My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book that looks at the beginnings of women entering the medical professions as doctors, and how this simple act changed history in many different ways.

In the early 2000's I worked for a magazine in the editorial department where did a little bit of everything, include oversee the intern program. I always thought this was a joke or a rib, as I was and remain a pretty shy person, and really shouldn't be showing anyone anything. But no one else wanted to do it, and my editor thought I was very good at it. One of the interns was a young lady I will call Jennifer. Jennifer was great, asked good questions, picked things up quick, and was funny. One day I showed her something and said casually I'll let you get started on this, you are smart and I know you'll figure it out. Any questions, I'll be over there. Jennifer came over a few minutes later and said, you are the first person to ever say that I was smart. I was really confused. She was and probably still is smart, but I couldn't understand no one ever told her that. Your parents never called you smart?, I asked. No. Pretty, attractive cute, never smart. This blew my mind, and made me pay attention to things, things that I had never thought of being a white male. Never to be called anything but pretty or cute, meanwhile, Jennifer was smarter than I was, that was apparant. I might have been funnier. One can see the genesis for a lot of these ideas, ideas that seem so Victorian but are still prevalent today in this book by Lydia Reeder. The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever, is a history of women in the field of medicine, but is so much more. One can see the growth of thoughts that trap women, that education effects a woman's chance to have a healthy child, that white people are being replaces, thoughts and ideas that linger like many of the bacteria that clung to male surgeons, in a foolish thought that gentlemen couldn't get dirty. Ideas that are still killing women today.

The book begins with a huge kerfuffle as a woman graduates a medical school, to much consternation. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to push her way into medical school, and instead of letting more women try, schools changed policies, men threw things at woman, and even laws were enacted. Thanks to the efforts of many groups Quakers, rich patrons and more ways were found around these gatekeepers, and soon women were entering the field. Doctor Mary Putnam Jacobi had gone to medical school in America and so traveled to Paris to attempt to get into the Sorbonne, which was just as regulated as America schools. There Putnam was able to attend and soon returned to America, marrying Doctor Jacobi, a premiere pediatrician, who really started the whole field of children's medicine. Jacobi returned to an America full of fear. Abortions were being banned, and medical professionals were talking about women's health issues, without understanding, but instead using this to limit women's entry into the field of medicine, and almost everything else outside of the kitchen. Soon Putnam and a group of allies began to use both medical knowledge, testing, and real science, to fight back, and in many ways changed life in the United States.

As I read this book I could not believe that this took place almost 150 years ago. There is so much that is used today, women can't do this, they can't learn, they can't fight, they get moody. If they are allowed body autonomy, well the white race will die. This sounds like most podcasts right now, not lecture series in unair-conditioned halls with tons of cigar smoke and lots of hurumphs. Lydia Reeder has done a fantastic job in writing this book. Making the medical science understandable, doing the research, and making these characters come alive. I have not been so hooked on a nonfiction book in quite awhile, one that seems both old and fresh at the same time. Reeder portrays the women who just want to help others, the men who don't want to share their clubs, and the always present grifters trying to make a buck in a way that makes one understand them, even if one disagrees. Oh there are a lot of disagreeable people in this book. Most would be at home in the new administration, and make a lot of woman cover their glasses at any social event. A really wonderful book that tells so much of how we have arrived at where we are now, and how history is never new.

A book that should be read and shared. I kept talking about this book to anyone as I read it. So many interesting stories, from Paris under siege, to learning to clean hands after surgery, to having to have a wedding license while pregnant and looking for treatment. One of the best books I have read this year, and one I will suggest to as many people as I can.

This is a compellingly written history of women’s medical education in America, focusing largely on Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, whose career and scientific contributions were truly groundbreaking in the 1800s. The book also touches on closely related topics like women’s health and women’s education in general. For nonfiction reads, I’m usually looking for a topic that interests me as well as writing that is engaging enough to keep that interest sparked. I definitely found both in this book. It’s also clearly meticulously researched, judging by the immense number of citations. It was also fascinating to see how things have - and have not – changed in terms of women’s lives, women’s rights, and women’s health, particularly with recent events in mind. The author has a clear viewpoint, treating the old-fashioned notions of women’s capabilities that were widely considered facts 1800s with the contempt they deserve.

