What a fascinating and interesting story. Not the usual thing that I read but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and am so interested in learning more about these women.

This book is both wonderfully and terribly timely in an era when under-informed male lawmakers and their supporters are once again trying to roll back women’s health care, especially around wombs and vaginas. Just as male dominated medical schools in the mid-1800s worked hard to remove woman as midwives from the birthing rooms, destroying centuries of traditional supportive care for pregnant and post-partum women, so a still-patriarchal medical system now is attempting to overturn much of the past 150 years of advances in medicine for women.

So who are those Victorian women who changed women's health care?

We learn about not only the Mary Jo Putney of the subtitle but also Harriet Hunt, who petitioned for the right to sit in on lectures at Harvard Medical School and organized the Ladies’ Physiological Society of Boston. Harriet later connected with early American suffragists Lucy Stone and Lucretia Mott, and helped make women’s medicine part of the national women's rights conversation. Harriet also joined with wealthy women in Ohio to start the Ohio Female Medical Loan Fund Association, that funded women medical students across the country via interest-free loans.

Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first American woman accepted into regular medical school.

Sarah Hale, the influential editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the USA’s most popular women’s magazine in 1851, who ran a series of editorials praising female physicians as being ‘by nature’ more suited to take charge of the sick and suffering.

Ann Preston, the Quaker woman who was training in and organizing ‘irregular’ medical schools that taught about home and public hygiene , nutrition, and instruction on human physiology. She was also successful in enlisting Elizabeth Blackwell to help overcome Victorian women’s reluctance to give up their ‘purity’ over allowing doctors to physically examine them.

(Male doctors at that time generally examined women in the dark, by touch, with the patient fully clothed. Having access to female physicians permitted women to be examined and treated without fear of losing the respect and regard of their husbands, and was ultimately one of the chief social advances leading to a drop in women’s mortality rates in the latter half of the Victorian era.)

Marie Zakrzewska as a child spent a few months in a teaching hospital in Berlin, where her mother was training as a midwife. Marie took to following the doctor on his rounds and eventually he offered her books from his medical library to study. In adulthood she went back to the hospital to train in obstetrics and later emigrated with her younger sister to America, where she found that male doctors had succeeded in virtually barring women from practicing medicine. So she set up a knitting business instead. Eventually she connected with Elizabeth Blackwell through volunteer work at a homeless shelter and was invited to work with her. Marie was one of the early beneficiaries of the Ohio Fund to pay for her advanced medical training.

This is also a tale of men like J. Marion Sims, a surgeon and avid self-promoter who became very wealthy working on rich white women after he honed his techniques for gynecological surgeries on un-anaesthetised slaves and destitute women, often naked, in an auditorium full of men who found the weeping and screaming of the agonized women an added feature of the ‘show’. He started his first Womens Hospital by recruiting rich NY women to sit on a managing board, and then later incorporated it, removing all power from the women’s board and placing it in the hands of an all-male board of governors drawn from the richest magnates in the region, whose expertise lay not in medicine or womanhood but in making money. It’s not hard to see the entrenchment of the USA’s highly monetized health care system in moves like this.

Victorian women fought for decades to get the right to not only attend medical school but to teach other women about their own bodies. Now that is under threat, and it behooves all women to inform first themselves and then their sisterhood about the fight that got them the medical comprehension of women’s issues they have thus far benefited from in their lives. Let us not throw out all those hard-won gains by all those generations of women (and their few male allies) who fought this fight before us.

In today’s society, where women are still fighting for their medical rights and their place in society, histories, and biographies like the cure for women by Lydia Reeder about Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and her continual challenges to the Victorian medical community proved to be still highly educational and relevant.

I love reading these books and seeing a females persevere against the patriarchy and pave away for future generations.

Not being the first woman to receive a medical education, Putnam Jacobi is not a household name, but her strength, intelligence and endurance is something worth recognizing and looking up to.

