The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women's Lives Forever
Lydia Reeder
St. Martin's Press, 2024
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell set a foundation for female physicians when she became the first woman to graduate from a US medical school in 1849. Efforts to build upon this foundation, however, faced extreme resistance during the Victorian era, with opponents using Darwinism to deter women's advancement. Many women tried to counter this opposition, but few, if any, did it as successfully as Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the first woman accepted into the École de Médecine at the University of Paris (“the Sorbonne”) and a leading pioneer in the study of women's health, who conducted the first-ever data-driven, scientific research on women's reproductive biology.
In The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women's Lives Forever, Lydia Reeder explores Dr. Putnam Jacobi's achievements, as well as the collective efforts of female pioneers in medicine and male allies who reshaped medicine.
Born in the early years of the Victorian era, Mary Putnam Jacobi developed a fascination with medicine at a young age and as a teenager volunteered at Blackwell's New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Opportunities to advance her medical education, however, were extremely limited due to societal norms. Blackwell offered Putnam tutelage through a lengthy internship, but Putnam declined, instead continuing to search for legitimate medical education. She began her medical studies at the New York College of Pharmacy, making her the first woman to attend pharmacy school in the US, and later graduated from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1864, overcoming significant barriers presented by college faculty.
Unsatisfied with advancement opportunities in the US, Putnam Jacobi traveled to France in 1866, setting her sights on the Sorbonne medical school in Paris, the best medical school in the world, where women were rarely admitted. Adopting an unassuming persona to navigate resistance from faculty and peers, she excelled in her studies and became the first woman to graduate from the institution in 1871. She returned to the US with a diploma and the prestige of being one of the best educated doctors in America, placing her at the forefront of scientific medicine.
Reeder details how medical science during the Victorian era was unscientific compared to today's standard. Women's healthcare was dominated by male physicians who overwhelmingly believed women were physically and emotionally fragile; “hysteria” was commonly misdiagnosed, leading to ineffective and harmful treatments such as the rest cure. Some believed girls should avoid education between ages 14-18 to prevent harm to bodily health, while others promoted gender-segregated education to accommodate menstrual cycles. These beliefs were upheld and promoted by influential figures such as Dr. Walter Channing, Dr. Charles Meigs, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, Dr. James Marion Sims, Dr. Edward H. Clarke, and Dr. Horatio R. Storer.
In 1876, the Bolyston Medical Prize proposed the question “Do women require mental and bodily rest during menstruation; and to what extent?” Although no woman had ever been allowed to participate in the competition, Jacobi was determined to investigate the effects of menstruation and submit an essay. To ensure women's voices were heard in conducting her study, she devised an innovative technique for data collection that had never been used in scientific research: sending out a questionnaire. This questionnaire was sent out and responded to by women from a variety of backgrounds. Putnam's experiments and research debunked claims linking menstruation to hysteria or insanity and led to the discovery that temperature changes indicated ovulation. The essay was chosen as the winner, besting more than 300 competitors. Putnam Jacobi became the first female winner, inventing a new form of medical research and revolutionizing the study of women's health.
Putnam Jacobi's career continued to ascend with widespread recognition and influence extending into pediatrics, neurology, and pathology. She became a leading advocate for women's medical education, co-founding the Woman's Medical Association of New York City. Her work ultimately drew her into the suffragist movement, using medical evidence to advocate for women's rights, countering the notion of biological inferiority.
Reeder successfully intertwines other pioneering female physicians who contributed to women's healthcare, including such figures as Dr. Elizabeth and Dr. Emily Blackwell, Dr. Ann Preston, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, and Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, among others. Each of these pioneers not only played a significant part in Putnam Jacobi's career, but each contributed greatly on their own. Reeder also acknowledges and details the support for advancing women's healthcare from leading men, such as Putnam Jacobi's father, New York publisher George Palmer Putnam, and her husband, Dr. Abraham Jacobi, considered to be the founder of pediatrics.
The Cure for Women is a thoroughly researched and engaging history of Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and some of the trailblazing female doctors of the Victorian era whose work disproved myths about women's physical limitations, paving the way for their greater inclusion in medicine. In today's post-Roe US, Reeder successfully emphasizes the importance of understanding the evolution of women's healthcare in the country while some of the same ideologies promoted during the Victorian era are still supported today. As pioneer female physicians, Dr. Putnam Jacobi and her peers’ work continues to inspire progress in medicine, gender equity, and the use of science to challenge societal biases.