concept
Women doctors as a "dying-out species"
dying-out women doctors
Chekhov's extended, mordant comparison of women doctors to a dying-out species -- perishing of consumption, lapsing into mysticism, marrying widowed squadron commanders, or "visibly losing heart" -- likened to the European bison of the Belovezh forest, and extended into a generalization about the hardships of any "vanguard." Reflects a casual, period-typical gendered condescension toward women entering the medical profession; preserved in translation as written, without softening, per corpus policy on period-typical prejudice.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 14 May 1889. Sumy. §9 There are not many women doctors left on
earth. They are dying out and becoming extinct, like the bison in the
Belovezh forest.
Preserved in translation exactly as written, without softening, per the letter's translator's report and corpus policy on period-typical prejudice; do not smooth, bowdlerize, or omit in any downstream apparatus or marketing use of this passage.