The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The life of the first woman physician

When I was in grade school, I was the president of our class book club because I bought and read the most books from the Weekly Reader Book Club. One of those books was a child's biography of the first woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell. The story I discovered in that book stuck with me and added to my delight in reading about strong female role models. "The Excellent Doctor Blackwell" expands that story that I read as a child and fills in the gaps in this remarkable woman's life. She was not simply a brave girl who challenged society and the medical community to fight her way through the medical education system of the time and be recognized as a full-fledged doctor, but she was also a complicated woman who was not as interested in medicine as she was in a woman's right to practice it. Raised in a large, unconventional family and friends with some of the most avant-garde thinkers of the Victorian age, she shunned the larger groups of Suffragettes who were fighting for women's equality with men in all areas of life. Strongly spiritual, she wanted women doctors to present a gentler side of the profession and not become a pale version of male doctors. Her studies took her to France and England, where she had been born and eventually died. While she was not the simple heroine portrayed in my grade school book, she was a fascinating woman who blazed a trail for women in medicine that still resonates today.

I picked up this book because I really knew very little of Blackwell, but for the brief bullet-point found in various history books stating she was the first woman physician. After completing this book, I can say I learned a mammoth amount of facts about her, none of which endeared her to me. If I was able to meet her in person (which is impossible), I seriously doubt I would enjoy her company or conversely that she would enjoy mine!This book was well-researched with footnote upon footnote and I appreciated that the author did her homework. Non-fiction should be based on solid research and this book was. However, after pushing through this book page upon page, I felt the book to be the most uninteresting, tedious, and repetitious biography I have read in the last ten years. I’ll acknowledge that my lower opinion was probably influence by the fact; I recently finished reading a sterling, very interesting, and well-written biography, which made the differences very stark.Elizabeth didn’t seem altruistic in choosing to become a doctor, rather it appeared to be purely an expedient choice, as she felt it to be the best way to earn a living and make her mark. Even at that, she did very little caring for patients, but was more interested in pursuit of the grand scheme. She was always soliciting money from others to allow her to chase her latest medical idea, clinic, school, or hospital. She frequently would target people in an effort to get close to them, not for true friendship, but to use them for her purposes. She and many of her family members seemed interpersonally challenged and although they were very much into “family,” they treated and acted rather un-family-like to family members.This book was helpful in showing the challenges faced by women of the time. It also showed the socio-economic struggles faced by individuals and families. I am sure I will be benefitted by the various helpful facts brought to light by the book, but the bottom line for me is this book was not an interesting read. I forced myself to finish the book, but IMO even though Blackwell was unlikeable and unlovable, this book could have been far more interesting and compelling. Reviews are subjective, so this book may be just what you are looking for in a biography.

