Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/53

 HOSPITALS FOR WOMEN xliii

Theodore G. Prioleau (1824), Medical College of South Carolina; Richard Wilmot Hall (1813), University of Maryland; Joseph A. Eve (1839), University of Georgia; Bedford S. Gunning (1840), Medical College of New Jersey; Charles Meigs (1841), Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

E. R. Peaslee was professor of gynecology at Bellevue Medical College in 1874; and in 18G6, he was succeeded by T. G. Thomas who took the title professor of obstetrics and diseases of women, 1863, at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Four special local societies devoted to gynecology and obstetrics holding monthly meetings, and societies with a national membership holding yearly meetings, have apparently done more than any other agency to bring the nascent specialty to a state of perfection. Among those deserving honorable mention are: 1. the Gynecological Society of Boston, founded in 1869; 2. the Philadelphia Obstetrical Society founded in 1868, which published its transactions which were later committed to the "American Journal of Obstetrics." 3. The New York Obstetrical Society was formed in 1876 and its proceedings have appeared since that date in the "American Journal of Obstetrics." 4. Two years later the Chicago Gynecological Society was organized.

First and foremost of all our special societies in its long and splendid record of service stands the American Gynecological Society which was founded in 1876, under the presidency of Fordyce Barker, with Washing- ton L. Atlee and William H. Byford as vice-presidents and that veteran worker James R. Chadwick as secretary, Paul F. Munde being treasurer. Other members of the council were Sims, Goodell, and Parvin, a galaxy of names ever famous in the annals of gynecology. Who can compute t he value of the services of these earnest workers and their successors, or the value of the transactions which they have issued ever since, year by year.

The Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, founded in 1887 and issuing its transactions yearly, has also done yeoman service for the allied specialties, leading gynecology out of her too narrow path into broader ways.

One must mention here too the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and their transactions. The first meeting was held in 1888. Since that time this rival society has held a high place of honor in the midst of the special societies of the country, numbering among its members many of the best special workers in the country.

Hospitals for Women.

Although there were lying-in wards and maternity hospitals dating onwards from Shippen's pioneer institution in 1762, a woman's hospital