proceeds of her own industry have been adequate to the entire expense of medical education—about eight hundred dollars.
My purpose in detailing these particulars is, to give the fullest notion of her enterprise and object. She gave the best summary of it that can be put into words in her reply to the President of the Geneva College, when he presented her diploma. Departing from the usual form, he rose and addressed her in a manner so emphatic and unusual, that she was surprised into a response. "With the help of the Most High, it shall be the study of my life to shed honour on this diploma."
Her settled sentiment was perhaps unconsciously disclosed in this brief speech. She had fought her way into the profession, openly, without disguise, evasion, or any indirection, steadily refusing all compromises and expediencies, and under better impulses and with higher aims than personal ambition or the distinction of singularity. Her object was not the honour that a medical degree could confer upon her, but the honour that she resolved to bestow upon it; and that she will nobly redeem this pledge is, to all who know her, rather more certain than almost any other unarrived event.
Miss Blackwell sailed for Europe on the 18th. of April, 1849. She spent a couple of weeks in London, Dudley, and Birmingham. In Birmingham, (near which her uncle and cousins, large iron manufacturers, reside, one of her cousins now being Government Geologist for Wales,) she was freely admitted to all the hospitals and, other privileges of medical visitors. They called her in England, "The Lady Surgeon." Provided with letters to London, she made the acquaintance of the best known medical men there; among others, Dr. Carpenter, author of a standard work on Physiology, much in use in the United States, gave her a soiré, where she met the faculty of the highest rank generally. When she visited St. Bartholomew's hospital (it is the largest In England, and its annual income is £30,000,) the Senior Surgeon met her, and said that, hearing she would visit the hospital that day, though it was not his day for attending, he thought it due to her that he should do the honours of the establishment, and accordingly he lectured to the classes (clinical lectures) in her presence.
Moreover, early in the spring of 1850, the dean of the faculty of St. Bartholomew's hospital, London, tendered to Miss Dr. Blackwell the privileges of their institution, on the ground that it was due to her, and added that he doubted not all the other schools of the city would do the same.
In Paris, she resided as an elève at the Hospital Maternitè, in Rue du Port Royal. It Is, as its name indicates, a maternity Hospital, and offers great opportunities in that department, as well as in the diseases of women and children.
None of the French physicians seem to have extended any particular courtesy towards Miss Blackwell, except M, Blot, of the Maternitè—and his was characteristic of French delicacy, where they hide every thing which ought to be thrown open, and display just what they ought to conceal.
In England no difficulty was made or felt about Miss Blackwell's presence at the hospitals and before the classes. In Paris, M. Blot proposed to her to assume male attire—then she might visit these places! Her indignant reply was that she would not thus dishonour her womanhood, nor seek her object by any indirect means, for all
