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

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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To learn more about Dr. French and other daring lady practitioners read

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

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

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 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

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

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.

To learn more about Dr. Heath’s role in the surgery and her career read

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

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

“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.”