She served as president of the House of Mercy corporation (now, Berkshire Medical Center), for 30 years, was a leader in the establishment of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, and the author of numerous books.

To promote that cause, she wrote many newspaper articles, and in 1885, published a valuable book, Women, Plumbers, and Doctors, containing practical directions for securing a healthful home.

Though interrupted in her work by the necessity of helping her son, who had become totally blind, she at once resumed her writing and returned to subjects of sanitation, though at the same time producing other articles, educational, aesthetic, and political, for various magazines and journals.

[3] Her great interest in the prevention and healing of diseases also brought her before the public, and she was probably most widely known in connection with the establishment and growth of a cottage hospital in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, called the House of Mercy, started in 1874, and of which she was the president.

After the first shock and grief passed, he resolved to study medicine and enrolled himself as a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, his mother becoming his reader and constant assistant.

Through the use of pictures and models, she became his assistant, and by taking a five-year course instead of the usual three, he was graduated with honor and at once set about the instruction of medical undergraduates in the capacity of "coach" or "quiz-master," till 1890, when, after a week's illness, he died.

[1] The work to which Mrs. Plunkett had dedicated herself having ending, she at once resumed writing and returned to sanitary subjects, though at the same time producing other articles, political, educational and aesthetic, for various magazines and journals.