Content warnings are what you might expect from a history of female doctors, women’s health, and women’s rights: abortion, extreme misogyny, institutionalized sexism and racism.

Reeder did an excellent amount of research for "The Cure for Women". The references used were beneficial throughout the book while also leading to other texts that could be of interest on this topic. I am interested in this topic being a woman in a highly male-dominated field. Reading about what Women fought for, overcame, and have continued to do so puts it into perspective. I normally enjoy these books and finish them quickly however about halfway the book seemed to take some tangents that did not seem needed. There were also times when the number of details was overwhelming in comparison to the value-added.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read the advanced copy. I will normally only do reviews Amazon, Instagram, and Goodreads if the rating is 4 or 5 stars. However, if you'd like me to add this review I will.

As I read this book, my emotions swung between being very pissed off to realizing that things haven’t changed that much in over a hundred years for women’s health.

Unfortunately, for me, I was reading this book during the weeks leading up to the 2024 election of the new president of the United States. As women’s health was being discussed as a campaign issue, the more I read this book, the more I realized that the battle for women’s health isn’t a new issue and one that won’t likely be settled in my lifetime.

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was born in 1842 and was determined to be a doctor at a time when no medical school in the United States would take female students. In fact, one prevailing thought was that any mental or physical exertion during menstruation could render a woman infertile. This opinion was touted by Dr. Edward H. Clarke in his book Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, published in 1875. This book, among other books and essays, was used to keep women out of higher education and relegate women to second class status.

Despite being the first woman to graduate from the New York College of Medicine and graduating from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, she felt that she needed further training in the medical arts. She moved to Europe and, through pure determination and some luck, managed to graduate from l’École de Médecine in Paris, France.

Once she achieved her goal of earning a medical degree, she moved back to America and established her own medical practice, all the while being an active participant in women’s suffrage. She authored many books, articles, and essays ranging from medical issues to those of society. While not as well-know as the first American physician Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Putnam Jacobi had a lasting effect on both medicine and society.

As a final act of her dedication to science, upon discovering she had a brain tumor, she wrote a detailed account of her disease progression in “Description of the Early Symptoms of the Meningeal Tumor Compressing the Cerebellum. From Which the Writer Died. Written by Herself.”

As a side note, the MGM feature film The Girl in White (23 Jun 1952), based on Bowery to Bellevue: The Story of New York's First Woman Ambulance Surgeon (10 Oct 1950), the memoirs of the pioneering female surgeon Emily Dunning Barringer is about the first female ambulance surgeon taking place in New York in the early 1900s. During her time in the hospital taking care of patients, she is mentored by an older female doctor, Dr. Marie Yoemans, played by actress Mildred Dunnock. Dr. Yoemans was apparently modeled after Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. I have seen this movie and remembered the character of Dr. Yoemans. I also recall that I was saddened when the character sat down on a chair and died of some kind of cardiac ailment.

I found The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women’s Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder to be a well-written book about a woman who helped forge the way for both women as doctors as well as women’s medical health. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in American medical history, the history of women in the United States, or both.


4/5 stars

[Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the advanced ebook copy in exchange for my honest and objective opinion, which I have given here.]

The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder is an interesting look at a dark history of how medicine was once conducted for women. I really enjoyed the history because it gives important context for why things were done a certain way. Ultimately, this book became incredibly political. I think the history speaks for itself and the book would have been a much more powerful work without this twist. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

What vital reading, in a time when women's hard-won rights are yet again under threat from a culture obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. This book infuriated and galvanized me, let it do the same for you.

