 Presenting Loretta Young in Dr. in Krinellen with Walter Huston as commentator on the Cavalcade of America sponsored by the DuPont Company. Maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Good evening. This is Walter Huston. Here in Hollywood, where there is an abundance of both beauty and talent, both seem all most commonplace are taken for granted by us who live here. And yet, tonight's Cavalcade star, beautiful, gracious and talented, has carved a special place in our hearts as we know she has in yours. And so I take special pleasure in introducing her to you, Miss Loretta Young, who in our Cavalcade play portrays the role of Elizabeth Blackwell, a woman who dared to fight against the prejudices of her time, who defied the notion that a woman could not enter a profession and was the first woman to be granted a medical diploma in America. The year is 1899, the village of Hastings in England. There, on a hillside cottage called Rockhouse, the world-renowned Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell spends her declining years with her friend and companion, Kitty Barry. Now in the peaceful garden of Rockhouse, on a sweetly warm June afternoon, Dr. Elizabeth sits with a young English friend, Laura Dawson, while Kitty reads aloud a letter from America from the medical college from which Dr. Elizabeth graduated 50 years before. The celebration of the 50th anniversary of Geneva's most distinguished graduate. With every good wish for your continued health and happiness, in which the governors, the faculty and the student body of Geneva join me, I am, dear madam, your humble and obedient servant, William Johnston President. Dr. Elizabeth, how very wonderful. Is that all, Kitty? My goodness gracious, Dr. Elizabeth, what more could you ask? Oh, no, you're right. I couldn't reasonably ask for more. Well, I should think not. An endowed college for women, and the first dormitory named for you, the Elizabeth Blackwell House. Oh, this must make you feel very proud and happy. Yes, Laura. Yes, I suppose it does, my dear. I suppose it does. Dr. Elizabeth, you're tired? I think perhaps I am, Kitty. I'll just go inside and rest until tea time. No, no, you two sit still. Oh, let me help you. No, no, stay here with Laura. Laura, dear, remember I expect you on Wednesday. Oh, yes, I'll remember, Dr. Elizabeth. Thank you. Miss Barry, can she possibly know how marvelous she is? In a way, dear, she knows. Oh, I wish so that father could meet her, a woman doctor. He makes such a fuss because I want to go to Paris to study painting. And when I think what she did, it must have been very difficult for her. Oh, it was. I wasn't with her during the early years. But she told me about them many times. And she always wanted to be a doctor? No, not always. The idea was most distasteful to her at first. But she believed it was a kind of call for her to help the world. I think she finally made up her mind in the summer after her father died. That was 1844 when she was 23. She was living in Cincinnati then. And she told me about a morning when she talked with her aunt Barbara, her father's younger sister. Aunt Barbara, what did Dr. Muzzy say? Oh, I knew he wouldn't approve, but what reason did he give? What reason would he give? That no woman could or should be a doctor. American medical schools won't admit you. And he says Paris schools are so frightful that no lady could stand instruction there. He was horrified by your idea. Well, perhaps I'm not a lady then. Elizabeth. Oh, I didn't mean that, of course. You wanted me to do teach, get married? Yes. You could teach until you marry. But nobody wants to marry me. Well, I don't want to teach. There are some things you have to accept, Elizabeth. Why? Because that's the way the world is. We have to accept it. If we don't, we suffer needlessly. But the world hasn't always been the same. Why, once there were no doctors, men or women. And once people believed the world was flat. Oh, don't you see? I have to do something I think of value in the world. Yes, but something else. Not medicine. No, no, all through Father's illness, I kept thinking about it. We women have to look after the sick and yet none of us are trained properly to do it. I've made up my mind. Well, Elizabeth, if you're really decided, your family won't stand in your way. We'll help all we can. Oh, dear Aunt Barbara, I know you will. And I know even though you don't, that someday you'll be so proud when you can say, Elizabeth was the very first woman doctor. But it wasn't easy for Dr. Elizabeth Laura, writing to one medical school after another and being turned down by every one of them. Until she finally got a letter of acceptance from Geneva. That was one of the happiest days of her whole life. But when she got there and interviewed the president... Please have a chair, Miss Blackwell. Thank you, Dr. Lee. I'm so sorry that I couldn't get here before term opened. But the letter came so late. Oh, quite so. Miss Blackwell, I may as well tell you the truth. Your arrival here is a surprise. Well, why, Dr. Lee? And a source of some embarrassment. But I received a letter from the college saying that I'd been admitted. My dear young lady, when your application was received, the faculty turned it over to the student body for action. Geneva being a democratic institution. As a prank, the students voted to admit you. Oh. To be frank, I would rather you didn't come here. I'm sure that you would find the studies most repugnant. May I ask a question, Dr. Lee? Certainly. Your letter of acceptance. Doesn't it constitute some kind of a legal contract? Well, if