Blackwelldoctor

Blackwell (doctor), Elizabeth, was born in 1821 at Bristol. In 1831 she accompanied her family to America, where her father dying and leaving her mother destitute, she opened a school at the age of seventeen, devoting her leisure to the study of books on medical subjects. She applied to the medical schools of Philadelphia and Boston for admission as a student, but was in each instance refused. Ultimately, however, she succeeded in gaining admittance to the medical school of Geneva, N.Y., and graduated M.D. in 1849. She then visited Paris and London, being admitted in the former place to the Maternite hospital, and in the latter to St. Bartholomew's. Returning in 1851 to New York, she there set up a practice as a doctor; published in 1852 The Laws of Life; and in 1854 with a sister opened the New York Infirmary for women and children.