I found this, what I’m calling a biography/history, absolutely fascinating and inspiring. The Cure for Women does not only focus on the life story and the many achievements and struggles that Puttnam Jacobi goes through, but that of her peers and women in medicine or receiving treatment during the Victorian time. I found this broad view of history at the time to create a broad picture of the time period and women’s medical experience in general.

With so much in flux during this time where women are losing ground on a daily basis, it’s easy to relate to the historical struggles these women experienced.

The Cure For Women, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacoby and the challenge to Victorian medicine that change women’s lives forever by Lydia Reeder. This book not only shows how far we’ve come but also how far we were without the sanction of men’s approval in their fancy doctorates. For time in Memorial women have been midwives healers and so much more and we were only told we couldn’t when needing the approval of men. From Quaker Mary Preston to the highly educated midwife Mary Zakrzewska, Who had more medical knowledge than most license doctors in America and she learned it all in German and have been studying since she was a child. She came to America thinking she could further her education since women were becoming doctors only to learn she was sadly mistaken but she did become a pupil of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell the first American female doctor. Then there is the unsung heroin Doctor Mary Putnam Jacobi, Who has done more for women’s health and the advancement of women in general and yet she is basically unknown. This book covers her life and the lives of her peers that fought for the right to educate their self in the way they deemed fit. All this against men who wrote books about the inferiority of women and how women were just too delicate and getting an education the way men get educated would somehow caused them to be infertile. Some of the things in this book would be funny if not due to the fact they’re also true and women had to live with these opinions and fight against them. Just to put things into perspective when women started wanting to be doctors and use the example that they been midwives for centuries mend quickly passed the law that women could no longer be made midwives and they have to be a licensed midwife to practice midwifery. I don’t think it was the female sex that was too delicate not if men get their feelings hurt so easily. Just keep in mind that’s coming from the same animal that thought riding a stride on a horse would cause females to lose their womb and the same with running marathons. It’s as if mens historical opinions are a comedy of errors that’s just not so funny. This was a great book with great examples of women to look up to and to thank for the opportunities we have today. #NetGalley,#Saint Martin’s press, #Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, #LydiaReeder, #TheCureForWomen,

What an amazing book.This woman was so courageous and how she led her life. This was a really interesting book.How women had to fight for everything especially going into medical school. Her last name was Putnam and her father was a publisher and published books on medical 2. You have to travel overseas to get training as well. Because of the United States had very few medical schools where they were allowed women to be admitted. They have to start their own medical schools because they reject it at most men's schools. This was a real eye opener.How these women are very intelligent and very smart Most of them were upper cross.Women who had money because they could pursue this. They were trying to help women out who and needed medical attentions.. It must have been a real struggle every time you were turned down but they kept going somehow. This woman name That's named. Putnam, it was a real eye opener because she diout there logically and tied it in with her medical studies. She also round her own clinic as well. These women are very strong and very forefront and they tighten with them trying to get The opportunity to vote. When they were Medical lecture in Philadelphia. They were cat called and prone stones. But they kept their composers and they stood their ground. The the male doctors were really bad sometimes because they thought women could not stand the ridgers study like this. These women prove these men wrong because they were just as good as them.

This was a very interesting and well-researched book. It’s a great read for anyone interested in medical misogyny, but it can run a little dry.

2.75⭐️1🌶️

Historical Non-Fiction
Victorian medicine
Women’s health
Gender discrimination
Misogyny

TW: everything and anything you can think of in regards to medical trauma, malpractice and experimentation.

Victorian healthcare and women in health has been an interest of mine since I read Women in White Coats by Olivia Campbell and My Notorious Life by Kate Manning last year. The idea of the levels of misogyny being so profound, and continuing in small ways into todays healthcare system is mind blowing and very revealing.

This book was an interesting look at women’s health in Victorian times, and more specifically the life of Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of a NY publisher and first woman to be accepted into a world renown medical school in Paris. Dr. Putnam Jacobi focused her attention in researching women’s reproductive health with backed up data rather than the fabricated women’s health practices of the time.

It was more in the style of a textbook than a story, so thankfully the book was very well researched. The storyline that was promised was very much non-linear, and would shoot off topic fairly often, following other well known individuals. With how much research was done, I really wish there had been more direct quotes. I think this would have lent to feeling like we knew Dr. Putnam Jacobi better as a person and practitioner. More showing and less telling.

