Susan Dimock
Encyclopedia
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
in 1871 and was subsequently appointed resident physician of the New England Hospital for Women and Children
New England Hospital for Women and Children
New England Hospital for Women and Children was opened in Boston, Massachusetts on July 1, 1862 by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska and Ednah Dow Cheney. The Hospital remained dedicated to women and children until the 1950s when it became financially deficient and after recommendations from the United...
in 1872. The hospital, now known as the Dimock Community Health Center, was renamed in her honor after her tragic drowning in 1875. Dimock was traveling to Europe for pleasure and profession when she died in the shipwreck of the SS Schiller
SS Schiller
SS Schiller was a 3,421 ton German ocean liner, one of the largest vessels of her time. She plied her trade across the Atlantic Ocean, carrying passengers between New York and Hamburg for the German Transatlantic Steam Navigation Line...
off the coast of the Scilly Isles. She is also remembered for becoming the first woman member of the North Carolina Medical Society.
Childhood
Doctor Susan Dimock was born in Washington, North CarolinaWashington, North Carolina
Washington is a city in Beaufort County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 9,744 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Beaufort County. The closest major city is Greenville, approximately 20 miles to the west....
, the daughter of Henry and Mary Malvina (Owens) Dimock. The family descended from Thomas Dimock who emigrated from England to Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is named after the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset, from which Puritans emigrated and is today endearingly nicknamed "Dot" by its residents. Dorchester, including a large...
in 1637 and later resettled in Barnstable, Massachusetts
Barnstable, Massachusetts
Barnstable is a city, referred to as the Town of Barnstable, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the county seat of Barnstable County. Barnstable is the largest community, both in land area and population, on Cape Cod. The town contains seven villages within its boundaries...
. Susan Dimock was a distant cousin of Ira Dimock (1827–1917), a silk manufacturer, and she was also related to Henry F. Dimock
Henry F. Dimock
Henry F. Dimock was a lawyer in New York City who was closely associated with the Whitney family business interests.Dimock was born in South Coventry, Connecticut, the son of Timothy and Laura F. Dimock...
, a New York City attorney associated with the Whitney family
Whitney family
The Whitney family is an American family notable for their social prominence, wealth, business enterprises and philanthropy, founded by John Whitney who came from London, England to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635.-Rise to prominence:...
business interests. Her father, who was a native of Limington, Maine
Limington, Maine
Limington is a town in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,403 at the 2000 census. Limington is a tourist destination with historic architecture. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area.-History:In 1668, Francis Small...
, was appointed headmaster of Roxbury High School in 1831 even though he was entirely self-educated. Later he moved to North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
where he taught school, studied law and was admitted to the bar, and served as editor of the North State Whig. His wife Mary was also a schoolteacher and supplemented their income by managing a hotel.
After Dimock's father died in 1863, Susan Dimock was home-schooled by her mother. At the close of the Civil War she moved with her mother to Sterling, Massachusetts
Sterling, Massachusetts
Sterling is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 7,808 at the 2010 census.- History :Sterling was first settled by Europeans in 1720 and was officially incorporated in 1781....
, where she attended a girl's school and undertook an ambitious reading of every medical textbook she could borrow. In the fall of 1865 she taught school at Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, just under 30 miles west and south of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day in April, and as the home of computer storage firm EMC Corporation.For geographic and demographic...
. On January 10, 1866, she entered the New England Hospital for Women and Children
New England Hospital for Women and Children
New England Hospital for Women and Children was opened in Boston, Massachusetts on July 1, 1862 by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska and Ednah Dow Cheney. The Hospital remained dedicated to women and children until the 1950s when it became financially deficient and after recommendations from the United...
where she began to learn medicine by close observation in the wards and dispensary. Dimock was also permitted to attend clinical rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
as well as those of the Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Professional life
When her application to enroll at Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
was rejected, Dimock turned to the medical schools of Europe and was admitted to the University of Zurich in Switzerland in 1868. She graduated with high honors in 1871 and her thesis was published that year in Zurich. After further clinical studies in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, she returned to the United States. As the all-male North Carolina Medical Society would only grant her honorary membership, Dimock rejoined the New England Hospital for Women and Children, where she was appointed resident physician on August 20, 1872. She greatly improved and increased the service of the hospital, in the course of which she opened the first graded school of nursing in the United States on September 1, 1872. She worked as a surgeon, developed a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology and performed a number of important surgical operations, a number of which were mentioned in the medical journals of the day.
Legacy
Dimock had long wanted to visit Europe once more; when the opportunity to do so came about in May 1875, Dimock and two of her closest friends—Caroline Crane and Elizabeth "Bessie" Greene (daughter of reformer William Batchelder GreeneWilliam Batchelder Greene
William Batchelder Greene was a 19th century individualist anarchist, Unitarian minister, soldier and promotor of free banking in the United States.-Biography:...
)--boarded the iron steamship SS Schiller
SS Schiller
SS Schiller was a 3,421 ton German ocean liner, one of the largest vessels of her time. She plied her trade across the Atlantic Ocean, carrying passengers between New York and Hamburg for the German Transatlantic Steam Navigation Line...
, bound from New York to Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. On 7 May 1875, Dimock, Greene, and Crane were among the 336 people who lost their lives when the SS Schiller
SS Schiller
SS Schiller was a 3,421 ton German ocean liner, one of the largest vessels of her time. She plied her trade across the Atlantic Ocean, carrying passengers between New York and Hamburg for the German Transatlantic Steam Navigation Line...
hit the Retarrier Ledges off the Isles of Scilly near the Bishop Rock
Bishop Rock
Bishop Rock is a small rock at the westernmost tip of the Isles of Scilly, known for its lighthouse, and listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest island with a building on it....
lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
in heavy fog. Dimock was 28 years old.
Her gravestone at Forest Hills Cemetery
Forest Hills Cemetery
Forest Hills Cemetery is a historic cemetery, greenspace, arboretum and sculpture garden located in the Forest Hills section of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The cemetery was designed in 1848.-Overview:...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
reads: "Susan Dimock. Surgeon and physician to the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Lost in the steamer Schiller on the Scilly rocks. May 8 [sic], 1875".
"At the time of her death her loss was considered irreparable as there were few, if any, among her sex endowed with the skill and qualified by the requisite training to take her place." - The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, XIX:30 (1926)
In 1939 the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development erected a historic marker in her honour.
In 1996, the original marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
grave stone was moved from Boston to St. Peter's Episcopal Church cemetery in Washington, North Carolina
Washington, North Carolina
Washington is a city in Beaufort County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 9,744 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Beaufort County. The closest major city is Greenville, approximately 20 miles to the west....
because a group in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
decided to replace it with a granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
replica.
See also
- Sophia Jex-BlakeSophia Jex-BlakeSophia Louisa Jex-Blake was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She was one of the first female doctors in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a leading campaigner for medical education for women and was involved in founding two medical schools for women, in London and in...
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Elizabeth Garrett AndersonElizabeth Garrett AndersonElizabeth Garrett Anderson, LSA, MD , was an English physician and feminist, the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain and the first female mayor in England.-Early life:...
- Linda RichardsLinda RichardsLinda Richards was the first professionally trained American nurse. She established nursing training programs in the United States and Japan, and created the first system for keeping individual medical records for hospitalized patients.-Early life:...
, America's first trained nurse, trained by Dimock at Boston City HospitalBoston City HospitalThe Boston City Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, was "intended for the use and comfort of poor patients, to whom medical care will be provided at the expense of the city, and .....