MEDICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN. The proposi tion to admit women into the medical profession met with bitter opposition, which has gradually given way. Although the Boston Homeopathic School for Women was opened as early as 1848. the Association for the Advancement of the Medical Edueat ion of Women. organized some time afterwards, first brought the subject clearly to public attention. The Woman's Medical Col lege at Philadelphia was opened in 1850, and graduates about 20 physicians every year. The Woman's Medical College of the New York In firmary was opened in 186S by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (q.v.) and her sister Emily, the In firmary for Women and Children having been in successful operation since its establishment by Dr. Blackwell in 1853. The college was closed in June, 1898, having fulfilled its mission. The New York Free Medical College for Women was founded in 1870. There are at present. besides these, colleges at Baltimore, San Francisco, and Chicago, and a honneopathic institution in Ne\V York. At the University of Michigan female students arc admitted to the regular co uses in medicine, which are for four years, attending certain lectures separately. The College of Physicians and Surgeons at Boston and Omaha Medical College are open to both sexes, and the :Nleharry medieal department of the University of Central Tennessee was founded for colored male and female students. In the large cities the dispensaries are now open to women. and candidates for degrees in the Woman's :Medical College of New York were received as residents of the New York Infirmary to receive special instruction in obstetrics and pharmacy. A be quest of $10,000 was left the medical department of Harvard University. with the condition that women should be admitted to the full course of instruction; and although the bequest with this proviso was not accepted by the authorities, there was a noticeably strong vote in its favor.
1n 1890 the trustees of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, accepted from ladies of that city and elsewhere $100,000 for the endowment fund of the university medical school. with the understanding that it should admit women on the same terms as 111(.0. Medical Schools for women have been found ed by American women in Turkey, and fifteen graduates of the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia in 1884 were especially prepared for missionary work in foreign lands. (Inc of the first
female practitioners. in England was Dr. Eliza beth Blackwell, who settled in London in 1868 and became connected with the Woimm's MedicaI College there. As late as 1867 the Apothecaries' Society passed resolutions excluding women from examinations for degrees. The admission of women to the University of Edinburgh led to open riots among the students. The 'enabling bill,' giving permission to medical schools and societies to grant qualifications for the registra tion of physicians without regard to sex, was passed by Parliament in 1876; King's and Queen's College of Physicians, Dublin. and the London University threw open their doors to women soon afterwards: and a preparatory medi cal school in London annually recruits the num ber of female matrieulates in these institutions. There are dispensaries at London, Leeds. and Bristol superintended by female physicians; and Queen Victoria during her reign interested her self in behalf of 'medical missions carried on by Englishwomen in the East. The faculty of medicine at Paris has given a number of diplo mas to women, as have the universities of Bern, Zurich, and Geneva. The first woman medical graduate in Germany was Mrs. Dorothea Chris tiana Erxleben. who received the medical degree from the University of Halle in 1754. upon rec ommendation by Frederick the Great in a royal decree. But medical colleges in Germany xlere closed to women till 1900, when by a decision of the German Federal Council female medical students were entitled to be admitted to the State examinations in medicine. Heidelberg University opened its doors to women in 19007 There are medical cluirses for women at the Carolinian institutions at Stockholm and at Up sala. The Spanish universities of Madrid. Val ladolid, and Barcelona extend the same privi leges. The. War Department of the Russian Government founded a medical school for women at. Saint Petersburg: a similar institution is now open at Moscow. All the medical societies in the United States and many in foreign countries admit female physicians to their congresses and discussions.