AILSA CHANG, HOST:
These days, women make up just more than half of all medical students in the U.S. There are more than 48,000 of them now. But there was a time when that number was one. Elizabeth Blackwell entered medical school in the 1840s, back when bloodletting, leeches and blistering were common medical treatments. And yet, the idea of a female doctor back then was outrageous. But Elizabeth Blackwell roped in her younger sister Emily into becoming a doctor as well.
And Janice Nimura tells the story of their unusual childhood and complicated sisterhood in her new book "The Doctors Blackwell." When we spoke, I asked Nimura what was so offensive back then about a woman studying medicine.