The Laws of Life, with special reference to the Physical Education of Girls.

TO AMERICAN WOMEN

Second edition. 8vo. Publisher's plum cloth, rebacked in roan, spine gilt, ex-library copy, bookplate to front pastedown, some spotting & toning, extremities worn. [viii], [9]-180pp. New York, A. O. Moore, Agricultural Book Publisher,

A very good copy of Blackwell's first book, which she describes as "the first fruits of her medical studies."

 

In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to qualify as a physician and, in 1858, be allowed to practice in England. ODNB tells her story: "She had conceived the ambition of entering medicine about 1844, partly because of the suffering of an acquaintance whose modesty had prevented her consulting a male doctor until her uterine cancer was too advanced for any treatment; partly to dissociate the term 'female physician' from abortionists; and, according to her own autobiography, because she did not wish to become dependent on a man through marriage ... In 1847, after several years of private study and numerous rejections from medical schools, her application to the small, low-status medical school at Geneva in upstate New York was put to the students by the faculty, confident that a resounding rejection would result. The mischievous students, however, voted unanimously to admit her and then found themselves victims of their own practical joke when, in January 1849, Blackwell graduated MD above all 150 male students, an event that received widespread press coverage across the United States and in Great Britain."

 

A collection of lectures which she'd given in spring 1852, "The Laws of Life, Blackwell outlines the four general principles that provide the foundation for her approach to understanding human physiology. These principles reappear in slightly different forms but are fundamentally unchanged throughout the rest of her writing" (Krug, 57-58).  

 

Contrary to much established thought which emphasised the differences between the sexes and races (and thus sexism and racism), "Elizabeth Blackwell created her own path, integrating both traditional and new ideas or practices as they suited her personal or political needs. By using a liberal humanist approach emphasizing essential equality between the sexes as the foundation for interpreting the physiological "facts" about the body, Blackwell offers an alternate approach to understanding both the processes and importance of human sexuality" (ibid, 71).

 

First published in 1852, all editions are rare with just a handful of copies in institutions and similarly at auction.

 

Krug, K., "Women Ovulate, Men Spermate: Elizabeth Blackwell as a Feminist Physiologist" in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 7, No. 1, (July, 1996), pp.51-72.

Stock Code: 251651