you choose to put it that way, I suppose we'd have to accept you or lay ourselves open to a suit for damages. But I want no damages. I only want to learn to be a doctor. I can assure you, young lady, that the students will make your life intolerable. I mean, there are certain jokes that men play in a dissecting room. I fear, sir, that those are among the risks I shall have to take. Will you have the goodness pleased to enroll me as a student? The townspeople will not be friendly. There'll be unpleasant notoriety. Will you please enroll me as a student? If you insist, Miss Blackwell, I have no alternative. I do insist, sir. I am determined to become a doctor. Well, well, I have that article on the doctor and pediculture. Want to hear? Indeed, I do. As we previously informed our readers, a young lady named Blackwell is enrolled in Geneva College. She is decorous in appearance and when she removes her bonnet, she exposes a fine phrenology. However, we suggest that if she attains a medical degree, she can find her practice to disorders of the heart. It must be admitted that her effect on the class has been good. Gentlemen, before we begin our anatomy class, our new student at Geneva, Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, is waiting outside the classroom in the hall. There has been some doubt as to whether we should admit her to the dissecting room and she has agreed to abide by your decision. All for the lady. We vote for trousers for all. What is your verdict, gentlemen? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Very well then. Will someone call Miss Blackwell and may I suggest, with a lady in our midst, we shall have to curb our masculine murmur. Laura, it wasn't easy, but when her first term ended, she went back to Philadelphia feeling she had really accomplished something, that she was on the road to becoming a physician. To gain experience between school terms, she went to Blockley Arms House and volunteered to work. It was both a poor house and a hospital, shunned by all good citizens, but for medical students, there couldn't be a better laboratory. The director, Mr. Gilpin, listened to her story. No, madam, no. For your own good, I must tell you that it's quite impossible why the worst criminals are here, the outcasts, the very scum of the earth. No decent woman should be exposed to such an atmosphere. But I'm studying to be a physician. What these people are cannot matter to me. What matters most to me is that they're ill. And that by working at Blockley, just like any other medical student, I may gain experience to help them. Madam, you may be able to forget your sex. I cannot. I must refuse your request to enter Blockley as a junior resident. Oh, please, don't open the door yet. Well? Mr. Gilpin, have you never faced some insurmountable difficulty? Insurmountable? I don't recognize the word. I've always gotten what I wanted. That's what I thought. What's that? That was the very atmosphere that I felt when I came in here. Oh, yes. Well, what of it, Miss Blackville? Well, although I'm not a man, I have a little of that quality myself. And I hope you might recognize it and sense how similar we are. You might help me. I get, ma'am. I have to admire your courage. After all, if you can put up with what you'll find here at Blockley. Oh, I can, sir. I can. You should be able to put up with you. She was assigned to the women's ward and everywhere she found indifference, callousness, filth. But worst of all, she found she was rejected as a doctor, even by the sick and outcast. Her only friend at Blockley was old Dr. Benedict, the head physician, and the only one beside herself who cared about the misery there. With the summer war on and in August the typhus came. The wards were filled, even the corridors. Elizabeth worked hard, in every way she could, but she was deeply discouraged. One night, sitting just off the children's ward with Dr. Benedict... And there's no known cure, Dr. Benedict? Typhus is a disease of poverty and filth, my dear. Where they don't exist, they seldom any typhus. Poverty and filth. Then why are these poor wretches and even the children sent here to Blockley? They're the place to send them. We hope to do any good for them here. We can't. Can nothing be done? Nothing? I don't know, my dear. I've been trying for 20 years to make a dent in public indifference. I haven't accomplished anything. But perhaps you... No, no. Not I. Why? What's the matter, my dear? Well, I... I was going to tell you tonight, Dr. Benedict. I'm not going back to Geneva this fall. Is that for your second term? No. No, I suppose it'll be teaching after all. Well, isn't this a radical decision? You've been very helpful here. No, I know. As a nurse. But not as a doctor. Oh, but, my dear... Dr. Benedict, I've tried. My family opposed my becoming a doctor and all my friends. It was a lonely decision I made. I know. Believe me, I know. Well, the students at Geneva laughed at me. Some people. And the newspapers. But I didn't mind that. But here I've found the one thing that I... Go on, Elizabeth. Well, how can I ever practice medicine when even the sick reject me? How can I? If only one... Eventually they'll become accustomed to you, Elizabeth. Oh, now they let me bring them water and fix their beds. But any nurse can do that. But if I look at their charts, they laugh. One of me were the other students. That's little Mary Jean. She's calling you, doctor. Come with me, my dear. I'm here, Mary Jean. I'm here, child. Elizabeth? I heard her. Yes, Mary Jean. The doctor's here. Yes, in that moment, the doctor was there. Elizabeth never