【分享】西方第一位女医生

班门斧

西方第一位女医生的成长经历感人至深。她所创立的妇儿医院和妇女医学院，以及其开创的疾病预防理论是对社会历史的巨大贡献。 ElizabethBlackwell, 1821-1910: Against Strong Opposition, She Became the FirstWestern Woman in Modern Times to Become a Doctor
She also started a hospital for women and children and built a medical school to train women doctors. Transcript of radio broadcast: 21 July 2007

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ANNOUNCER:
Every week we tell about someone important in the history of theUnited States.  Today, Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about thefirst western woman in modern times to become a doctor. Now, the storyof Elizabeth Blackwell on the VOA Special English program People inAmerica.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:

Elizabeth Blackwell

ElizabethBlackwell was born in Bristol, England in eighteen twenty-one. Herparents, Hannah and Samuel Blackwell, believed strongly that all humanbeings are equal. Elizabeth's father owned a successful sugar company.He worked hard at his job. He also worked to support reforms inEngland. He opposed the slave trade. He tried to help improve lowpaid and poor living conditions of workers. And he wanted women to have the same chance foreducation as men.
He carried this out in his own home. Elizabeth had three brothersand four sisters. All followed the same plan of education. They allstudied history, mathematics, Latin and Greek. These subjects werenormally taught only to boys. Friends asked Samuel Blackwell what heexpected the girls to do with all that education. He answered: "Theyshall do what they please".
VOICE TWO:
In eighteen thirty-two, Samuel Blackwell's sugar factory wasdestroyed by fire. He and his wife decided to move the family to theUnited States. Elizabeth was eleven years old.
The Blackwells settled in New York City. But Mister Blackwell'sbusiness there failed. The family moved west, to the city ofCincinnati, on the Ohio River.
Samuel Blackwell was sick for much of the trip. He died soon afterarriving in Ohio. To help support the family, Elizabeth and her twoolder sisters started a school for girls in their home. Two youngerbrothers found jobs.
In the next few years, Elizabeth's brothers became successful inbusiness. The girls continued operating their school. But Elizabeth wasnot happy. She did not like teaching.
Elizabeth began to visit a family friend who was suffering fromcancer. The woman knew she was dying. She said women should bepermitted to become doctors because they are good at helping sickpeople. The dying friend said that perhaps her sickness would have beenbetter understood if she had been treated by a woman. And she suggestedthat Elizabeth study medicine.
VOICE ONE:
Elizabeth knew that no woman had ever been permitted to study in amedical school. But she began to think about the idea seriously afterthe woman who had suggested it died.
Elizabeth discussed it with the family doctor. He was opposed. Buther family supported the idea. So Elizabeth took a teaching job in thesouthern state of North Carolina to earn money for medical school.
Another teacher there agreed to help her study the sciences shewould need. The next year, she studied medicine privately with adoctor. He was also a medical school professor. He told Elizabeth thatthe best medical schools were in Philadelphia.
VOICE TWO:
No medical school in Philadelphia would accept her. Collegeofficials told her she must go to Paris and pretend to be a man if shewanted to become a doctor. Elizabeth refused. She wrote to othermedical colleges -- Harvard, Yale, and other, less well-known ones. Allrejected her, except Geneva Medical College in the state of New York.
She went there immediately, but did not feel welcome. It was notuntil much later that she learned the reason: her acceptance was ajoke. The teachers at the college decided not to admit a woman. Butthey did not want to insult the doctor who had written to supportElizabeth's desire to study medicine. So they let the medical studentsdecide.
The male students thought it funny that a woman wanted to attendmedical school. So, as a joke, they voted to accept her. They regrettedtheir decision by the time Elizabeth arrived, but there was nothingthey could do. She was there. She paid her money. She wanted to study.
VOICE ONE:
Elizabeth Blackwell faced many problems in medical school. Someprofessors refused to teach her. Some students threatened her. Butfinally they accepted her. Elizabeth graduated with high honors fromGeneva Medical School in eighteen forty-nine. She was the only woman inthe western world to have completed medical school training.
Three months later, Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell went to Paris tolearn to be a surgeon. She wanted to work in a hospital there to learnhow to operate on patients. But no hospital wanted her. No one wouldrecognize that she was a doctor.
A hospital for women and babies agreed to let her study there. Butshe had to do the tasks of a nursing student. At the hospital, DoctorBlackwell accidentally got a chemical liquid in her eye. It becameinfected. She became blind in that eye. So she was forced to give upher dreams of becoming a surgeon.
Instead, she went to London to study at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital. There, she met the famous nurse Florence Nightingale.
Elizabeth returned to the United States in eighteen fifty-one. Sheopened a medical office in New York City. But no patients came. Sodoctor Blackwell opened an office in a poor part of the city to helppeople who lived under difficult conditions. And she decided to raise ayoung girl who had lost her parents.
VOICE TWO:
Elizabeth Blackwell had many dreams. One was to start a hospital forwomen and children. Another was to build a medical school to trainwomen doctors. She was helped in these efforts by her younger sisterEmily. Emily also had become a doctor, after a long struggle to beaccepted in a medical school.
With the help of many people, the Blackwell sisters raised the moneyto open a hospital in a re-built house. The work of the two womendoctors was accepted slowly in New York. They treated only threehundred people in their hospital in its first year. Ten times as manypeople were treated the second year.
VOICE ONE:
Elizabeth Blackwell's work with the poor led her to believe thatdoctors could help people more effectively by preventing sickness. Shestarted a program in which doctors visited patients in their homes. Thedoctors taught patients how to clean the houses and how to prepare foodso sickness could be prevented.
News of Elizabeth's theories spread. Soon, she was asked to start ahospital in London. She spoke to groups in London about diseaseprevention. And she worked with her friend Florence Nightingale.
Elizabeth returned to the United States to start America's firsttraining school for nurses. And in eighteen sixty-eight, she opened hermedical college for women. She taught the women students about diseaseprevention. It was the first time the idea of preventing disease wastaught in a medical school. Soon other medical schools for women openedin Boston and Philadelphia.
VOICE TWO:
Elizabeth Blackwell felt her work in America was done. She returnedto England. She started a medical school for women in London. She wrotebooks, and made speeches about preventing disease.
Doctor Blackwell talked of deaths that should never have happened,of sickness that should never have been suffered. She spoke about thedangers of working too hard, of eating poor food, of houses withoutlight, of dirt and other causes of disease. And she told doctors thattheir true responsibility was to prevent pain and suffering from everhappening.
In eighteen seventy-one, she started the British National Health Society. It helped people learn how to stay healthy.
VOICE ONE:
Elizabeth Blackwell never married. Neither did her sisters. Theybelieved in treating men like equals. And they expected to be treatedlike equals themselves. Most men of that time did not accept suchtreatment. This belief caused problems for their brothers too. They hadtrouble finding wives who wanted to be considered as equals.
Two of Elizabeth's brothers did marry, however. Both their wives were famous workers for the cause of women's rights.
VOICE TWO:
Elizabeth Blackwell died in England in nineteen ten. She was eighty-nine years old.
She was a very strong woman. She once wrote that she understood whyno woman before her had done what she did. She said it was hard tocontinue against every kind of opposition. Yet she kept on because shefelt the goal was very important. Toward the end of her life, shereceived many letters of thanks from young women. One wrote that doctorBlackwell had shown the way for women to move on.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Ray Freeman. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.
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［ 本帖最后由 班门斧 于 2007-07-28 02:47:00 编辑 ］