DR. EUTHANASIA S. MEADE
It has remained for this age and these climes to
disprove conclusively the alleged incapacity of women for the arduous
duties of the medical profession. Yet what more fitting than that
she who best knows how to soothe the moments of anguish and pain should
also watch over and destroy the seeds of disease, and check and
alleviate the pangs of suffering and distress. Above all things a
physician must be wise tender, and sympathetic, and it is in these very
provinces that woman is supreme. Hence it is that we hail with
joy the enlarging of the mental vision of our days which permits woman
to take her proper station by the bedside of illness and disease as a
physician.
Among the ranks of the medical profession in San Jose general esteem
centers upon Dr. E. S. Meade, a graduate of the regular school, and a
physician in large and successful practice. Her attention was
first drawn to the profession by incidents occurring during the last
years of the War of the Rebellion. At St. Joseph's Hospital,
Philadelphia, she gained her first experience in the care of the
wounded taken to that point. Four years after the war she
graduated at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and practiced
under her preceptor, Dr. WIlson, in Philadelphia, visiting the
hospitals and gaining practical experience. IN 1876-77 she
spent eighteen months in Europe, visiting Vienna, Paris, Berlin,
London, Naples, and Rome, omitting no opportunity to perfect her
medical knowledge both from hospital and other studies in these large
cities. In 1869 Dr. Meade came to San Jose and began regular
practice. She was the pioneer in the San Jose of the idea that
woman can intelligently sustain the duties of the medical profession,
but she has since demonstrated beyond contradiction the capacity of
woman, when properly fitted and prepared by a judicious training, for
carrying to the highest success the best efforts of the physician.
Dr. Meade is a native of Genesee, New York; and by long and
severe study, heightened and made practical by travel, observation, and
experience, has raised herself to a prominent position. She is a
woman of a single purpose wholly wrapped up in her profession.