the 2020 census showing only 851 living there. Something that amazed me though, when I was doing research for my characters, was the fact of how hard it was for women to be in medicine at the time. Caroline, my main character, is the daughter of a doctor. Her mother assisted her father as a nurse, but both sadly passed away in an accident when Caroline was a young girl. Her love for medicine stayed.

Women in medicine was something very rare at the time. The 1870 census recorded only 525 trained women doctors in America. Of those, the majority were only trained in homeopathic, eclectic, or botanical medicine. Of course, we do know there is great value in those, but these women were kept from learning more. They couldn't get regular medical training, like our female doctors now get.

In 1870, only 137 women were enrolled in regular medical schools. It is suggested that this is the reason today, many women’s medical issues aren’t diagnosed correctly, or timely. Thank goodness Elizabeth Blackwell came along and founded the Medical College for Women in New York City. Her own graduating school, Geneva Medical College, declared that the “experiment” of medical education for women was “a failure”, right after her MD graduation in 1849. After that, they denied entrance to women students. In fact, Elizabeth almost didn’t become a doctor. She was admitted to her school only “as a joke”.

The US wasn't the only place where women struggled with having the desire to practice medicine. In the UK, women would dress as men, for the chance to both study and practice. Many of the women who did practice learned from their fathers or spouses, and assisted in the man’s practice, but not all ever became doctors like we’d think of now.

I'm personally grateful for the doctors who have treated me in my life who are female. I cannot imagine a field like medicine, where women are natural nurturers, not letting in those who could do so much good. Hopefully, as time goes on, more women enter the field so that women every care can be treated with the respect and care they both need and deserve.

About Sarah: 

I live in rural Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley with my husband and two boys. When I'm not writing, I'm editing books, helping others to reach their dreams of writing and sharing their stories. Want to be a writer too? Go for it! Writing is a great way to not only create and share stories, but to also help and educate others, which is why I write a mix of fiction and non fiction. You'll find some of my books are written not just to entertain, but also to encourage or inspire.

Connect online: https://sarahlambwriting.com