A WOMAN’S QUEST
THE LIFE OF MARIE E. ZAKRZEWSKA, M.D.
EDITED BY
AGNES C. VIETOR, M.D., F.A.C.S.
FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS AND SURGERY, WOMAN’S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF THE NEW YORK INFIRMARY; LATER ASSISTANT SURGEON, NEW ENGLAND HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BOSTON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: LONDON :: MCMXXIV
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D.
(From a photograph thought to have been taken some time in the ’60’s.)
MARIE E. ZAKRZEWSKA, M.D. (1829-1902)
Accoucheuse en chef, Royal Hospital Charité, Berlin, Prussia; FirstResident Physician, New York Infirmary for Women and Children, NewYork; Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, andFounder and Attending Physician of the Clinical Department (Hospital),New England Female Medical College, Boston; Founder and FirstAttending Physician, New England Hospital for Women and Children,Boston.
DEDICATED TO
THE DEAR MEMORY OF A FRIEND
ELIZABETH BIGELOW CONANT
[Pg ix]
FOREWORD
Viewed impersonally, this story of Marie E. Zakrzewska (Zak-shef’ska)is one more document testifying to the Humanity of Woman. The fact thatthe individual urge for the expression of this humanity found ventalong the line of Medicine, is a detail. It is also a detail that thestory is interwoven with an interesting transitional period in Americanhistory and with the evolution of the American woman physician.
The essential interest lies in the fundamental human instinct assertingitself through the individual woman, dominating her and driving herto reach out into the world until, after migrations over thousands ofmiles and through various phases of civilization, she at last found anenvironment favorable for the development which her spirit so ardentlydemanded.
Eventually stretching across the Atlantic Ocean, this Polish-Germanbranch of the Human Tree pushed through first one crevice and thenanother, with here and there a struggling blossoming and leafage, tofind at last its best efflorescence and fruitage in the favoring sunand air of America.
Transplanted here, as are all the nations of mankind, her life finallyfound fulfillment through the creation of the New England Hospital forWomen[Pg x] and Children, and though the influence which she exerted uponthe lives of the numbers of women medical students, women physicians,women