Page:Eminent women of the age.djvu/561

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WOMAN AS PHYSICIAN.
515


allowed tt) prescribe in the wards, nor instructed in regard to the remedies used. Indeed, they can hardly rise above the position of proficient nurses. In both countries, the way to the entrance of women upon general practice among their own sex has scarcely yet begun to open. In the United States, there are three regularly organized institutions for their education, with all tiie ordinary appli- ances of Medical Colleges, — at New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. There are hospitals and dispensaries con- nected with them, and their students and graduates have now, also, the usual privileges in many of the long-established hospitals. Boston, with characteristic forwardness in accepting whatever tends to the promotion of science or philanthropy, was in advance of the other cities in this move- ment, though outstripped by them in results. As early as 1845 and 1846 Dr. Samuel Gregory, in connection with his brother, Mr. George Gregory, published pamphlets advo- cating the education and employment of female physicians. In 1847 he delivered a series of public lectures upon the sub- ject, and proposed the opening of a school for the purpose. In 1848 a class of twelve ladies was formed, under the instruc- tion of Dr. Enoch C. Rolfe and Dr. William M. Cornell. An association styled the " American Female Medical Edu- cation Society " was organized the same year, and afterward merged in the New England Female Medical College, chartered in 1856, which has been liberally sustained by legislative grants, as well as individual donations. It owns a valuable property, and has many facilities for its work. It has graduated seventy-two women, many of whom are .occu- pying positions of gi^eat influence among their sex, both as prac- titioners of medicine, and as teachers of physiology and hygiene in schools, and has also furnished valuable informa- tion upon the laws of- health to a large number who have attended partial courses of lectures by its professors. At