From the Library of the Doctors Blackwell
Medical Books from the Libraries of the First American Women Physicians
Notes: Two artifacts from the trailblazing physicians, Elizabeth Blackwell and Emily Blackwell, the first and third women licensed as physicians in the United States. These are two medical books, one on childbirth (parturition) and the other on diseases of the uterus, from their libraries, each with an ownership signature of one of the Blackwell sisters. Books on women's medicine owned by early women doctors are found very infrequently, let alone with such distinguished provenance.
The books are:
1) An Essay, Historical and Critical, on the Mechanism of Parturition by William Leishman (London: John Churchill & Sons, 1864) with Elizabeth's signature, E. A. Blackwell, on the front free endpaper.
2) Traité pratique des maladies de l'utérus et de ses annexes.... by A. Courty (Paris: P. Asselin, successeur de Béchet Jeune et Labé, 1866) with Emily Blackwell's signature on the half-title.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States licensed to practice medicine; her sister Emily was the third. Emily also became a leading educator of women physicians. Signed material from either Blackwell, but especially Emily, is very scarce. The recent joint biography of the sister, The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2022.
Edition + Condition: Leishman on Parturition is a first edition, very good in the original publisher's cloth. Courty's Traité is also a first edition, about very good in the original publisher's thin boards are mildly warped and a bit chipped at the spine ends. The only evidence of reading is, perhaps, a big ink drop on the first page of the introduction of Traité.
Item No: #361794
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