Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/83

 WOMEN IN MEDICINE IN AMERICA lxxiii

year a medical college was added to the Infirmary. In 1862 the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded by Dr. Ann Preston and her colleagues and has been constantly successful, always largely gynecologi- cal in character. In the same year the New England Hospital for Women and Children organized under Dr. Marie Zakzrewska was incorporated and increased like its sister institutions from year to year.

In 1865, under Dr. Mary Thompson, of Chicago, a fourth hospital for women and children was opened. The Woman's College of Chicago, followed in 1869, merging in 1891 into the Northwestern University. In 1875 the Pacific Dispensary and Hospital under Dr. Charlotte Blake Brown and Dr. Annette Buckle began its useful career, and in 1882 a sixth hospital under the management of women physicians was organized in Minneapolis, a second hospital in Philadelphia opened in 1895 — the Hospital and Dispensary of the Alumni of the Woman's Medical College.

In a further effort to sift out incapacity, a prospectus was issued by the New York Infirmary in 1865, in connection with its medical school which was regarded by many as quixotic in the severity of its require- ments. These were: a three years' graded course with detailed labora- tory work during the first year and detailed clinical work during the last, and the appointment of an independent board of examiners consisting of professors from the different city schools. This scheme was not fully enforced until 1876, but at this time Harvard was the only other college in the country which required a three years' course. When the Cornell University Medical School was created, the necessity of con- tinuing the Infirmary school ceased; it was discontinued and the efforts of its directors concentrated upon its hospital.

In 1882 the Woman's Medical College of Baltimore began its existence, and Kansas City opened one in 1895. Cincinnati also has a college for women. The state universities of the West, beginning with Michigan in 1869, have opened their medical colleges to women. Syracuse University and the Buffalo School both admit them. The admission of women in 1893 to Johns Hopkins Medical School and Hospital was a fact of great significance. In Canada the Universities of Toronto, Dalhousie and Manitoba have extended their privileges to women.

With the definite entrance of women into public practice of medicine came the question of recognition from brother practitioners, individually and collectively.

This constitutes the sixth period and was precipitated by the action of the Philadelphia County Medical Society which, in 1859, introduced a resolution declaring that any member who should consult with women should forfeit his membership. A committee of the State Medical Sociel y endorsed this recommendation, and held strictly to this attitude until 1871, when the resolution was rescinded, but not until 1881, however,