The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West (16 page)

Among the arrivals in San Francisco by the last mail steamer was Miss Sarah Pellet, M.D., a graduate of Oberlin College, a regular educated physician, and an accepted lecturer upon “Women’s Rights” and kindred subjects. Miss Pellet is, we suppose, of the style of women denominated “strong minded,” and is said to possess a decidedly intellectual cast of thought. The recent Women’s Rights gatherings and conventions in the Atlantic cities have brought out a large number of the class spoken of, who are stumping it through the Atlantic towns and cities, detailing the real and imaginary wrongs of women, and proclaiming her inalienable right to drive omnibuses, command steamboats, preach, make laws and boots and horse shoes, and enter upon all the fields of life which have been heretofore monopolized by the sterner sex.

These women (for they scorn the term “ladies”) are usually gifted with a greater degree of masculine intellect than the majority of their sex; while from their very appearance it will be at once seen that they are woefully lacking in those gentler qualifications which constituted the charm of “Heaven’s last, best gift to man.” The inculcation of their doctrines has only a mischievous tendency, and none for good; making a married man’s foes those of his own household, and setting up a claim for supremacy where, by the law of nature and of God, obedience is due. Sorry should we be to see the time when “strong minded” women shall take the place of those gentle beings who now, through the civilized world, sit like angels at the domestic hearth, calming the stronger passions of man, and pouring the healing balm of consolation into the wounds which hard rubbing with the world inflict upon those who are called to battle with it.

TO THE LADIES—MADAME COSTELLO, FEMALE PHYSICIAN, STILL CONTINUES TO TREAT, WITH ASTONISHING SUCCESS, ALL DISEASES PELICULAR TO FEMALES. SUPPRESSION, IRREGULARITY, OBSTRUCTION, ETC., BY WHATEVER CAUSE PRODUCED, CAN BE REMOVED BY MADAME C IN A VERY SHORT TIME. MADAME C’S MEDICAL ETABLISHMENT HAVING UNDERGONE THOROUGH REPAIRS AND ALTERATIONS FOR THE BETTER ACCOMODATION OF HER NUMEROUS PATIENTS, SHE IS NOW PREPARED TO RECEIVE LADIES ON THE POINT CONFINEMENT, OR THOSE WHO WISH TO BE TREATED FOR OBSTRUCTION OF THEIR MONTHLY PERIODS. MADAME C CAN BE CONSULTED AT HER RESIDENCE, 34 LISPENARD STREET.

MRS. BIRD, FEMALE PHYSICIAN, WHERE CAN BE OBTAINED DR. VANDENBURGH’S FEMALE RENOVATING PILLS, FROM GERMANY, AN EFFECTUAL REMEDY FOR SUPPRESSION, IRREGULARITY, AND ALL CASES WHERE NATURE HAS STOPPED FROM ANY CAUSE WHATEVER. SOLD ONLY AT DOCTOR BIRDS, 83 DUANE STREET NEAR BROADWAY.