Mercy Ruggles Bisbee Jackson

Background

Jackson was born on September 17, 1802, in Hardwick, Massachusetts, the daughter of Constant and Sarah (Green) Ruggles.

Education

Jackson's early education was thorough and in accordance with the best obtainable in her time. Later in life, she was induced to enter the New England Female Medical College, from which she graduated in 1860 at the age of fifty-eight.

Career

After her husband's death in 1829, Mrs. Bisbe, thrown upon her own resources for the support of herself and her family, opened a school for young ladies. This venture was successful, but she found the task of teaching too arduous for her, and abandoning her school, started a drygoods store. She maintained an active interest in the study of medicine and especially in homeopathy as related to the illnesses of children. In 1848 Jackson's interest in the study of homeopathy became more active. Dr. Capen of Plymouth, an old-school physician, stimulated her ambition by furnishing her with books and medicines. Immediately after her graduation from New England Female Medical College, Jackson settled in Boston, Massachusetts. On the organization of the Boston University School of Medicine in 1873, she was elected adjunct professor of diseases of children, in association with Dr. Nathan R. Morse. Shortly after entering upon the practice of medicine in Boston, she applied for membership in the American Institute of Homeopathy. Her application met with vigorous opposition and was rejected because the by-laws did not contemplate the admission of women. Annually for ten years she applied, meeting with lively opposition, until in 1871, at the session in Philadelphia, she and two other women physicians were duly elected to membership. She continued to teach and to carry on a large practice until her death. She was also a supporter of and lecturer on temperance and woman suffrage and a frequent contributor to the Boston Woman’s Journal. She died on December 13, 1877, at the age of seventy-five. Energetic and enthusiastic to the end, a few months before her death she had begun the study of German.

Achievements

• Jackson is best remembered as a pioneer in the struggle for the admission of women to the practice of medicine.

Connections

Jackson was married in June 1823 to Rev. John Bisbe, a Universalist minister, and with him moved in 1824 to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was pastor of the first Universalist Society, and afterward to Portland, Maine, where he died in 1829. Of this marriage, which was a very happy one, three children were born. She later married, in 1835, Capt. Daniel Jackson of Plymouth, Massachusetts, by whom she had eight children. He died in 1852. One of her sons, Dr. Samuel H. Jackson, a homeopathic physician, became a member of the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine.

Father:

Constant Ruggles

Mother:

Sarah Green

Spouse:

Daniel Jackson

Spouse:

John Bisbe

Son:

Samuel H. Jackson

References

• History of Hardwick, Massachusetts (Classic Reprint)
• Transactions of the Thirty-Seventh Session of the American Institute of Homœopathy, Forty-First Anniversary: Held at Deer Park, MD., June 17, 18, 19, 20, 1884 (Classic Reprint)
• Cleave's Biographical Cyclopaedia of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons; CyclopÊdia, Homúopathic