Elizabeth Blackwell was a blend of real heroism and stubbornness against the advance of secular science in medicine. She led the way for women to enter medical schools but fought hard against the germ theory of disease, vaccinations and contraception. She constantly emphasized hygiene as a way to prevent disease at a time when hygiene was largely ignored in New York and London. She horrified her contemporaries by arguing that women should enjoy their sexuality; at the same time she railed against masturbation and contraception as wedges into promiscuity that would lead to the downfall of Christian civilization. Julia Boyd’s excellent biography brings out all the contrasting aspects of the first woman physician in detail. The book is thoroughly enjoyable to read because Boyd is a very good writer. The concepts as well as the English flow smoothly and transitions are excellent. Boyd has a first rate sense of when to include Blackwell’s writings in the text. The chapter in which Blackwell gets her M.D. is genuinely moving and inspirational and the chapters describing her later intransigence and stubborn single-mindedness are both frustrating and insightful into helping the reader understand who she was.Blackwell’s family plays a critical role throughout the book. Boyd describes her ambiguous relationship with her eldest sister Anna. Anna’s tendency throughout her life toward every new cure-all or latest fad drove Elizabeth up the wall yet they continued to see and help each other. Elizabeth’s goal throughout her life seems to have been to create a community analogous to that of the Transcendentalists who influenced her enormously when she was young. Usually this involved bringing her far-flung family together into what we might call today a family commune. It never worked out. The relationship between Blackwell and her adopted daughter Kitty is also spelled out in detail by Boyd. As Boyd points out, Kitty was both daughter and servant for Elizabeth her entire life. Blackwell’s relationship with many of the most famous 19th century social leaders and early feminists from Florence Nightingale to Lucy Stone to George Eliot are all spelled out in well-written detail by Boyd. As the author notes, Elizabeth never met anyone that she did not have an opinion about and her letters back and forth with Nightingale, Stone (who married Elizabeth’s brother Henry), and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (the first woman physician in England) are fascinating. Elizabeth’s personal description of Lincoln after meeting him is definitely worth reading. Boyd describes Blackwell’s jealousy of some of her colleagues and frustration at lack of recognition for many of her efforts. I thought Boyd’s points about why Blackwell failed to follow through after starting so many organizations and causes are based on solid evidence. There is no “filler” in this book.The same spirit that drove Blackwell to overcome huge obstacles and ridicule to become the first woman M.D. and that led to establishing the first U.S. hospital for women led also to some of her biggest failures and frustrations. If this book has a flaw, it is that it has no index. I would strongly encourage a later edition to add an index. There is so much wealth of information in this book that an index would be invaluable for anyone who wanted to find quickly Elizabeth Blackwell’s relationship with so many other famous 19th century figures. Other than that, the book is one of the smoothest written and interesting biographies I have read. I highly recommend it.

The information was interesting, but I found it a bit boring. Was not exactly what I thought it would be. Was a lot of politics & not much action.

This is a difficult read, not because it isn't well written, it is, but because of its subject. As a medical pioneer, Elizabeth Blackwell was a truly remarkable woman but it is awfully hard to like her.It doesn't do to look at the past with the eyes of today but many of her opinions and beliefs for me at least, are hard to stomach. I am glad that I have read this book and can recommend it to anyone interested in the advancement of women in the 19th century.

The lives of 19th century nurses such as Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole have become part of Britain's historical legacy, but until the publication of Julia Boyd's fascinating biography of the first woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, little was known about this medical pioneer, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Born in the UK she emigrated to the United States, where she gained her medical qualifications, before returning to Britain to continue to trailblaze. Boyd is first rate at conveying a sense of place, wherever the main character finds herself during the narrative of her life, but she also shows that Blackwell was quite a complex, sensitive character, rather than the single-minded campaigner for women's rights, as one might imagine. Good biographies are my favourite type of book, and this one is very good indeed.

Coming from a family with four generations of women doctors, I was fascinated to find this book, and to read about a woman of whom I had never heard - but who surely must have been an inspiration to my grandmother who graduated from Edinburgh University medical school in the early 1920s. Julia Boyd is a wonderful biographer and writer, and her extensive research really pays off in this authoritative - but warm and often funny - account of the life of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to gain a medical degree in America. Blackwell was clearly a truly remarkable woman whose name must be added to the long list of 19th century women whose achievements have been shamefully overlooked. Dogged and determined, Blackwell fought the prejudice of her times to succeed in her chosen field (a pioneer to whom we should give thanks each time we get we consult a female doctor). Julia Boyd brings her story to life from a trove of sources, including letters and diaries, and with some wonderfully evocative writing. I will be buying this book as a gift for my mother, a retired GP, my sister, an oncologist and for my niece, a medical student at Leeds.

All women (actually, and men) should read this....life has changed so much, thanks to women who made a stand like Dr Blackwell. Julia Boyd not only tells this story, but does so with great aplomb and intelligence. The book has loads of interesting anecdotes, covers many historical topics both in the States and the UK and reminds us of how grateful we should be (as women) to be living life today...and how we should continue the fight for equality. Hats off to Ms Boyd, l look forward to reading more from her.