My Genealogy Hound

FAIRCHILD, M. AUGUSTA, M. D., is a native of New Jersey. At the age of seven years she was deprived of her parents; her mother surviving her father but a few months. She the youngest child was left to the care of a loved elder daughter and to the guardianship of the father’s brother, Dr. Stephen Fairchild, of Parsiffany, N. J., She early showed remarkable fondness for books and study; at five years of age she read and wrote well, and delighted to commit pages of poetry and Bible verse; at six she was advanced in all the common English branches, and in music. She received instruction from her sisters at home, who were proud of her rapid advancement.

During the Washingtonian Temperance movement she would gather an audience of boys and girls and lecture to them on the evils of intemperance. By the time her hearers were in tears over the dreadful possibilities she vividly depicted, she would start up a lively song, and then when her audience were enthused, she would get them to sign the glorious temperance pledge.

Her uncle, Dr. Fairchild, was a physician who sought the best medical methods regardless of precedent, and consequently left the Allopathic school after making long and careful experiments with Homeopathy, and was the first to introduce that medical system in his state; with him Augusta found a stimulus for her natural love of the study of medicine and collateral sciences. She listened to medical discussions, read anatomy, physiology and materia medica, and it was her delight to prescribe for patients. She was often found visiting poor people that she might minister to them in a medical way.

At thirteen she was sent to school in Pennsylvania, and although her health would not permit a graduating course, she left school at sixteen honored by classmates and teachers. It was impossible for her to do things merely because they were in accord with established ideas. For instance, in the matter of dress, she had very radical opinions. She could not be persuaded to wear corsets, though everyone said the form of a young girl would be very ugly without them. She thought girls were beautiful enough as God made them, that it was wrong to take one word from the book of nature as written in the human form, and foolish, certainly to add anything. Perhaps Shakespeare meant that in his lines:

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or, with taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

And so it was finally accorded her to wear her clothes “as she pleased, for she never would be a lady.”

At seventeen she began to teach school, and soon earned an enviable reputation in that profession, laboring in various ways for the advancement of her girls, part of the time editing a school journal, which was published semi-monthly, and always bringing to her pupils the results of close study and patient work. Yet she felt that her ideal work would not be found in the school room.

At the end of three years she was brought very low with brain fever, and for a long time her life hung on a very slender thread. She calls this the opening of the door to the performance of uses, for which, both by nature and education, she felt herself peculiarly fitted. At the beginning of convalescence, when she could but faintly whisper, she said to her nurse, “God has spared me, I mean now to live for a purpose.” Afterward, when she could talk more, the nurse asked what it meant, what was her purpose. “I mean to be a physician!” said she. Soon as health would permit she went to a medical college in New York City, where women were received on equality with men, the only medical college which at that time granted woman such privilege. In taking this step it cost her all that life is worth to most young ladies. Twenty years ago it was different from now. Twenty years of persistent, self-denying labor by pioneer women have made much straighter and smoother the way for those who follow. The woman who would then enter the medical profession must give up friends, honor, love, and perhaps name. She must meet enmity, scorn, hate, ridicule and opprobrium.

Augusta’s uncle thought it would be well that women should become physicians, yet did not like to have his niece bear the initiatory burden. She was not physically strong, it seemed as though her chosen work would prove itself a tax exceeding her capabilities. During the years spent at college she availed herself of every opportunity for gaining eminent fitness for her profession. She attended hospital clinics, and was two years under the instruction of Drs. Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell, who were then practicing physicians at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. There her advantages were unsurpassed for becoming acquainted with diseases of women and children, as a large number of cases daily presented themselves for medical attention. Immediately upon graduating she was honored with a position as associate physician with Dr. Trail in his Health Institution, the largest and most renowned in the United States. He was the founder of the Hygienic Medical system, and President of the college, and is well known both here and in Europe as an author and writer of great ability. He entrusted his lady patients to the medical care of Dr. Fairchild, and she met with great success in her specialty, the treatment of invalid women. She has lately written a valuable book for women, giving instructions for their own health and for their children, also directions for treating simple forms of disease without drug poisoning. Every woman and every young lady should procure one of these books.

When the Western Hygeian Home was opened at St. Anthony’s Falls, Minn., she came west associated with Dr. Trail in this enterprise. Here she spent eighteen months of severe professional labor, lecturing and practicing, both in the institution and in the city outside. Not liking so severe a climate, she left there for New York, and on her way was called to make a professional visit at Hannibal, Mo., where she was induced to remain for a few months at least. At the end of that time her practice was so extensive and the field of usefulness all the time enlarging, that she decided to remain west. She spent two years in Chicago, but finding the climate unsuitable, also desiring to establish herself permanently in an institution of her own where she could better carry out her methods of cure for chronic cases, she came to Quincy two years ago in March, 1877, and bought a delightful residence property which was unusually suited to her purpose, on the northwest corner of sixth street and Broadway, opposite the new court-house. The grounds are large, high, sloping southward, and abundantly ornamented with trees and shrubbery.

She has steam propelling apparatus, capable of applying vibrations, rubbings, kneadings, oscillations, percussion, etc., with most agreeable and remarkable effect. This constitutes the modern treatment by Motion, and is an important factor in the Hygienic system of medical practice, which is established on a permanent and scientific basis. In addition to this she has various kinds of baths, as electric, vapor, hot air, electro-vapor, electro-thermal, spray, douche, etc. She has trained and competent assistants in every department, securing to invalids a well-kept and orderly home, and every required attention. This sketch cannot perhaps be better closed than by using the words of Dr. Fairchild in a late conversation: “I have established this institution as the crowning work of my life, in procuring every facility requisite for the treatment and cure of invalid women. The medical knowledge and experience gained in a practice both in Infirmary and private, of twenty years, place me in a position to select the best methods, many of which are especially my own, developed by careful study and investigation. Prominent among the cases which I treat, and which are more rapidly and permanently cured than by any other means whatever, are Dyspepsia, Paralysis, Rheumatism, Weak Lungs, Obstinate Constipation, Torpidity of the Liver, General Debility and Imperfect Circulation. Also all diseases and displacements peculiar to invalid women. This is my ‘specialty.’ My work is largely an educational one. While my patients are recovering health they are taught much important truth regarding its conservation.”

“By their works ye shall know them.”