The Woman Railroad Surgeon

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

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.

To learn more about Dr. Herzog and her revolutionary medical treatments read

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