Abstract
It has become almost a truism that French physicians at the end of the Second Empire and the beginning of the Third Republic became spokesmen for progress. Through their own political participation, they promoted medical and scientific points of view within the government, publicly hailing the positivist glories of medicine and science. Commenting about the links between knowledge and power during this period, Jacques Léonard writes: “Medical science is never an isolated speculation, it is medicine in a cultural context. Moreover, the medical profession is never a neutral reality; it is medicine in a socio-political milieu.”1 During the Commune, just before the establishment of the Third Republic, a few physicians showed a willingness to challenge the so-called neutrality of the medical profession which masked its alliance with the powerful, and insisted on the obligation of the physician to the disenfranchised.
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Notes
Jacques Léonard, La Médecine entre les Pouvoirs er les Savoirs (Paris: Aubier, Montaine, 1981).
For example, see Regina Morell Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (Oxford University Press, 1985); Rhoda Truax, The Doctors Jacobi (Boston: Little Brown, 1952); Eugene P. Link, “Abraham and Mary P. Jacobi, Humanitarian Physicians,” J. History Medicine, Autumn 1949; Roy Lubove, “Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi,” Notable American Women, vol, 2, (1971), pp. 263–265.
Much of this is detailed in her letters and the biographical comments of her sister Ruth Putnam in Ruth Putnam ed., Mary Putnam Jacobi, Life and Letters of Mary Putnam Jacobi (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925). The companion volume of her medical writings is Women’s Medical Association of New York, Mary Putnam Jacobi: A Pathfinder in Medicine (New York and London: C. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925).
Mary Putnam to V. H. P. in Mary Putnam Jacobi, Life and Letters, March 24, 1868, pp. 171–172, “The elder brother is very interesting—a calm, reticent, benign kind of man but one of strong, deep enthusiasm such as you rarely see in Frenchmen, a man who glows with the subject he talks about but never flames. The next is the very incarnation of flame. Imagine a man about thirty, rather powerfully made, wearing his pantaloons always tucked in his boots, a plush coat and beautiful brown hair streaming on his shoulders, with a brilliant complexion and intensely restless eyes, extremely exuberant and witty and dramatic in every thing he says and does, a born poet in fact. The fourth, the medical student, is hardly more than a boy, but a charming boy. The wife of Elie, the elder brother, is a very attractive woman also.” She later compared Noémie to her own mother.
Ibid.
M. C. P. to V. H. P. (Victoria Haven Putnam), Feb. 5, 1870, in Life and Letters, p. 238.
The best study of the Réclus family is a recent work by Hélène Sarrazin, Elisée Réclus ou la passion du monde (Paris: La Découverte, 1985).
Jean Maitron. Le Movement anarchiste en France des origines à 1914 (Paris: Maspero, 1985).
Many details about this unusual extended family can be found in Sarrazin, Elisée Réclus ou la passion du monde.
See the letter Paul Réclus (Elie’s son) wrote to Mary Putnam Jacobi in 1904 detailing Dr. Paul’s continuing financial support of his parents. P. Reclus to MPJ, March 12, 1904 (Mary Putnam Jacobi papers, A-26, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College).
Mary Putnam to V. H. P., Feb. 5, 1870, Life and Letters, p. 237. There are parallels between the life of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and since her Garrett-Anderson’s fight for women’s medical education paralleled Putnam’s. She also depended upon Elizabeth Blackwell for encouragement and support, and later worked for woman’s suffrage with her sister the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
The original letter version is given as M. C. P. to G. P. P. (George Palmer Putnam) in Life and Letters, pp. 258–269.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Mary Corrine Putnam to V. H. P. Sept. 15, 1870, Life and Letters, p. 271.
Ibid
Mary Putnam, “The Clubs of Paris,” Scribners, vol. 3, November 1871, pp. 105–108 (see also Vol. 2, May–Oct. 1871).
Ibid.
Ibid.
