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

A team of bald-faced horses pulling a buckboard wagon galloped wildly along a dirt road, heading toward the Santa Ynez Mountains, twenty miles outside of Santa Barbara. The driver, a pudgy man wearing a worried expression, urged the animals along. Dr. Harriet Belcher, a distinguished-looking forty-year-old woman with dark hair and dark eyes, held tightly to the railing next to her seat with her right hand and clutched a leather medical bag to her chest with her left.

The doctor had been summoned to help a young man suffering with erysipelas, a bacterial infection in the blood that had spread to the heart valves and bones. His condition was serious, and Harriet was needed right away. The driver and passenger rode through the rough country of deep creeks and high ridges. It was eight thirty at night when they came to a creek that was off the beaten trail, which the horses balked crossing. Tall black mountains loomed before them, and a half-moon emerged from behind a cluster of clouds. Though she didn’t know for sure, Dr. Belcher sensed they were lost, and she wanted to cry from sheer hopelessness. A man’s life depended upon her, and she was anxious to get to the patient.

The wagon hurried along over rocky, winding paths and under dense stands of oak trees. A singular pack of coyotes was standing in an open space at the top of a hill, and it quickly scattered without making a sound as the vehicle approached. After dragging the wagon over a row of tree trunks, the driver brought the horses to a stop. He hopped out of the wagon and hurried ahead of the team on foot. He returned moments later, climbed back into the vehicle, snatched up a whip resting beside his seat, and snapped it at the horses. The wagon jerked forward, and the team proceeded down a steep embankment into a dry streambed, over boulders, and up the opposite bank. The wagon creaked and groaned, and Harriet feared it wouldn’t make it to their destination.

To learn what happened to Dr. Belcher and her patient 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

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.

To learn more about Dr. Owens and other brave physicians like her 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

“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.

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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