The medical procedures were well written and documented.

The topic of women’s healthcare, gender discrimination and women’s rights is so important and timely. Proper recognition is due to so many more silent (or quieted) leaders in women’s health, women’s continued education and standard sterile practices.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own

The Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder is a meticulously researched exploration of the history of women in medicine.

This compelling narrative highlights the systemic disparities in the medical field while honoring the remarkable women who have fought to challenge misogyny. The book captures their relentless struggle to establish themselves as doctors, midwives, and scientists in a male-dominated profession—a fight that is both infuriating and deeply inspiring.

While the focus remains on Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the author skillfully weaves in the stories of other influential figures, both male and female, offering a broader perspective on the fight for gender equality in medicine. At times, the narrative branches into tangents that may feel disjointed, but these moments still provide fascinating insights. Exploring the attitudes of both supporters and detractors of women's suffrage and their place in the medical field underscores the complexities of this fight. It’s unsettling to confront the enduring belief, past and present, that men know better than women about their own bodies and choices.

This book is profoundly relevant today as women continue to battle for autonomy over their bodies, choices, and consent. The work is a poignant reminder that the fight is far from over, with ongoing discrimination limiting access to medical education and proper healthcare for marginalized groups.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing this book. All opinions are my own.

The Cure for Women takes a deep dive into the history of women practicing medicine and those who fought for us to be allowed to study and practice it. Going into this book I'd heard of Elizabeth Blackwell, but the book explored many women who I hadn't known about and their contributions. I came out with a better appreciation for the women who fought for our rights to education and the difficult path they walked to do it. The book even goes as far as to examine what current times look like in terms of medicine for women and today's challenges.

Well written and researched a story of the sad state of women’s health care during the Victorian era.This book is an important read and is a very timely non fiction book due to the women’s state of health care in our dangerous times.#netgalley #st.martins

Lydia Reeder's THE CURE FOR WOMEN was a fascinating, deep dive into history and views I never knew before, of brave, determined women who advocated for changes in the way that women's biology was seen, not as lesser versions of men, but as strong, powerful versions of themselves, as women seen in all their possibilities rather than traditional, confined roles. The contributions of the pioneers and the ones who supported them are highlighted in the detailed research and keen insights of Reeder's fantastic book. I'd venture to say it should be required reading for those entering medicine -- and for anyone who thinks there is a single point of view and they are the ones who know it best. I received a copy of this book and these thoughts are my own, unbiased opinions.

The Cure for Women is just fascinating. I knew a bit about the general struggles for female doctors to establish themselves in the 1800s, but Reeder’s book digs into so many details. I knew almost nothing about most of the featured women in this book—the sisters Blackwell, Mary Putnam, Marie Zakrzewska—but not only were their lives as pioneers in the medical profession intriguing, they were also adjacent to many of the renowned names of the suffragist movement.

Leeder also examines the male doctors who both assisted and hindered (and sometimes both!) these women in their attempts to integrate into the medical sphere. Leeder writes this book in a “you are there” structure, imagining the protagonists’ thoughts and actions in the moment. It worked well for me.

Of course, there are many parallels between the world of these courageous doctors and today’s world of increased medical restrictions for women, and Leeder does not disappoint in examining this as well.

The Cure for Women made me grateful for the medical struggles these women went through, as they were the suffragists of their profession, and for the benefits they brought not only to women who wanted to be doctors, but for their examination and devotion to understanding women’s medical needs as well.

