The cure for women : Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the challenge to Victorian medicine that changed women's lives forever / Lydia Reeder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reeder, Lydia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jacobi, Mary Putnam, 1842-1906.

Jacobi, Mary Putnam.

Women--Health and hygiene--United States--History--19th century.

Women.

Women's rights--United States--History--19th century.

Women's rights.

Sex differences--History--19th century.

Sex differences.

Women physicians--United States--Biography.

Women physicians.

Women physicians--New York (State)--Biography.

Medical education--United States--History--19th century.

Medical education.

Women in medicine--History--19th century.

Women in medicine.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

320 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the challenge to Victorian medicine that changed women's lives forever

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2024.

Summary:

"How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood-and the brilliant doctor who defied them After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin's evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty. Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women's bodies and lives continues"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: A desire to heal

Part One: Beginning. A moral imperative

A tale of two hospitals

Awakening

Setbacks

Revolutionary

Part Two: Backlash. A mistaken ally

Closed energy system

The science of love

Battle lines are drawn

Counterattack

Fighting back with science

God's gift to women

Part Three: Breakthrough. Success, but at what cost?

The agony of her mind

Organizing to win

Combat zones

A partership of women

Epilogue: The last victory

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Erpf Fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781250284457

1250284457

OCLC:

1414164721