Scandalous Northwest Physician

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A loud rap on the door of the hat shop coaxed the diminutive young woman from her work of loading bolts of fabric into a trunk. The scruffy messenger on the other side of the door smiled politely when Bethenia Owens greeted him and then handed her a letter. The monogram on the envelope showed that the correspondence came from Dr. Palmer, a prominent physician in the northwestern area of the United States.

The messenger waited patiently for Bethenia to break the seal on the envelope and read the enclosed note. “How sad,” she said to no one in particular. “One of our elder citizens passed away . . . and six local physicians who treated him at one time or another want to do an autopsy. And as one of the newest doctors in town, I’m invited to attend the operation.”

The messenger grinned and nodded, anticipating a negative response. Bethenia knew the invitation was meant as a joke and was determined to turn the tables on the pranksters. There were very few women in medicine in 1872, and, by and large, they were not well received by men in the same profession. Bethenia studied the note, carefully considering the proper response. “Give Dr. Palmer and the others my regards,” she announced, “and tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

A stunned look fell over the courier’s face as he turned and hurried off down the dusty thoroughfare in Roseburg, Oregon. Bethenia followed a safe distance behind the messenger to Dr. Palmer’s office, where she waited outside. She listened in as the courier relayed the information she had given him and heard the doctors laughing heartily. Bethenia opened the door, momentarily interrupting the merriment.

One of the doctors regained his composure and walked toward her with his hand outstretched. She shook it, and the physician choked back a giggle. “Do you know the autopsy is on the genital organs?” he snickered. “No,” Bethenia replied, “but one part of the human body should be as sacred to the physician as another.” The mood in the room quickly changed to one of disbelief and then, in an instant, to indignation.

 

 

The Doctor Was a Woman

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The Doctor Was A Woman and Hospice Care

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“Historian Enss (The Widowed Ones) profiles in this colorful account 10 of the first female physicians on America’s Western frontier. She portrays them as highly determined individuals, whose resolve not only saw them through the medical schools that resisted admitting them, but also through the treatment of recalcitrant patients…Between the brief biographies are insightful notes on topics such as treating influenza, sterilizing patients, and extracting bullets. Readers who enjoyed Campbell Olivia’s Women in White Coats will want to check this out.”

― Publishers Weekly

Ten percent of all sales of The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier is being donated to Hospice Care. The book is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and everywhere books are sold.

The Doctor Was a Woman

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The Railroad Doctor

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She cut. The bullet that slammed into the injured cowboy’s chest had come to rest next to his lungs and had to be removed. Dr. Emma French widely opened the wound to extract the slug. Her hand was steady and eyes sharp. She was no stranger to performing complicated medical procedures under pressure.

A woman in the profession in the 1890s was not readily accepted, and some ran the risk of being beaten if they were discovered practicing medicine. As this was an emergency, Dr. French was given a free hand to do whatever she could to save the two patients before her.

A pair of cowboys had gotten into a drunken brawl and were seriously hurt as a result. One had been shot, and the other cut to pieces with a knife. After tending to the gunshot victim, she turned her attention to the man with the knife wounds. She put back into place intestines and muscle and stitched the inebriated soul together.

The incident occurred in Winslow, Arizona, in December 1892. A respected male physician visiting from Santa Fe, New Mexico, was called to the scene first, but after examining the two men, he decided it was hopeless and left them to die.

The authorities decided to send for Dr. French to see if she could save their lives. Within two weeks of the doctor operating on the mortally wounded men, both were back on their feet and back in the saloon.

 

The Doctor Was a Woman

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The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier

Doctors in Training

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This wonderful photograph is of medical students acting up while studying for an anatomy test in 1892. To learn about their struggle to follow their dream to become a doctor when you read The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier.

“Historian Enss (The Widowed Ones) profiles in this colorful account 10 of the first female physicians on America’s Western frontier. She portrays them as highly determined individuals, whose resolve not only saw them through the medical schools that resisted admitting them, but also through the treatment of recalcitrant patients…Between the brief biographies are insightful notes on topics such as treating influenza, sterilizing patients, and extracting bullets.”   Publishers Weekly

 

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The Woman Railroad Surgeon

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The gunshot victim occupying a room in Dr. Sofie Herzog’s office winced in pain while struggling to remain still. His discomfort was not entirely due to the bullet lodged in his abdomen but to the uncomfortable position in which the Brazoria, Texas, physician had him placed. The lower half of the man’s body had been raised, with his ankles fashioned to a horizontal pole. The upper portion of his body was flat against the mattress.

Dr. Herzog’s procedure for removing bullets and buckshot was unconventional but had proven to be successful. It had been her personal experience that probing the wound in search of the bullet with a surgical instrument was detrimental to the patient. If, indeed, she had to do any probing at all, she preferred to use her fingers, but that was only a last resort. After tending to more than a dozen gunshot wounds, the doctor had learned the most effective way to deal with such an injury was to let gravity do the work.

