Day #21 of BHM Mary Jane Seacole (1805-1881) was a Black woman of Scottish, British, and Jamaican heritage who was a nurse and businesswoman. Seacole was born to a community of free Black people in Jamaica. 1/
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Her mother was a healer who used Caribbean and African medicines. She was nicknamed The Doctress and knew folk medicine and tropic diseases. Seacole's mother was her first teacher of nursing and medicine. Her father was Scottish and was a Lieutenant in the British Army. 2/
Seacole never disavowed her Jamaican and Scottish heritage and considered herself a Creole. Her black ancestry was not a hindrance to her. She worked on and off with her mother. 3/
Seacole nursed at the British Army hospital and traveled around the Caribbean, including the Bahamas, Cuba, and the Republic of Haiti. In 1836, she married Edwin Hamilton Seacole in Kingston. They opened a store in Black River, which failed. 4/
They returned to her family home. From 1843-44, her family home burned down in a fire, her husband died, and then her mother passed. She works through her grief, treating patients during the cholera epidemic of 1850 in Jamaica. She also traveled to Cruces, Panama, where her brother was. 5/
She also treated patients in Panama with cholera infections. She also acquired cholera and rested. Returning to Jamaica in 1852, medical officials asked her to provide care to patients of yellow fever. This task proved difficult. 6/
She traveled back to Panama for a time. It was from Panama that she learned of the Crimean War.Then Seacole traveled to England and tried to organize a second contingent to Crimea, but was refused. She applied for funding and was refused again. These rejections were due to racism. 7/
Worth mentioning, too, that although she did use some of the mistaken cures of the era (e.g. mercury compounds) for cholera she also disagreed w/using ineffective things like opioids & prayer, and did do things (e.g hydration) that most doctors didn’t.
Comments