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Dr. Sarah R. Adamson Dolley
Dr. SARAH R. ADAMSON DOLLEY was born March 11, 1829, and was graduated in medicine Feb. 20, 1851. The following year was spent in Blockley Hospital, Philadelphia. She was married to Dr. L. C. Dolley June 4, 1852, and then removed to Rochester, N.Y. During the winter of 1869 and 1870 she attended the lectures of Roget, Bouehet, and Girvaldes, of the Hopital des Enfans Malades, also a special course at the Ecole Pratique of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris.
This year in Europe was the first absence of any length after commencing practice. Her painful bereavement in the death of her husband the 6th of April, 1872, followed by increase of care and labor, seriously told upon her health; and she again took a season for rest and travel. In both of her visits to Europe she has acquainted herself with the great anatomical and pathological collections, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, and has visited the noted hospitals, and hits made the journeys something more than seasons of rest and sight-seeing.
| " The Woman's Journal " published a paragraph, probably from the pen of Grace Anna Lewis, concerning her able address before the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, where she had been supplying the place of a teacher for a season, as follows :
" The farewell address delivered recently by Mrs. S. R. A. Dolley, M.D., before the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, is marked by unusual intellectual ability.
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Its spirit is catholic, and will be ennobling to women in any vocation. Mrs. Dolley was one among the first of the women who studied and graduated in medicine in America. Since that time she has been engaged in an extensive and laborious practice, gaining experience, mental vigor, learning, breadth, and position, with each succeeding year. She has illustrated in her life every precept enforced in her lecture. Indeed, its value is enhanced by the fact that it is largely a reflex of her own character and experience."
She is a member of the Monroe County Medical Society, and of the Medical Association of Central New York, and has had through the years kindly courtesies extended to her by physicians in consultation; and patients are frequently sent to her by the medical
brethren. Dr. Dolley modestly writes :
"It seems unbecoming to speak of professional success, when my ideal of what a praiseworthy success is continues so far in advance of the measure of my best attainment. That my advice is sought in obscure, grave, and serious cases, I may not deny, and not only by those of my friends and neighbors, but by persons from distant localities.
" My highest satisfaction in my profession comes from the warding off of impending evil or disaster by judicious counsel, or the analyzing of obscure or complicated or difficult cases ; and to me the highest compliment is the rest, sense of security, and confidence, my patients manifest. It is pleasant to know that my services are sought by intelligent people, and to be welcomed to delightful social circles; for women who essay to do what has been supposed to have been questionable must necessarily demonstrate to communities by years of patient toil, that their innovation is desirable.
" I never aspired to write or teach, because the ability of women in these regards had never seemed to me to be so generally questioned, nor the distrust so intense and deep-seated, as it has been of their compassing the ordinary requirements of the medical profession, and
having the persistence and patience required to make it a life-work. Whether they will extend its usefulness, maintain its integrity, add to its resources, and exalt the morale of the profession, time alone can tell.
" In my student days, and long before, my highest ambition was to help to open up to women a higher plane of thought and labor, and, for myself, to be a careful and skilful physician. More than a quarter of a century since, when I first opened a medical book, I little dreamed of the possibilities of women of this centennial year, when university instruction can be had in America, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy; and as little dreamed of their dangers. So much remains for women to do, that now I am content to have only done the duties that did lie nearest to me, and what even 'my enemies, being my judges,' say that I have done in this city, made it respectable for a lady to practise medicine; but am almost appalled by what I now feel to be as urgently demanded of women. It becomes a question whether the women who write and speak, and who thus dispel prejudice and enlighten the public mind, are not alone the notable women of our time, of whom future readers may care to know ; and those who only translated in practice the idea upon which we staked our all, in
the assumption of the need of women as physicians, have necessarily had time, thought, and hand so occupied in the preliminary study requisite, and in the daily round of professional service that followed, that we failed aforehand to ask if we were wanted, or to
declare our convictions that we were needed in the profession, or even in any way to settle our sphere at all.
" The first thing demanded seemed to be that we must demonstrate that we could practise medicine before asking whether we might do so ; and the thought, time, and skill required to make this possible, seriously interfered with abstract study and literary acquirement.
"I think it rather remarkable that the movement for the medical education of women was not preceded by any newspaper or platform agitation." Dr. Dolley's parents were Hicksite Friends, but Huguenot blood mingled with that of English Quakers; and she, being disowned first for marrying one who was not "a member among Friends," afterwards united with the Congregational Church, and is at present worshipping in her home in Rochester, N.Y., with the Presbyterians. She says, " I never fail to be interested in the prosperity of the Church evangelical, by whatever name called, seeing nothing hopeful for woman, and no true elevation, outside of Christian elevation."
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