faulted again. In the fall, she went back to Geneva and studied harder than ever. And when the second term was over, she stood proudly with the other students in the chapel of the medical school, waiting to receive her diploma. Dominae Smith. Thank you, doctor. Dominae Fields. Thank you, Dr. Lee. Dominae Hale. Thank you, sir. Domina Elizabeth Blackwell. Sir, I thank you. By the help of the most high, it shall be the effort of my life to shed honor on your diploma. You're listening to Loretta Young as Elizabeth Blackwell in Dr. N. Quinellen on the Cavalcade of America brought to you by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical College in 1848. She became the first woman in the world to win a medical degree. As our play continues, Kitty Barrie, Dr. Elizabeth Ward, and companion is telling the story of the doctor's life to a young English girl, Laura Dawson. Two years' study in Paris in London was so much study required, Miss Barrie. Oh, no, Laura, not for a man. But Dr. Elizabeth found out she had to be better trained than anyone else to be accepted anywhere. When she finished her studies in London, she went back to New York with a plan that she had been thinking about ever since she was at Blockley. She went to her Quaker friends, Mr. Stacey Collins and his daughter Cornelia, and asked them to drive with her through a certain section of New York. Mr. Collins, stop the carriage here and never curve. Now look down this street. Those tenements are known as fever nests. In them, men, women, and children are crowded together in unbelievable filth. Thousands of them. They're never crowding in whenever a boat docks from Europe. Just look, Father, the street swarms with children. Poor wretches. And so many hundreds never grow up. Die in the epidemics. And in all this district, Mr. Collins, there's no single medical charity of any kind. Nothing at all, Elizabeth. No dispensaries. Not one. So I've made up my mind to establish a charity office here for women and children, a place where they could come for diagnosis and which I could go out on visits. Elizabeth, harder than private practice. But no one will let me practice, even if that was what I wanted to do. Here, the people would come. They have nowhere else. But they will need considerable money, Elizabeth. Oh, now great deal, Mr. Collins. $50 to rent a small room, a few dollars for medical supplies, and a few furnishings, and a sign for the door which I can paint myself. Your needs are indeed modest. Your good work shall not be wasted. Wait, Father, $50 is not going to be enough. Oh, yes, it will, enough to start with. And that's the important thing, to get this work started. I agree, Elizabeth, but once started, it must continue. You open the dispensary. Some way I'll raise the funds to keep it going. And so, in one small room in Tompkins Square, Dr. Elizabeth opened the first New York dispensary for indigent women and children. Her money didn't go far, and she had to move. First to 3rd Street, then to 15th. But finally, she managed to raise $10,000. And with that, she opened a fine big infirmary on Bleaker Street. Crowds gathered in the street to stare at the building and to talk about the woman doctor. But no one came for medical care. No one. Until an Irish dark worker named Kevin Dwyer was brought in, half dead with pneumonia. Elizabeth saved him, and he was her first real friend on Bleaker Street. The morning he left the infirmary, well, you're fit again, Mr. Dwyer, but you leave me with no work. You're not one to sit still, doctor. No. No, I'm not. They'll come flocking to you now, I'm sure of it. But all those stories about me? I wonder. I heard those same stories, doctor. I'm sure you did. And to be truthful with you, if I hadn't been dying and down in my luck, I wouldn't have come here myself. No, I don't suppose you would. But you saved my life, doctor, Elizabeth. I'm saying if there are any more of those stories, and I hear them, well, I'm Irish, doctor. I know, but... And you can count on Kevin Dwyer, doctor. You're going to have plenty of work to do from now on. It was because of Kevin Dwyer, that the infirmary was always busy. By that time, there were other women doctors who came to help. Then, one night, one of them, a surgeon, operated on a young girl for appendicitis. And Dr. Elizabeth assisted her. They were both tense and worried, because they knew the appendix was inflamed. And Dr. Elizabeth, who had her fingers on the girl's limp wrist. Emily. Emily, she's dead. Oh, no. Her pulse has stopped. She can't be. She can't. She's dead. I'll cover her. Elizabeth, why don't we know more? It wasn't your fault, Emily. It was the inflammation. She waited too long. Are her people here? On the lawn, outside. Her husband and others. Where are you going, Elizabeth? I have to tell them. Wait. We must tell them, Emily. Even if they tear the building down. We must tell them. Elizabeth, he's brought more men. If you'd only waited to tell them all the shutters. Yes, but that won't keep them out. I should have gone for the police before Marie. Upstairs with the patients. Elizabeth, the door won't hold. I'm going out to talk to them. No, Elizabeth, no. I may be able to hold them off until the police get here. Oh! Who was that? I don't know. He's here to report. And you'll listen to it. It's Kevin Wiles. Let's go to the door. I heard a lot of wild talk here tonight. And I'm ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the whole lot. Don't open the door yet. Listen. I had to call Dr. Elizabeth and order her. You, Jim, maybe. She saved the young yogurts then with the girls last