Mary Putnam Jacobi

Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi (nee Putnam; August 31, 1842 – June 10, 1906) was a pioneering American physician, born in London to American parents. She is also known as an educator, essayist, medical scientist, social reformer, and activist for political rights and educational opportunities for women. She became in 1862 the first woman to graduate from a pharmacy college in the United States.

Quotes

• Over the waiting congregation rolled the burdened tones of the great organ, and the sweet voices of the boy-choristers alternated with the monotonous chanting of the priests. Three times through the naves defiled the long procession, with the sacred images, and the blessed bread, and the bags of money for the poor. The bishop donned his wealthiest robes in acknowledgment of the presence of the Emperor; the more stately beadles paraded their purple coats and their gold-studded canes, and quickened the circulation of the inquisitive crowd stopping to gaze at the crimson dais. Finally a great hush breathed into the room of the music and the chanting; a thousand eyes turned toward the pulpit that faced the oaken crucifix, and—as if evoked by the spell of their expectancy—the preacher arose in his place and announced his theme.
  • "A Sermon at Notre-Dame". Stories and Sketches. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1907. pp. 166–211.  (quote from p. 171; originally published in 2 parts in the December 1868 and February 1869 issues of Putnam's Monthly)

• The modern position of women was inaugurated by the Revolution of 1848. The Revolution of 1688 overthrew the doctrine of the divine right of kings. The Revolution of 1793 dissolved the doctrine of the necessary and lawful supremacy of social classes. The Revolution of 1848 asserted the human rights of the individual.
  • "Common Sense" Applied to Woman Suffrage: A Statement of the Reasons which Justify the Demand to Extend the Suffrage to Women, with Consideration of the Arguments Against Such Enfranchisement, and with Special Reference to the Issues Presented to the New York State Convention of 1894 (No. 80) (2nd ed.). New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1915. p. 4.  (with an introduction by Frances Maule Björkman; 1st edition 1894)

• A predominantly masculine type to the external genitals, and even the presence of testicles, is compatible with a feminine habitus of body or with entirely feminine feelings and instincts, or with both. Thus Alexina B. was brought up as a girl until the age of 22, when she was pronounced a male by a court of law because possessed of a complete male genital apparatus—penis, though small and hypospadiac; scrotum with a testicle in the right lobe, the left testicle resting in the inguinal canal and apparently in fatty degeneration; seminal vesicles distended by sperm, which, however, contained no spermatozoids; rudimentary prostate. The misinterpretation of sex had been due to presence of a central cleft in the scrotum, simulating a vagina and terminating in a cul-de-sac six and a half centimetres deep. The rectification of this mistake filled the subject with such despair that he committed suicide.
  • (October 1895) "The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children" XXXII (4): 510–555. (quote from p. 523)

Quotes about Mary Putnam Jacobi

• Dr. Jacobi died in 1906. In recognition of her manifold services to humanity, a memorial meeting was held shortly after, at which tributes were paid to her memory by Dr. William Osler, Dr. Felix Adler, Richard Watson Gilder, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Dr. Emily Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth M. Cushier, Dr. Charles L. Dana, and Sara King Wiley.
  • Frances Maule Björkman in: Jacobi, Mary Putnam (1915). "Introduction to the Second Edition by F. M. Björkman". "Common Sense" Applied to Woman Suffrage: A Statement of the Reasons which Justify the Demand to Extend the Suffrage to Women, with Consideration of the Arguments Against Such Enfranchisement, and with Special Reference to the Issues Presented to the New York State Convention of 1894 (No. 80) (2nd ed.). New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp. iii–xiv.  (quote from pp. xiii-xiv; 1st edition 1894)

External links

• Joseph Adelman, "Mary Putnam Jacobi". Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages with Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. John L. Rogers. 1928. p. 236. 
• Carrie Levinson, NYAM’s First Female Fellow: Mary Putnam Jacobi. The New York Academy of Medicine Library Blog, NYAM Center for History of Medicine & Public Health (May 15, 2019).