NO. XLIV.-A June Morning Poems by Walter Thornbury XLVI. Our Shadow. A Poem by Isa Craig XLVII.—“Though_this be Madness, yet there's Method in it." By LXIII. On the Education of Pauper Girls. By Mary Carpenter LXVI. To my Cousin Laurence at Melbourne LXVII.-Notices of Books. (“Life in the Forests of the Far East." I.-FEMALE PHYSICIANS. BY SAMUEL GREGORY, A.M., M.D., BOSTON, U.S. WOMEN always have been and always will be physicians. Their sympathy with suffering, their quickness of perception, and their aptitude for the duties of the sick room, render them peculiarly adapted for the ministrations of the healing art. Let them have medical knowledge corresponding with their native abilities and they will excel, especially in the departments of practice which pertain to women and children. The medical profession is incomplete and ineffective without female co-workers in promoting health and relieving sickness and suffering. While the doctor cannot be dispensed with, the doctress is no less essential to the physical well-being of society; and as three-fourths, probably, of the duties of the medical profession relate to women and children, there should be at least as many female as male physicians. The preservation of health is a matter of more importance than its restoration; sanitary knowledge of more value than curative. In all domestic sanitary arrangements and household hygiene women must necessarily be the chief agents, and they ought to be intelligent and efficient ones—a cordon sanitaire, ever on guard to preserve their own health, and secure the constitutional well-being of the rising race. Now, who can so advantageously and successfully instruct girls, young women, and mothers, in all sanitary, physiological, and hygienic knowledge as thoroughly educated lady physicians? Though there are Ladies' Sanitary Associations, they have to depend chiefly upon men to write their tracts and lecture to them. It is very reasonable that professional men should perform a good portion of the writing and lecturing upon these subjects, but female physicians can impart to women indispensable information which a natural reserve would prevent medical men from communicating. As the public become more enlightened in reference to the principles upon which health is to be preserved, and the rational methods by which it is to be restored when lost, the relation of the medical profession to society must necessarily be modified. Igno VOL. IX. B rance on the part of the patient and mystery on the part of the physician will recede together; and already some of the most intelligent medical men are giving proof of a higher regard for the welfare of society than for the interests of the profession, as it is obvious that the more there is accomplished in the preservation of individual and public health the less will be the demand for the services of the physician-the more of nature, the less of art. Among the eminent pioneers in this reform is Dr. Jacob Bigelow, of Boston, who has written ably in favour of rational medicine and a reliance upon nature in the cure of disease. "It is," says he, "the part of rational medicine to enlighten the public and the profession in regard to the true powers of the healing art. The community require to be undeceived and re-educated, so far as to know what is true and trustworthy from what is gratuitous, unfounded, and fallacious. And the profession themselves will proceed with confidence, self-approval, and success, in proportion as they shall have informed mankind on these important subjects. The exaggerated impressions now prevalent in the world in regard to the powers of medicine serve only to keep the profession and the public in a false position, to encourage imposture, to augment the number of candidates struggling for employment, to burden and disappoint the community already overtaxed, to lower the standard of professional character, and raise empirics to the level of honest and enlightened physicians." In England, Sir John Forbes has given the weight of his great medical learning and influence in this direction. In an article published as long ago as 1846, he enjoined it upon the profession "to direct redoubled attention to hygiene, public and private, with the view of preventing diseases on the large scale, and individually in our own sphere of practice. Here the surest and most glorious triumphs of medical science are achieving and to be achieved. To inculcate generally a milder and less energetic mode of practice, both in acute and chronic diseases. To make every effort, not merely to destroy the prevalent system of giving a vast quantity and variety of unnecessary and useless drugs-to say the least of them-but to encourage extreme simplicity in the prescription of medicines that seem to be requisite. To place in a more prominent point of view the great value and importance of what may be termed the physiological, hygienic, or natural system of curing diseases, especially chronic diseases, in contradistinction to the pharmaceutical or empirical drug plan generally prevalent. To endeavor to enlighten the public as to the actual powers of medicines, with a view to reconciling them to simpler and milder plans of treatment. To teach them the great importance of having their diseases treated in their earliest stages, in order to obtain a speedy and efficient cure; and, by some modification in the relations between the patient and practitioner, to encourage and facilitate this early application for relief." This tendency of things has an important bearing upon the introduction of women into the medical profession; for while they, as the handmaids of nature, possessing all the qualities for good nursing, are predisposed to the natural and rational modes of dealing with disease, many might