week. And you, David. Your wife's been coming here months now with her rumours. Now she's getting well. There's not a man here who hasn't seen Dr. Elizabeth going up and down these streets. In the homes where no other doctor would go. Because of the car. Come, Emily. Sure. The girl died here tonight. But she died of our ignorance. She should have been brought here days ago. No family, no. Dr. Elizabeth. Thank you, Kevin Dwyer. It's all right, Doctor. Could I speak to them? Sure, sure, Doctor. Now, the doctor is going to say something now. No one speak on a turn. Go ahead, Doctor. Thank you. Kevin Dwyer said a girl died tonight of your ignorance. But it was through my ignorance, too. We know no cure for what she died of. Now, many of you think as a woman doctor, I know less. But I'm trained. And I share knowledge available to everybody. And I share knowledge available to everybody. And I share knowledge available to every doctor. And more, as a woman, I share with your mothers and wives and sisters a knowledge of the terrible waste of needless death. For that has always been women's greatest burden and sorrow. Now, could I bear that burden afterwards if I had failed to fight for a human life? Later, the coroner investigated and the hospital was cleared of all blame. And from that time on, everything went ahead. The Civil War came, and Dr. Elizabeth trained nurses. Then New York State granted her a charter to give medical degrees to women from her hospital. When that happened, her pioneer work in America seemed ended. And she came here to England to help her old friend Florence Nightingale. That's about all, Laura. You know the rest. Dr. Elizabeth. It's time for your tea. Oh. Is it, is it so late, Kitty? Did Laura go? Yes. Just a moment ago. The sun has almost set. I must have dosed. You had a long talk with Laura. Quite a long talk, dear. It's strange, Kitty. I was dreaming. I was dreaming. I was dreaming. I was dreaming. Or remembering. All those years. Geneva. The time I went to Blockley Arm's house. Were you, Dr. Elizabeth? I must be getting old. Let's have our tea. And read me the letter again from Geneva College. The college that admitted me as a joke. Thanks to you, Loretta Young and all the members of tonight's to Pond Cavalcade. I wonder just what we'll do with all our airplanes after the war. Well, the other day I learned about some uses that we'll put some of them too, such as spraying and dusting our forests to help get rid of pests that are destroying them. Some of this work has already been tried, I'm told. And here's the man who knows the whole story, Gail Whitman. Thanks, Walter. I don't think anyone knows the whole story but there's great promises. For example, there's a pest called the spruce budworm. In the past half dozen years, it has killed 9 tenths of the balsam fir and half the spruce trees in some badly infected areas. Areas containing as much as 15,000 square miles of timber. Well, this year the Canadian Department of Agriculture and the United States Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine ran some tests. They used planes to spray chemicals in the form. The United States supplied a low-speed biplane. In Canada, they used an auto gyro. Both planes are equipped with jets that can handle concentrated spray mixtures. And in a single day, they covered as much land as a machine on the ground could cover in an entire season. And of course, planes can fly over regions ground crews could never reach. So here's one worthwhile job for planes after the war. They're safeguarding millions of trees badly needed for lumber, pulpwood, and plastics. About the farmers using planes that way again, you mentioned that to me before. That's right, Walter. Insects now destroy billions of dollars worth of fruits and vegetables every year. Planes already have been used to dust or spray potato fields in Wisconsin, cotton in the south, and vegetables and fruits in Texas and New Jersey. By flying just above the tops of the plants, they can spread clouds of chemicals but this is just the beginning. So you see, insecticide dusts and sprays for forest and farm laid from low-flying airplanes represent an after-the-war development of great promise. A number of dust and spray chemicals have been developed by DuPont, manufacturer of better things for a better living through chemistry. And now here's Walter Houston. Next week's Kevokade play comes to you on Christmas Day, with a special holiday story called America for Christmas, and the pleasure of playing the part of the master ceremonies for a USO camp show has fallen to me. A role I rather like because it carries me back to my affordable days on the old Keith and Orpheum circuits. The story will be especially heartwarming to those of you who have loved ones in the fighting fronts. Men and women who are thinking of a different Christmas, a Christmas at home with families and friends. I hope you'll be with us to hear the story on the DuPont Cavalcade of America. Thank you and good evening. Loretta Young appeared through the courtesy of international pictures and may be currently seen in, and now tomorrow. The Music on Tonight's Cavalcade was composed and conducted by Robert Ambruster. Jeanette Nolan appeared in the role of Kitty. This evening's Cavalcade play was written by Meryl Denison and was based upon Rachel Baker's book, The First Woman Doctor, published by Julian Messner. This is Gain Whitman inviting you to tune in next week to America for Christmas with Walter Houston. Brought to you by E.I. DuPont, the Nemours & Company of Wilmington, Delaware. National Broadcasting Company.