This was a wonderfully-researched and nuanced look at Victorian medicine and the women who advanced it. The Victorian Age was such a fascinating--but kinda horrible--time for women. They were constantly being thrown in asylums and criticized for being "hysterical" (which wasn't true). It was a rough time to be a woman, and the author does a great job of showing the way women were treated and giving us solid, historical information without it being boring. I really liked this book.

Fascinating. Dr, Mary Putnam Jacobi deserves our admiration and thanks for her determination and persistence. She was a pioneer in the subject of women's biology and health but she's little known today. And that's a shame. This well written biography should change that. Reeder brings her to life and makes clear the differences she made and the impact her research continues to have. This could have been dry but it's not- clearly Reeder who did significant research-also likes her subject. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Excellent read.

This highlights how women had to fight for the ability to practice medicine and become doctors in a world where men were only accepted. This focuses primarily on Mary Putnam Jacobi but also talks about other pioneers such as Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. This is a tribute to these inspiring women.

Thoughts 💭
There is so much to digest with this book! I loved how Mary Jacobi Putnam was the main focus, but time was also spent on other pioneers such as the Blackwell sisters and Marie Zakrzewska. Men who worked against them were highlighted as well to emphasize how hard these women had to fight. They are truly heros and deserve to be remembered. I really suggest everyone read this if not to see how far women have come but how much farther we still have to go. There were so many things that stuck out to me, but this really hit home:

"It was the first time a doctor had publicly elevated the fetus above the mother’s well-being. Storer’s moral argument was drawn from racial fears that eventually inspired what was known as the “science”of eugenics: a social movement aimed at perfecting the human species by increasing the population with “desirable”genetic traits and reducing those with “undesirable”traits by forced sterilization. In their attempts to control the birth rate, safeguard the racial health of white people, and purge society’s defectives, eugenicists primarily targeted women. Storer asked whether the United States would “be filled by our own children or by those of aliens? This is a question that our own women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.” Criminalizing abortion would put control of women’s reproduction in the hands of male doctors and politicians and tip the racial balance in the white man’s favor."

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder is not what I had hoped for. It quickly became overtly political, which caused me to lose interest. To elevate women above men is not equality (and I am a woman). As it was not the book for me, I did not finish it.

This book started out to be a real joy for me as it went into great depths of the struggles of women who wanted to enter the world of medicine by becoming doctors. This was a man’s world and women were not welcomed. The book was highly researched and I learned a lot but after about three fourths of it I found my interest was just not holding. The book highlights the life of Mary Putman Jacobi who was the daughter of George Palmer Putman, the New York publisher. It detailed her struggle for admittance to any college in this country and also dealt with the treatment of women in that era. The mental procedures were brutal and the details that she brought out were awful. I felt the author strayed from her original purpose and wished she had stayed on the path of the journey of acceptance. The mental health issues were interesting and terrifying but it took away from the main point of the story. That is another subject for another book I think and I just wished she had stayed with her original intent.

I wish to thank Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed this advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own

I loved this book. It is a well-paced, well-written look at a medical pioneer. The information is fascinating and thought-provoking. It certainly isn’t a paean to Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi; Lydia Reeder portrays her strengths and weaknesses. I also enjoyed the conversational tone and clever wording. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance reader copy.

This was a fantastic read for me because history and medicine are my two favorite subjects to read about. This book is so rich in history from the Victorian era where male physicians did everything they could to try to keep women from going to medical school and becoming physicians. When Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women wanted to become physicians but were met with resistance from their male counterparts. This book got very interesting when describing how male physicians trained to be surgeons and who they experimented on without anesthesia and/or sterile conditions at all. I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this fabulous book.

Lydia Reeder’s The Cure for Women is an enlightening and empowering exploration of a little-known chapter in medical history, shedding light on the relentless courage of pioneering women doctors in the face of astonishing prejudice. Reeder captures the essence of a turbulent era where Victorian male doctors weaponized pseudoscience to restrict women to the role of motherhood, using eugenics and distorted Darwinian theories to argue that women’s bodies were too "frail" for intellectual pursuits. Yet, rather than a simple recounting of historical bias, this book is a testament to the spirit of women who refused to be sidelined.