be deterred from becoming healers of the sick, by the formidable task of comprehending and working the complicated and unwieldy machinery of the system, and by their repugnance to so much of the experimental, the artistic, and heroic, as now prevails, to the reproach of the profession, and the detriment of the public. Had the family of Esculapius consisted of daughters as well as sons, these milder methods of treatment, this co-operation with nature, recommended by those eminent medical gentlemen, would doubtless have ever prevailed. Women physicians are especially needed in the female wards of hospitals, insane asylums, almshouses, prisons, and reformatory institutions for females, where the professional skill of women could be so properly and advantageously employed in the investigation and treatment of disease, and their kindly ministrations and healing influence would do so much to restore mental and moral health to the afflicted and the erring. And to provide none but male physicians for the female patients of these various institutions is a grave error, and one that should be corrected as soon as practicable. Female seminaries should also be provided with female physicians to act as teachers of physiology and hygiene, and supervisors of health, as well as medical attendants. One of the evils of the present system of having men only in the medical profession is, that the benefits of medical science and skill are to a great extent lost to the female portion of the public. This point is well presented by Professor Meigs, of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, one of the most numerously attended medical institutions in the United States. Dr. Meigs is a physician of extensive practice and great experience, and author of large medical works. In his volume on the diseases of women, he speaks as follows: "The relations between the sexes are of so delicate a character that the duties of the medical practitioner are necessarily more difficult when he comes to take charge of a patient laboring under any one of the great host of female complaints than when he is called upon to treat the more general disorders, such as fevers, inflammations, the exanthemata, &c. It is to be confessed that a very general opinion exists as to the difficulty of effectually curing many of the diseases of women; and it is mortifying, as it is true, that we see cases of these disorders going the whole round of the profession, in any village, town, or city, and falling at last into the hands of the quack; either ending in some surprising cure, or leading the victim, by gradual lapses of health and strength, down to the grave, the last refuge of the incurable, or rather uncured. I say uncured, for it is a very clear and well-known truth, that many of these cases are, in their beginning, of light and trifling importance. All these evils of medical practice spring not, in the main, from any want of competence in medicines or in medical men, but from the delicacy of the relations existing between the sexes, and in a good degree from a want of information among the population in general as to the import, and meaning, and tendency of disorders manifested by a certain train of symptoms. Is "It is an interesting question as to what can be done to obviate the perpetuity of such evils-evils that have existed for ages. there any recourse by means of which the amount of suffering endured by women may be greatly lessened? I am of opinion that the answer ought to be in the affirmative; for I believe that, if a medical practitioner know how to obtain the entire confidence of the class of persons who habitually consult him; if he be endowed with a clear perceptive power, a sound judgment, a real probity, and a proper degree of intelligence, and a familiarity with the doctrines of a good medical school, he will, so far as to the extent of his particular sphere of action, be found capable of greatly lessening the evils of which complaint is here made; and if these qualities are generally attached to physicians, then it is in their power to abate the evil throughout the population in general." Here we have a statement of the evils and the remedy. If such and such qualities and qualifications are combined in medical men, and they know how to obtain the entire confidence of their female patients, the Professor believes it is in their power to abate the evil. There is, however, a simple, natural, and effectual remedy to which Dr. Meigs does not allude. He says these evils arise mainly from the delicacy of the relations existing between the sexes.' Let, then, those relations be dispensed with, in these matters, and let females have physicians of their own sex. This remedy will moreover, so far as females are concerned, meet a point suggested by Sir John Forbes, in speaking of the great importance of having diseases treated in their earliest stages, in order to obtain a speedy and efficient cure-namely, will encourage and facilitate an early application for relief-by removing embarrassments and obstacles which now frequently prevent application at all, or till too late for effectual relief. Humanity, morality, and the physical well-being of society demand the introduction of women into the medical profession. There is one department of professional duty so peculiarly feminine, that in past times in all nations it has, with hardly any exceptions, been performed by women; and at the present time in no country has it been wholly wrested from them, the duty of Assisting women in childbirth. It would seem that if there is any 'appropriate sphere" for women, beyond that which is inseparable from her sex, it is this. The "midwives are spoken of with commendation in Scripture; in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, they |