When the victim’s body was elevated, the bullet often found its way to the surface for easy extraction. Dr. Herzog’s reputation for the treatment of gunshot sufferers spread rapidly throughout the region in the 1890s. Her talents were in constant demand. When she’d removed more than twenty bullets from outlaws and lawmen alike, she had a necklace made from the slugs, with gold links to separate each projectile.

 

 

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Wyoming’s First Female Physician

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Blood gushed from fifty-three-year-old sheepherder George Webb’s head as physician Thomas Maghee eased the man onto a hospital bed in his office in Rawlins, Wyoming. Dr. Maghee’s assistant, Lillian Heath, covered what was left of the injured patient’s nose and mouth with a chloroform-soaked cloth, and within a few moments, Webb was unconscious. Lillian helped Dr. Maghee peel layers of bandages and rags saturated with sanguine fluid from Webb’s neck and face.

The potentially fatal wound had been caused by a self-inflicted gunshot. George Webb no longer wanted to live and, on November 2, 1886, had attempted suicide. According to the Colorado Medicine Journal, Webb had “placed a shotgun containing a charge of eighteen buckshot in each barrel on his body, pressed the muzzle under his chin and fired one charge with his foot.” When the gun fired, the concussion knocked him back a bit, and the ammunition had exploded in his face. “The chin, lips, nose, anterior portions of the mandible and alveolar border of the superior maxilla, in fact everything from the pomum adami to the tip of the nasal bone was destroyed,” noted the author of the story in the medical journal.

Webb’s suicide attempt had taken place on his ranch some thirty miles from Rawlins. Friends transported him to Dr. Maghee’s office, where Maghee and aspiring physician Lillian Heath cleaned and dressed the wound and prepared the injured man for surgery.

 

 

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Library Journal Praise for The Doctor Was A Woman

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“Enss follows up Doctor Wore Petticoats with 10 more accounts of women healers who plied their trade during the early days of American frontier settlement. Women physicians encountered predictable resistance in the East, but out West, healers of Western medicine were scarce, offering these new physicians the chance to practice their skills in the community. Not surprisingly, women doctors faced criticism because people doubted their abilities and many considered a woman clinician to be “unwomanly.” However, Enss illuminates how their boldness and persistence earned them respect from frontier patients and other clinicians. At the end of each chapter, there’s a case study report written by that doctor on some aspects of her clinical experience, including plastic surgery, dentistry, autopsies, reproductive illnesses, and others.

Verdict:  A collection of tales about real superhero women and how they won respect. This title would be a good museum store book or as an adjunct resource for a senior high classroom module on the American West.”

Praise for The Doctor Was a Woman

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The Doctor Was a Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier is a women’s history that profiles ten selected female doctors who made their marks and helped patients in the days of the Wild West.

From Wyoming and Nevada to California, these women did more than treat gunshot wounds. They fought lung disease, pioneered dental techniques, often became the first women to practice medicine in their areas, and overcame much male resistance to the notion to achieve their goals.

Chris Enss outlines history in a reasoned manner, presenting instances where women were as prejudiced about the notion of female physicians as their male counterparts:

“Lillian had difficulties with female patients too. One elderly woman in town frequently asked Dr. Heath to make house calls but had no intention of paying her. The woman was a minister’s wife, and Lillian felt her behavior should have been better than the average person’s. She only responded to the woman’s calls for help a handful of times. Eventually, she refused to continue seeing her because the minister’s wife refused to compensate her for her services because she was a woman doctor.”

Thus, personal biographical sketches weave into community and Western history in a manner that represents all the perceptions, reactions, and influences on female physicians of the times.

Enss also includes footnoted references to source materials and notes to document this background, including a 1921 tuberculosis symptoms public health report and how women such as Dr. Sofie Herzog (who was employed by the railroad to treat its workers and patrons) made names for themselves against all odds. Black and white vintage photos pepper the story, bringing these people and times to life.

The Doctor Was a Woman reads with the drama of fiction and the authority of well-researched nonfiction. It is highly recommended for women’s history collections, American history holdings, libraries attractive to medical students and researchers, and general-interest audiences alike. Its powerful stories are sterling examples of early women who succeeded, yet are rarely mentioned in the chronicles of medical or American history.

In the aforementioned Sophie Herzog’s case:

“Although Sofie was employed with the railroad, she continued to maintain her own practice. Not only did she treat those suffering with everything from deep cuts to pneumonia, but she was also intent on finding cures for more serious ailments such as smallpox.”

 

To learn more about the first female physicians on the frontier read

The Doctor Was a Woman

 

Midwest Book Review

Cowgirl Turned Stuntwoman

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Cowboys, Creatures and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures

 

 

From the early 1920s to the mid-1930s, trick and fancy rider Bonnie Gray and her company were recognized as some of the best rodeo performers in the country.  The famous, all-around cowgirl solidified her place in the profession as an expert in the “under the belly crawl” stunt.  Riding quickly into the arena atop her horse, King Tut, Bonnie would drop down on the nearside of the horse, feed herself headfirst between the animal’s galloping legs, reach through, haul herself up the off side, and jump back into the saddle again.  Audiences from Manhattan to Cheyenne were dazzled by the skill and daring it took to execute the death-defying trick.