This book is well written and researched, but unfortunately, it’s too distressing for me.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

The Cure for Women: Dr Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women’s Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder sets out to expose how Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were only fit to be wives and mothers and the bring to light the one doctor who proved them wrong. After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school and practice medicine, more and more women came forward for the chance to study medicine. Barred from prestigious universities, these women built their own medical schools and hospitals. When their success was too large to ignore, a group of elite, white male doctors set out to shut them down and prove that a woman’s menstrual cycles make them unfit for college and professions. Enter Mary Putnam Jacobi, the daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam, armed with a medical education from the Sorboone medical school, she conducts the first ever scientific research on women’s reproductive biology. Her results would open the door for women and their higher education futures.
When I received the invitation to read an advanced copy of The Cure for Women, I was intrigued to be introduced to the pioneers of women who paved the way for future generations of women. Touted to expose “the birth of a sexist science that still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues,” I knew I was in for a wild ride. However, I was bored. I feel it was more about Elizabeth Blackwell and her sisters than Mary Putnam Jacobi. The author also went off on too many tangents that I was lost. By the time that Mary Putnam Jacobi was the focus of the book, I didn’t care. Another turn off for me was the political stance. I was hoping to read a book about women fighting for their chance, instead it became a book about female superiority and the male fight to keep women down. Overall, I feel that this book did little to bring Mary Putnam Jacobi to light. I do not recommend The Cure for Women.

The Cure for Women: Dr Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women’s Lives Forever is available in hardcover, eBook and audiobook

Inspired by family stories about her great-grandmother, Lydia Reeder brings us an informative, inspiring, and often infuriating book about overcoming obstacles. Reeder started research about women in medicine and found a history of ridiculous assumptions about the reasons women were “unqualified “ to be doctors.
“The Cure for Women” is an interesting read. Sometimes you will laugh at the Victorian-era thinking used by men to explain why women shouldn’t be doctors until you remember that some people think those were the good old days.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy.

The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder is a captivating and meticulously researched biography of the talented and daring social reformer who paved the way for women's medical education. This much-needed account sheds light on the extraordinary life of Dr. Jacobi, a trailblazer who made a lasting impact on the field of medicine and the lives of countless women.

In “The Cure for Women,” Lydia Reeder details the Women’s Rights movement during Victorian Times in America when educated and trained male doctors were making the argument that women should not be allowed to study or practice medicine. In fact, they argued, that educating women at all was detrimental to their health.

Reeder highlights the strong women who fought against these theories and men behind them. Women such as Dr. Mary Putman Jacobi, who fought for the rights of women to be educated, study and practice medicine. She partnered with others that also fought for Women’s Rights to do one of the first research projects on menstruation to determine the physical affects on women (meaning the men who spouted the nonsense never actually researched it) In fact, this research was one of the first of its kind. Reeder has presented a throughly researched, accessible account of some amazing women during the Victorian age that further the cause, and health, for all women today.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I had to do a lot of swearing while reading this book because it made me so angry reading about how men wrote/spoke about them in the 1800s, but with current events, it makes me think that maybe things haven't changed at all. I appreciate the author putting in some notes at the end about current events and women's bodily choices. I found it to be an informative and interesting book about women becoming doctors.

I was given an advance reading copy (arc) of this book by the publisher and NetGalley.com in exchange for a fair review. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was a pioneer in women’s medicine during the Nineteenth Century. The daughter of publishing magnate, George Putnam, Mary had an independent streak unheard of in the 1800s. She also had a brilliant mind and wanted to study medicine. The problem being that no medical school at that time allowed women to enroll. Her solution? She traveled to France and studied medicine there. Her story is an important one in the annals of women’s rights. She fought tirelessly for women to have the same opportunities as men when it came to education—especially in the medical profession. Unfortunately, this book often reads like a textbook and the author goes off into other tangents unnecessarily. There were some very interesting points such as the fact that abortion was legal in all states until about 1880 when it was banned for some very questionable reasons. Dr. Jacobi deserves to be recognized for her unequaled contribution not only for women’s rights, but also for her role in educating women. This book, however, doesn’t quite do her justice.

This was so well done! I really enjoyed learning about the history of women and women's issues in medicine, and while the topic may sound dry, the writing made it as interesting and suspenseful as a thriller. It was so frustrating to read about the earlier challenges, when even brilliant women were not allowed to study medicine, and when women's health issues were treated so differently because of ignorance. Medicine has come so far, even though there are still issues today. Thanks so much to NetGalley for letting me read this.