The Cure for Women

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever

By: Lydia Reeder

Narrated by: Sara Sheckells

How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood—and the brilliant doctor who defied them.

After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin’s evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty.

Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.

©2024 Lydia Reeder (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

Mary Putnam Jacoby what a superhero!!

There are so many women that have been hidden by history . It’s wonderful to read the story of women unearthed from history that’s written by men.

Fabulously researched and well written

Highly recommend reading this book. It’s a wonderful review of feminist history, both philosophically, sociologically, science and politically.

Detailed history of women's struggle to become doctors and researchers in the medical professions.

Excellent background and narration of the women who pioneered and maneuvered for equality in 19th century medicine and research.

must read

excellent account of women's history in the US and how it is front and center now.

Fantastic history of Mary Putnam Jacobi and women in medicine

Fantastic history of Mary Putnam Jacobi and other women in medicine. It really hits its stride in the second half