Bonnie Jean Gray was a natural athlete.  Born in Kettle Falls, Washington, in 1891, she learned to ride on her family’s ranch.  She was also a gifted musician.  An accomplished pianist, she attended the University of Idaho where she majored in music and participated in a variety of sports including track and tennis.

Among her many other abilities, Bonnie had a talent for medicine.  During World War I, she studied nursing at a military post in Montana.  She utilized her nursing expertise assisting her brother who was a doctor in Arizona.  She helped deliver many babies and tended to those struck down with influenza in 1917 and 1918.

Bonnie’s interest in trick riding was something she’d had since when she was a little girl.  She decided to pursue the sport in 1918 and, in 1922, made her professional debut.  She participated in some of the biggest rodeos across the country and in Canada.  In a short time, she had earned the title as the World’s Champion Woman Rider.

According to the February 23, 1923, edition of the Deming Headlight, Bonnie had charmed the fans by her overall look and attracted attention as the only woman to have ridden bulls used in the bullfights in Mexico.  “Is she pretty?” the article posed.  “Yes, in a softly, feminine way, with a row of dazzling white teeth that show no traces of dental adornment.  She’s fearless in the saddle as well as beautiful.”

In June 1930, Bonnie married trick rider Donald Harris in Los Angeles, California.  The bridal party was on horseback, and the ceremony was held in an elaborately decorated arena with more than a hundred mounted guests in attendance.

Bonnie and Donald’s marriage was a volatile one.  Donald was physically abusive, and, by August 1932, the couple was divorced.

After the divorce was finalized, Bonnie left the rodeo world to become a motion picture stuntwoman.  She doubled for popular western film stars Tom Mix, Tim McCoy, Hoot Gibson, and Ken Maynard.  One of the most elaborate and dangerous stunts she performed on camera involved her and the horse the studio had her ride.  The pair jumped a clump of brush and hurtled down a ten-foot cliff.  Bonnie was paid $10,000 for the stunt, but vowed she’d never agree to participate in anything else so hazardous again.

Bonnie Gray Harris died on April 28, 1988, at the age of ninety-seven.  She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.

 

 

Cowboys, Creatures, and Classics 3

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The Last Shot with Ruth Roland

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Reel cowgirl Ruth Roland portrayed Pearl Marvin in a dozen silent films in The Perils of Pauline series between 1915 and 1917. Fans were on the edge of their seats watching the spunky actress ride her way in and out of trouble while solving crimes.  They waited in suspended animation for the film operator to change reels so they could learn the fate of the lead character. In the stuffy darkness of the theater the piano player tried, unsuccessfully, to quiet the audience’s nerves with a tasteful rendition of “Hearts and Flowers” to a gum-chewing accompaniment. Yet the suspense was a terrific ordeal, and the projector flickered out just as Ruth, all lost save honor, lay roped to a filthy pallet, with a leering bad guy rubbing his hands in the doorway. All wondered if the heroine would make it out alive!  Audiences loved Ruth.

Ruth Roland, who took Pearl White’s place in the hearts of the hair-breadth escape fans when Pearl deserted Hollywood for Europe just before World War I, remained for a heart-throbbing period the star of the serial “flickers.”  Whether in chaps or elegant gown, Ruth was always just slipping by the flick of an eyelid from the most appalling situation in her pictures; and with an astute comprehension of interest “build-up” her director always left her, at the conclusion of each performance, tied to a railroad track with the express thundering around the bed, or shackled in a sinister basement while the water crept upward from knees to waist, or leaping on horseback from the edge of a cliff to escape “a fate worse then death.”

Born in San Francisco on August 26, 1892, the daughter of John R. Roland, a newspaperman who had worked on the New York Sun and San Francisco Chronicle, Ruth began her stage career at the age of three, when she went on tour with Edward Holden’s “Cinderella” company.  Ruth’s screen career began in 1910. “I reached Los Angeles on April Fool’s Day,” she once related, “and stepped out at once and got a job. I fixed up a stage sketch with my horse and we were booked to perform in Los Angeles and dozens of nearby towns.”  Shortly thereafter, she was signed with the Kalem Film Company earning $115 a week. Her first picture was The Last Shot, one of the earliest westerns made. In ten years, she made a hefty sum making movies and she invested her earnings in real estate.

In the late 20’s Ruth retired from the screen to devote her entire time to her extensive real estate holdings, consisting principally of business lots in the Wilshire-Fairfax district in Los Angeles. At one time she reputedly had property worth three and a half million dollars.

Ruth did her own stunts in all her pictures until she was thrown from a horse. The accident caused injury to her spine which gave her much pain in later years. She was diagnosed with cancer in early 1937. The illness took her life on September 22 of the same year.

Ruth Roland was thirty-nine years old when she died.

 

 

Cowboys, Creatures, and Classics 3

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