pestuous voyage landed in New York on the 22d of May. Coming without friends, and entirely ignorant of the English language, it is not wonderful that she at first found no encouragement for her project.
She had determined on no account to ask help from her father, and therefore, when she found that there was no immediate prospect of earning her living by practicing her profession, she turned her practical ability into other channels, and for a time supported herself and her sister by manufacturing worsted goods and other articles.
Although she was quite successful in these ventures, she never forgot her real object in life. Her introduction to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, which occurred about a year after her arrival in this country, she rightly considered the turning-point of her fortune in America. Dr. Blackwell at once discerned the uncommon qualities of the stranger, inspite of the foreign language, and interested herself most heartily in her behalf. She told her that she must learn the English language, and obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine from a reputable college before she could hope to practise successfully. Through Dr. Blackwell's influence she was admitted to the Cleveland Medical College, where she was graduated in 1856. After her graduation the faculty, as a mark of respect for her character and abilities, remitted her lecture fees, for which she had been obliged, for lack of ready money, to give her promissory note. She returned to New York, and took an office with Dr. Blackwell, who had opened a small dispensary for women and children, and was trying to collect funds for the establishment of a small hospital in connection with it. Into this project Dr. Zakrzewska entered with heart and soul, and by her contagious enthusiasm aided greatly in accomplishing it. In May, 1857, the New York Infirmary was opened. For two years she gave her time to it gratuitously, acting both as superintendent and resident physician. During these years she had several times visited Boston in the interests of the New York work, and thus become acquainted with a circle of noble men and women who were ready to lend a hand to any good object. In the spring of 1859 she was asked to take charge of a small hospital connected with the New England Female Medical College of that city.
Feeling that the New York hospital was now well started, and that she might advance the cause of women physicians more in another place, she accepted the invitation, and came to Boston in June. She did not find there, however, the chance for carrying on her own ideas of hospital management, and at the end of three years she resigned. Her friends now decided to hire a small house and fit it up as a hospital, which should be under her management. It was a courageous undertaking. It was in 1862. The civil war was at its height, and it was very difficult to enlist public interest in anything else. Few people knew anything about women physicians, and the majority of those who had heard of them, regarded the idea of women doctors with a mixture of incredulity and suspicion.
Dr. Zakrzewska, however, possessed in a high degree, the power of interesting others in whatever she undertook, and she soon gathered about her an enthusiastic group of people, who were devoted to her and her work, and who believed firmly that whatever she undertook would be accomplished. The hospital struggled on, feebly at first, but soon began to grow, and, after several times enlarging its quarters, was enabled in 1872 to build its present substantial structure in Roxbury. Other buildings have gradually been added, until the institution now includes medical, surgical, maternity, and dispensary buildings, together with a nurses' home and all the accessories of a well-appointed modern hospital.
The hospital staff, which at first consisted of Dr. Zakrzewska and a young assistant, in 1893 numbered over forty women physicians connected with its work; and Dr. Zakrzewska lived to .see all this accomplished. She held successively the post of resident physician, senior attending physician, and senior advisory physician, which last she retained until her death. As one of the chief