M. C. P. to G. P. P. (her father), Feb. 7, 1871, Life and Letters, pp. 273–277.
M. C. P. to V. H. P., May 7, 1871, Life and Letters, p. 279.
Paul Réclus in, Joseph Ishill, ed., Elisée and Elie Réclus: In Memoriam (Berkeley Heights, NJ: The Oriole Press, 1927). Paul Réclus adds a touch that Elisée carried his rifle upside down, probably to stress the non-military aspect of the man. This volume also includes letters from Elisée Réclus to M. C. P. mistakenly listed as being “Amy Putnam Jacoby” 1889 and 1900.
Ibid.
Hélène Sarrazin gives a different version of these events and does not mention Mary Putnam.
Elie Réclus, La Commune de Paris au jour le jour (Paris: Schleicher editeur, [n.d.]).
Noémie Réclus to V. H. P., June 2, 1871, Life and Letters, p. 282. Unfortunately the originals of these letters with very few exceptions no longer exist and this one is given only in part. Ruth Putnam may have destroyed them after publishing her edited version. The few that do remain are in the Schlesinger Library.
M. C. P. to V. H. P., Aug. 28, 1871, Life and Letters, p. 298.
Mary Putnam Jacobi papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, A-26, folder no. 11, M. P. J. to Mother (V. H. P.), Zurich, July 23, 1876.
Mary Putnam Jacobi papers, M. P. J. to Carl Schurz, Dec. 25, 1876.
Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine, p. 55.
Mary Putnam Jacobi, The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1877), p. 1. This won the Boylston prize offered by Harvard Medical School for anonymous contributions on this topic.
Ibid, p. 22.
Ibid, p. 232.
Caroline Schultze, La Femme-Médecin au XIXe siècle, Thèse pour le Doctorat en Médecine, Faculté de Médecine de Paris, Paris Librarie Ollier-Henry 1888. Dr. Paul Réclus, who had given up most of his political activity during the Third Republic, was one of the few physicians, along with Jacques Bertillon, who protested against the anti-Semitism of the Dreyfus case in the late 1890s.
“An Address delivered at the Commencement of the Women’s Medical College of the N.Y. Infirmary,” May 30, 1883, in Women’s Medical Association of New York, Mary Putnam Jacobi: A Pathfinder in Medicine, p. 396. These are her collected medical papers.
Mary Putnam Jacobi “Women in Medicine,” in Annie Nathan Meyer, Woman’s Work in America (New York: Henry Holt, 1891), pp. 196–204.
Mary Putnam Jacobi, Common Sense Applied to Women’s Suffrage (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894).
Ibid., p. 137.
Ibid., p. 150.
Address to the New York Legislature (1894), appendix to Common Sense.
Ibid., p. 222.
Mary Putnam Jacobi. “Address to Women’s Medical Association around 1900” Mary Putnam Jacobi: A Pathfinder in Medicine, p. 499.
Ibid.
Blanche Edwards Pilliet had obtained the right to compete for the Internat, equivalent to an American hospital residency. She discussed her battle as well as that of the earlier women doctors, including Mary Putnam, in her speech “Les femmes dans l’art de guérir dépuis cinquante ans” before one of the two Paris conferences on women: (2e Congrès international des Oeuvres et Institutions Feminines 1900, CR des Travaux... par Mme Peguad vol. 4 (Paris: Imp. Charles Blot, 1902), pp. 108–110. Her unsuccessful attempts to gain financial support for a women’s hospital from wealthy women present is in the 5th section, Mercredi 20 Juin Vol. 4, pp. 122–124. The other congress that year was the Congrès International de la Condition et des Droits des Femmes. Both took place, like the Chicago Congress of 1893, as part of the Universal Exposition.
This is one of the letters in Joseph Ishill’s book (Elisée and Elie Réclus: In Memoriam) in which Amy Putnam-Jacoby (sic) is given as the supposed recipient.
Paul Réclus to M. P. J., March 12, 1904, Mary Putnam Jacobi papers A-26. The English version of this in the archives is inaccurate, but the French version is intact.
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Harvey, J. (1998). Medicine and Politics: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Paris Commune. In: Diamond, M.J. (eds) Women and Revolution: Global Expressions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9072-3_3
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