The Cure for Women doesn’t just educate; it also resonates, prompting readers to reflect on modern-day issues regarding women’s autonomy and rights. This book is an invaluable addition to both feminist literature and medical history.

This was a DNF for me and I'll tell you why. It is political from the outset. I was hoping it would be a book that championed the capabilities of women doctors. But it is, instead, about making women superior. I love being a woman, I'm proud of being a woman, but if we are to believe that all men (and women) are created equal, then that includes men too. This book pushes a liberal, exclusionary agenda and is ridiculously obvious about it.

Do not compare women like Hilary Clinton to Susan B. Anthony. Do NOT. There is gender and there is morality. I adore Susan B. Anthony and admire all she did. She is one of my personal heroes. But if you think I don't like Hilary simply because she is a woman, then 1. You do not speak for all women and 2. You should reexamine your position as a way to build your argument. Huge NO.

1800’s: Mary Putnam Jacobi as a young girl was interested in the medical field but it was a male profession as women were to stay home and have babies. This did not stop her from fulfilling her dream of becoming a doctor. She was determined and would not be deterred. She excelled in her studies and preserved getting into colleges to get her degree. Nothing would stop her and other women who were destined to be doctors. They banded together and had their opened their own hospitals.
This is a novel about not giving up even if all seems impossible.

Thank you St. Martin’s Publishing Group and NetGalley.

The Cure for Women, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder is an involved deep dive into the life and times of Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. The amount of research that Ms. Reeder has done is astronomical.

First and foremost Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was the daughter of publishing magnate Putnam. She was raised where the sky was the limit and she could be anything she wanted to. Frankly unheard of during the Victorian Era. She wanted to be a Doctor. There were no schools in USA that would teach a woman to be a Doctor. Through her determination she wound up spending many years in Europe where teaching a woman medicine wasn’t a taboo thing. She later returned to her beloved NYC and was determined to practice medicine despite the odds.

The novel was an extremely interesting look at Victorian mores and the struggles women went through to be recognized for their intelligence and capabilities. I will admit there were times when the author became too bogged down with information and that made the book drag in portions. However, overall what I learned about this historic figure and her associates was remarkable and invaluable.

I would like to thank Lydia Reeder, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not that anyone needs more of a reason to be annoyed at men for stunting women's growth in 98263596 ways... But if you're looking for some, you're in the right place.

How I didn't know about the majority of these instances is beyond me, our education systems should be ashamed.

Not only does this book highlight super interesting achievements made by women and explain the vital roles they've played in advancing medicine, it also enlightens readers on the reception of women by the field of medicine over time.

Specific to the audiobook, I LOVE Sara Sheckells narration. Her voice and intonation was made for nonfiction.

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Lydia Reeder, Sara Sheckells, St Martin's Press and Dreamscape Media for both the DRC & ALC in exchange for my honest review!}

There are so many important figures in history whose contributions are vast and impactful - yet their names aren't familiar to most. I wasn't familiar with Mary Putnam Jacobi until reading The Cure for Women even though her contributions to medicine, medical education and the women's suffrage movement are enormous. I have a better appreciation and understanding of the time period (mid/late 19th century), the antiquated practice of medicine in that era and the significant challenges facing women who wanted to pursue medicine as a profession. There are a lot of details in the book - at times perhaps too many - and side tangents about other figures who crossed paths with Dr. Jacobi and/or were prominent in the era that disrupted the flow of the book for me. Although I did feel like I had to work at reading this book, I definitely learned a lot!

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-arc.

This was such a fascinating read. The research was extremely extensive which made it thoroughly interesting. The women were highly intelligent and most were superior to their male counterparts but were not given opportunities to prove themselves. They faced endless obstacles especially when sexism and misogyny were the norm during this time period. Yet over and over these women fought to be accepted into the medical profession. They persevered despite numerous rejection.

I applaud this author for bringing to light the formidable accomplishments of all those pioneering women doctors.