HUNT
trouble with liis brain followed; and in 1S79 he was compelled, temporarily as it was hoped, to give up his practice. In spite of every care there was not the per- manent improvement which his friends had hoped, and death came to him quite suddenly on March 14, ISSO, in the thirty- eighth year of his age.
S. B. W.
Med. Am. .\Ibany 1S82. iii.
Tr. on Soc. N.Y. Syracuse 1881. (S.B.Ward)
Hunt, Harriot Kezia (1S05-1806-1875).
Harriot Kezia Hunt, the first woman to practise medicine in America, was a Bos- tonian, pedigreed, born and bred, the daughter of Joab Hunt and Kezia Went- worth. She was born in 1805. When her father died in 1827 his estate was found to be encumbered and self-support became necessary. A private school started by herself and sister brought money but she felt it was not her vocation. The case of her sister during a protracted illness drew her attention to medicine; she procured medical books and pursued investigations for herself with the con- viction that much of the ordinary practice was blind and merely exper- imental.
In 1833 she entered the family of a Dr. and Mrs. Mott. The doctor left the care of most female patients to his wife; this care Miss Hunt shared, and by the oppor- tunity thus afforded, supplemented theo- retical knowledge bj^ clinical observation. In 1835 she opened a consulting-room and assumed the responsibiUty of prac- ticing without a medical diploma — reprehensible, but a course justified by subsequent events, for when in 1847 Miss Hunt requested permission to attend lec- tures at the Harvard Medical School — stating "that after twelve years' practice which had become extensive, it would be evident to them that the request must proceed from no want of patronage, but simply from a desire for such scientific knowledge as could be imparted by their professors" — her request was promptly refused. After the graduation of EHzabeth Blackwell at Geneva in 1849, " Miss Hunt
22 HUNT
tliought the times might be more favor-
able and in 1850 repeated her apphcation
at Harvard. In mobile America great
changes of sentiment can be eflfected in
three years— five out of the seven members
of the faculty voted that Miss Hunt be
admitted to the lectures on the usual
terms. But, on the eve of success. Miss
Hunt's cause was shipwrecked by colli-
sion and entanglement with that of an-
other of the unenfranchised to privileges.
At the beginning of the session two color-
ed men had appeared among the students
and created by their appearance intense
dissatisfaction. When, as if to crown this
outrage it was announced that a woman
was also about to be admitted, the stu-
dents felt their cup of humiliation was
full and in indignation boiled over in a
general meeting. The compliant faculty
bowed their heads to the storm, and to
avoid the obloquy of rejecting under
pressure a perfect reasonable request,
advised the female student to withdraw
her petition. This she did, and the maj-
esty of Harvard, already endangered by
the presence of the negro, was saved from
the futher peril of the woman. Miss
Hunt returned to her private medical
practice which, though unsanctioned by
law and condemned by learning, steadily
increased and with such success that she
became widely known."
In 1853 the Womans Medical College of Philadelphia, gave her the honorable M. D. In 1856 she wrote "Glances and Glimpses" an autobiographic dealing with her social and professional Ufe,
A. B. W.
Dr. Chadwick, International Review, Oct.,
1879.
Mary P. Jacobi, in " Woman's Work in
America."
Rev. H. B. Elliot, in " Eminent Women of
the Age," 1872.
Hunt, Henry Hastings (1842-1894).
This charming and attractive man was born in Gorham, Maine, July 7, 1842, fitted for college at the Gorham Academy, and graduated from Bowdoin with high honors in 1862. He immediately enlist- ed as hospital steward in the Fifth Battery
