Page:Address on the Medical Education of Women (1864) - Blackwell.djvu/8

 legal footing, as the ordinary physician; the corporators of these female colleges being respectable bodies of men and women, and in some instances enlisting the sanction, by subscription, of a very large number of influential citizens. From the most accurate data, which we have been able to collect, several hundred women have been graduated as physicians at these schools within the last ten years. At five different times, women have been admitted (as exceptions) to our large New-York hospitals to follow the visits of physicians as students, the medical faculties having given their consent in these cases. One of the largest dispensaries in the city, has during the last six years, allowed a little group of respectable female students to continue their daily attendance. The school of Pharmacy has also opened its doors to women as students. No respectable woman practitioner has now any difficulty in holding medical consultation with some of the men most skilled in the various departments of medicine.

These facts will show the growth of professional sentiment, let us see if social feeling has grown in corresponding measure.

Besides the organization of the colleges just alluded to, societies have been formed at different times, for assisting women in the study of medicine; for educating female missionaries in medicine; for popular instruction to women in physiology and hygiene, &c.—these have all come into existence within the last ten years.

I have stated that several hundred women have graduated as physicians within this period; we have traced the history of so many of these physicians, that we think we may truly say, that the majority of them are engaged in active professional life. Some are assistant physicians in the various water-cure and other private establishments, scattered so plentifully through the country; some are employed in large girls' schools, as teachers of physiology, and physicians to the young ladies; some travel from place to place as lecturers on physiological and