The First Licensed Woman Doctor in Nevada

Posted on by Chris Enss

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

 

 

An advertisement that appeared in the May 5, 1892, edition of the Reno Gazette Journal caught the attention of many residents in the northern Nevada town. It read as follows: “Dr. Eliza Cook may be consulted at her office in rooms 25 and 26 at the Golden Eagle Hotel between the hours of 9:30 to 11:30 A.M. and from 2 to 4 o’clock P.M.” The reason the advertisement drew so much attention was the fact that a woman physician had posted it. The idea of a woman doctor was still a relatively new one in the Old West in the late 1800s.
A female physician publicizing her services was also unique. Dr. Cook was confident her practice would benefit the community and was willing to risk criticism from those who believed the bold act was as out of place for a woman in the medical profession. Eliza’s desire to become a doctor began when she was fourteen years old. She was a voracious reader, and one of her favorite books when she was young was of a country doctor and the individuals he helped. From that point on, she was consumed with the dream of studying medicine.
Eliza Cook was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 5, 1856. Her parents, John and Margaretta, moved to America from England in the 1850s. Not long after her father passed away in 1870, Eliza, her mother, and her sister relocated to Carson Valley. Nine years after the Cooks arrived in Nevada, Eliza was presented with an opportunity to be part of the medical field. Dr. H. W. Smith, a prominent physician in Genoa, Nevada, hired her to help care for his wife. Mrs. Smith, who had just had a baby, was suffering with puerperal fever, a disease that primarily affects women within the first three days after childbirth. It progresses rapidly and causes acute symptoms of severe abdominal pain, fever, and debility. Dr. Smith was so impressed with Eliza’s natural ability and the way she tended to the patient, he suggested she study with him as a preparation for college.

The Doctor Was a Woman

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

Warrior of the People

Posted on by Chris Enss

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Twelve-year-old Susan La Flesche wiped the perspiration off the brow of an elderly Omaha Indian woman stretched out on a cot before her. The woman’s sad eyes found Susan’s, and she lifted her feeble hand out for the girl to take. Susan helped the frail patient raise her head and take a sip of broth. Almost as if the effort had been overwhelming to her delicate frame, the ailing Native American fainted. Susan gently laid the woman’s head onto a pillow and dabbed her warm cheeks with a cool cloth.

The light from a gigantic moon streamed through the open flap of the buckskin tepee situated on the Omaha reservation near Macy, Nebraska. Susan left the sick woman for a moment to peer out into the night. She lingered a bit and listened to the sounds of the evening. With the exception of the cries of the coyotes in the far distance, all was quiet. It was late, and the elderly woman’s breathing was labored. A messenger had been sent out four times to get help, but the physician, hired by the government to care for sick and dying Omaha Indians, would not come. He was hunting prairie chickens and could not be persuaded to visit the reservation. It was 1877, and the health of a Native American woman was inconsequential to the white reservation doctor.

Susan spent the remainder of the evening hopelessly trying to make the woman comfortable. The agony of the lady’s unknown affliction continued until the morning. By the time the sun had fully risen, the woman had passed away. Susan stood over the lifeless body, contemplating the tragedy and deciding her own course of action. If she were a doctor, she would respond quickly to Native Americans in need of medical attention. Their lives would matter to her.

 

 

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Frontier Medicine

Posted on by Chris Enss

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Women heading West with their families in the mid-1800s were responsible not only for preparing food and making it last through the journey but were also in charge of the overall healthcare for the others. Armed with herbal medicine kits and journals filled with remedies, women administered doses of juniper berries, garlic, and bitter roots to cure the ailing. These “granny remedies,” as they were called, were antidotes for a variety of illnesses from nausea to typhoid. There were a combination of superstition, religious beliefs, and advice passed down from generation to generation.

The following are a few of those “granny remedies” that explains why historians refer to this time period as the “Golden Age of Medical Quackery.”

The hot blood of chickens cures shingles.

Carry a horse chestnut to ward off rheumatism.

Sassafras tea thickens the blood.

The juice of a green walnut cures ringworms.

To remove warts, rub them with green walnuts, bacon rind, or chicken feet.

Mashed snails and earthworms in water are good for diphtheria.

Boiled pumpkin seed tea for stomach worms.

Use wood ashes or cobwebs to stop excessive bleeding.

Mashed cabbage for ulcers or cancer of the breast.

Owl broth cures whooping cough.

