Woman of the Century/Mary J. Dunlap

DUNLAP, Miss Mary J., physician, born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1853. Dr. Dunlap is superintendent and physician in charge of the New Jersey State Institution for Feeble Minded Women. When a mature young woman, of practical education, with sound and healthy views of life, she made choice of the profession of medicine, not through any romantic aspirations after "a vocation in life," but as a vocation to which she proposed to devote all her energies. One year of preparatory reading preceded the regular college course of three years. Having been regularly graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1886, an office was secured in Philadelphia, and it was not long before the young doctor found her hands full. In a few months she was induced to make arrangements with Dr. Joseph Parrish, which made her his assistant in the treatment of nervous invalids in Burlington, N. J. This special training prepared her for her present responsible position. Dr. Dunlap's position in New Jersey is similar to that of Dr. Alice Bennett in Pennsylvania, being superintendent and physician in charge, with all the duties that the term implies. These two women furnish the only instances, at the present date, where women have full control of the medical department of institution work in connection with the superintendency.