Physician And Reformer

Early Life.

Harriot Kezia Hunt, daughter of Jacob Hunt and Kezia Wentworth Hunt, was born in Boston in 1805. Her parents were deeply involved in Boston's liberal religious community and reform culture. They educated their two daughters at home. Her father's death in 1827, when she was twenty-two, made it necessary for Hunt and her sister to find some means of supporting themselves. Together the two conducted a school. When her sister became ill and Boston physicians were unable to diagnose or cure her ailment, Hunt began investigating medical books and devised and carried out a treatment herself.

Medical Training.

Hunt's experience in caring for her sister led her to seek a medical career. At the time, however, there were no colleges or universities for women, much less medical schools. In 1833 Hunt and her sister both entered the home of an English immigrant...