 

 

The Doctor Was a Woman

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First Woman to Practice Medicine in Utah

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More than two dozen women dressed in high-collared, mutton-sleeved blouses and gray or black skirts, all members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, occupied the chairs around a conference room at the Woman’s Exponent newspaper office in the Salt Lake Valley in 1878. Most of the women were talking quietly among themselves; some were flipping through medical books and making sure they had paper and pencils. Others were studying an announcement in the morning edition of the publication. “Mrs. Romania B. Pratt, M.D., continues her interesting and instructive free lectures to the Ladies’ Medical Class every Friday afternoon,” the announcement read. “All ladies desirous of obtaining knowledge of the laws of life and how to preserve their health, and rear children, and how to determine the cases of illness should improve with these opportunities and not fail in punctuality.”

The eager, makeshift classroom of women turned its full attention to Dr. Pratt when she entered. The coal-haired instructor with dark eyes and a broad nose smiled at the students expecting to learn something about anatomy, physiology, and obstetrics from the first female doctor in Utah. As she took her place in front of the group, she couldn’t help but see herself reflected in the beginners. Five years prior to agreeing to act as a medical instructor, Romania had been encouraged to become a doctor by Mormon leader Brigham Young.

The plea for women to pursue the study of medicine had been issued from the pulpit in 1873. Romania answered the call not only because she was enthusiastic about learning but also because she had personally experienced death and wished she’d been able to intercede.

The death of a dear friend helped influence her decision to become a doctor. “I saw her lying on her bed, her life slowly ebbing away, and no one near knew how to ease her pain or prevent her death,” Dr. Pratt recalled in her memoirs. “It was a natural enough case, and a little knowledge might have saved her. Oh, how I longed to know something to do, and at that moment I solemnly vowed to myself never to be found in such a position again, and it was my aim ever afterward to arrange my life work that I might study the science which would relieve suffering, appease pain, and prevent death.”

 

 

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Yankton Doctor of Medicine

Posted on by Chris Enss

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Dr. Jenny Murphy flipped the collar up on the thick, gray coat she was wearing and tightened the grip she had on the medical bag in her lap. It was below freezing when she left Yankton, South Dakota, in November 1894, on her way to a homestead in Nebraska, and temperatures continued to plummet. An anxious farmer had burst into her office in the afternoon and pleaded with her to accompany him to his home to help his wife deliver their first child.

The man’s farm could only be reached by crossing the Missouri River. Dr. Murphy followed the expectant father to his canoe anchored at the river’s edge and climbed inside. The water was cold, and chunks of ice clung to the shoreline. The farmer pushed off from the bank and quickly paddled into the middle of the water. He avoided most of the chunks of ice pulled downstream with the strong current. Just before they reached the other side of the river, a massive hunk of ice slammed into the boat, and it overturned. The doctor and the farmer were dumped into the water. Still holding on to her medical bag, Dr. Murphy fought her way to the bank of the river and onto dry land.

The frazzled farmer also managed to get out of the water. He gave the doctor a moment to recover from the near-drowning experience before hurrying her along to his homestead. When the pair arrived at the farmhouse, Dr. Murphy’s clothes were still wet from the swim in the river. Peeling off her coat and apron, she rushed to the bedside of the farmer’s wife.

 

 

The Doctor Was a Woman

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Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly and His Moll Kathryn Thorne

Posted on by winterstreet

Gangsters. Lovers. Legends. Meet the Kellys—the bootlegging, bank-robbing, husband-wife duo known as “Machine Gun” Kelly and Kathyrn Thorne—who masterminded one of the most infamous kidnappings in American crime . . .

How did a small-time, hip-pocket bootlegger become one of the most notorious gangsters in the country? For George “Machine Gun” Kelly, the answer was simple: a woman. Her name was Kathryn Thorne, a charming, strong-minded beauty who had family connections in the crime world—and big ambitions for the tall, handsome bootlegger. By the time she met Kelly, she was already an experienced criminal herself, divorced twice, and ready to marry a man who could give her the posh life she always dreamed of. With that in mind, she bought Kelly his first machine gun. And the rest is history . . .

George Kelly wasn’t a natural-born gangster and never carried a weapon bigger than a revolver. But Kathryn changed all that. Like a mobbed-up Lady Macbeth, she pushed her husband to commit greater crimes, introducing him to her friends in the underworld and convincing him to join in a series of bank robberies. Soon, the Kellys were living large, with a house in Texas, expensive jewelry, the works. But it wasn’t enough, and eventually the couple hatched a daring plot to kidnap oil tycoon Charles Urschel. Their plan worked. They collected the ransom—and captured the attention of the nation, the world . . . and the FBI.

A shocking story of ambition and greed, crime and punishment, Meet the Kellys offers a fascinating portrait of a reluctant gangster named after a machine gun and a scheming moll as driven as Bonnie Parker and Ma Barker. A must-read for true crime fans.