WOMEN AS ARMY SURGEONS: BEING THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL CORPS IN PARIS, WIMEREUX AND ENDELL STREET. SEPTEMBER 1914-OCTOBER 1919
London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1920]. First Edition. Octavo, xvi, 263 pages, plus 22 full page black and white photographs; lacking the frontispiece photograph. In Good minus condition. Bound in blue cloth with titling to front board. Spine has gilt titling. Boards have bumping and fraying to corners, paper residue adhered to the front board, fading and scuff marks throughout, and cocked boards. Textblock is lacking the front free end pages, has stains to the bottom edges of pages 34-35, splitting to the hinges, and splitting to the gutter between page 72-73 and from pages 112-193. Textblock has green paper adhered to the photograph that is verso of page 169 (slightly impacting image), a library label to the rear pastedown, red paper residue adhered to the rear free end page, minor soiling scattered to some pages, and light age toning throughout. Contains several pieces of ephemera including a letter from "Society of Apothecaries of London", a booklet titled "Infant feeding in Cases of Disordered Nutrition", a postcard, and midwife certificate. Shelved in Case 4.
1409548
Shelved Dupont Bookstore
Price: $300
NOTES
Flora Murray (1869-1923) was a pioneering Scottish physician, suffragette, and advocate for women in medicine.
In 1912, Murray co-founded the Women’s Hospital for Children in London with her lifelong partner, Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson, a fellow physician and suffragette. This hospital offered healthcare to working-class children and crucial clinical opportunities for women doctors, who at a time were barred from most mainstream medical roles.
With the outbreak of World War I, Murray and Anderson established the Women’s Hospital Corps (WHC), initially offering their services to the French Red Cross when the British authorities refused to accept women doctors in military medicine. Under the WHC, they and their all-female medical teams set up hospitals in Paris and Wimereux, treating wounded soldiers and demonstrating women’s capacity for military medical leadership. Their success led the British War Office to invite them back to London to run the Endell Street Military Hospital (1915–1919), the first British military hospital staffed entirely by women. Murray served as doctor-in-charge while Anderson was chief surgeon.
Throughout their lives, Murray and Anderson maintained a close personal and professional partnership. Murray dedicated her 1920 wartime memoir, “Women as Army Surgeons”, to Anderson, describing her as “bold, cautious, true and my loving companion.” After the war, they lived together until Murray’s death in 1923.