The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West (15 page)

Notwithstanding that she has busied herself with her profession and domestic life, yet she has taken a lively interest in public affairs, she has been prominent in the work of the churches and societies, and her name has been associated in one way or another with almost every laudable enterprise in the city where her assistance was welcome. She was for a number of years a member of the Board of Education of Deadwood, and in that capacity she rendered a valuable service. . . . Tenderly the last offices were performed and the form of her who had been mother, friend, and medical advisor to numbers of struggling and benighted souls was lowered into the narrow home amid a flood of silent tears.

LADY PHYSICIAN—MRS. E. STONE, WHO IS, WE LEARN, A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED AND ACCOMPLISHED PHYSICIAN, HAS ESTABLISHED HERSELF IN SELBY FLAT, AND OFFERS HER SERVICES TO THE LADIES OF NEVADA AN VICINITY. SHE IS A GRADUATE OF A GERMAN UNIVERSITY AND HAS ENJOYED CONSIDERABLE PRACTICE, SPEAKS SEVERAL LANGUAGES &C.

In all my professional career I have not had occasion to defend myself against slander intended to injure my professional reputation before; I have practiced for some time as Physician and Midwife in Germany my native home; in N.Y. City and in Buffalo, N.Y., and have been in the high estimation of the profession and the public so far as I am known, which a reference to Dr. L.A. Wolfe of N.Y. or Professor White of Buffalo will testify. The circumstances which calls forth this card [article] is certain false and slanderous remarks which have come to my ears from one calling himself a physician. The last I heard was a sarcastic remark that “he would like to see me in a difficult case of midwifery.”

Now it is sympathy with my sex at the cruelties practiced on them by men in medical practice for want of knowledge in the profession, that chiefly induced me to remain here, and if that gentlemen or any other will be kind enough, to present me with a difficult case, I will attend it with a great deal of pleasure, that he and the public may form and estimate of my capacity. I have attended 2000 cases of midwifery, among which, I presume, I have had as difficult cases as have fallen to the share of any physician in the country, but how I performed my duties and with what results, I leave others and time in this country to testify; suffice it to say, I challenge any one or number of physicians to prove
me inferior, in female practice, to any physician in California. My diploma can be seen at my residence, which will testify that in midwifery, medical operations, and the use of instruments in all forms required in medical practice, I have perfected my studies to the satisfaction and unanimous approbation of the whole board of professors. Medicines and supporting instruments of all kinds required by females to be had at my residence.

 

 

THIS CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENT APPEARED IN MANY WOMEN’S MAGAZINES IN 1891. IT SHOWS THE PROGRESS WOMEN WERE MAKING IN MALE-DOMINATED FIELDS, INCLUDING THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.