Giveaway! Enter to win a copy of the New York Times Best-Selling book
The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.
Women Doctors in Class – 1882
Months before Nellie Mattie Macknight graduated from medical school in 1893, she was granted permission to assist in a major surgery. Two physicians were required to perform an emergency mastoid operation on a deathly ill dock-worker. Nellie was one of two interns on duty and the only woman. The male intern fainted at the sight of the first incision. Nellie was a bit uneasy as well, but assured the doctor she could do the job when he ordered her at his side. She recounted the event in a journal entry.
“The surgeon talked as he worked. He described the blood supply, the nerve supply, the vessels that must be avoided, the paralysis that would follow if he invaded the sacred precinct of the facial nerve. Chip by chip he removed bone cells, but the gruesome spectacle had been magically transformed into a thrilling adventure. I forgot that I had a stomach; forgot everything but the miracle that was being performed before my eyes, until the last stitches were placed, the last dressings applied.”
For more tales about lady healers on the frontier read
The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.
