Women of distinction/Chapter 67

CHAPTER LXVII.

VERINA H. MORTON, M. D.

This young physician, to say the least, has many good reasons to be proud of her accomplishments and hopeful for a bright future. It is quite probable yet that she, with her many professional sisters, will hush in silence the often and repeated statement that the practice of medicine "tends to destroy the womanly qualities" of females who enter the profession as regular practicing physicians. The statement is certainly without foundation when applied to all female physicians. There may be exceptions in the cases of both sexes. The exceptions on either side are rare in proportion as prejudice recedes and justice comes to the front.

The Brooklyn Times, June 27, 1891, had the following to say of our subject:

Brooklyn's youngest colored physician, Dr. Verina H. Morton, of Gold street, graduated in 1888 from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, the best medical college for women in the country. She belongs to the regular school and has been practicing medicine, until recently, under her maiden name of Harris, in Mississippi, where she was resident physician of Rust University at Holly Springs, and also gave talks on health topics to the industrial school connected with the university. She was the first woman physician of either color to register in that State.

She was married last August to Dr. W. A. Morton, also a young colored physician, who has been in practice a little over a year, and came to Brooklyn and registered here this spring. She has made a good start already in this city, her very first patient being a German lady. She has been surprised at the number of calls she has received in the few weeks that have elapsed since she registered. Her husband also is doing well; they do not interfere with each other in the least. They are a handsome young couple, intelligent and refined looking.

As Dr. Harris she had good success in Mississippi, where she was welcomed by both races. The women of the South, she says, would flock to a woman physician. There is a pressing need for educated women in the South, not only to practice medicine, but to teach the laws of health, which are there sadly ignored. Even the Southern cities are not overstocked with practitioners of either sex.