1. To attend native ladies in the Zenanas.
2. To set on foot a dispensary for women only.
3. To train native women as nurses.
Of the medical profession, it should be stated, for the encouragement of women, that there are over three hundred graduates from the several medical colleges for women; and that there is scarcely a village throughout the country but has its woman physician, of greater or less skill. In New-York City, there are many successful physicians beside the Drs. Blackwell. Dr. Lozier has a practice of $15,000, and owns two fine houses, earned by her own perseverance. In Orange, N.J., Dr. Fowler is very popular, and has a paying practice of $5,000 a year. In Philadelphia is Dr. Hannah Longshore, with a practice worth $10,000 per annum; then there are Drs. Preston, Tressel, Sartain, Cleveland, and Myres, with incomes ranging from $5,000 to $2,000. In Utica, N.Y., Dr. Pamela Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion is Dr. Vail; in Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In Rochester, Dr. Sarah Dolley numbers among her patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who, but a few years ago, ridiculed the idea of a "female physician." Mrs. Dolley's practice brings her fully $3,000 a year.
Dr. Gleason of Elmira, Dr. Ivison of Ithaca, and Dr. Green, late of Clifton Springs, who has opened a water-cure somewhere in Western New York, all have a large amount of practice, and prescribe with the greatest acceptance for those who favor hydropathic treatment.
At Milwaukee, in the autumn of 1866, I found Dr. Ross. She is one of the consulting physicians of the Passevant Hospital and of the Orphans' Home. She has practised with steadily increasing reputation for ten years. She understands what is due to her position, and has had a hard struggle with the empirical women of the medical profession that crowd the great thoroughfares of the West. But she would neither lower her fees nor abate her requirements to compete with this class. She came of the best surgical blood. Her grandmother was Mercy Warren, married to Darling Huntress, of Newbury, and first cousin to General Warren, of Bunker's Hill. Our famous Boston surgeons of the same family might be proud of her reputation. She has established her practice and her character, and would agree with all that I have stated in the body of this book in regard to the great need of medical societies to guard the position of well-educated physicians, which is now at the mercy of a worthless college diploma. Dr. Ross goes to the Paris Exposition of this year (1867), as an agent for the State of Wisconsin. She deserves the honor; and the State has done itself credit by the choice. The professional position of the physicians at the New-England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, is also a matter for general congratulation.
The English Female Medical Society reports (June, 1866) twenty students and good results.
The physicians of this country have been occupied this winter in discussing the discovery, by one of their number, of the active infectant in fever and ague. It has been found in the dust-like spores of a marsh plant, the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera, in a microscopic insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen; and the subject is now under investigation.
THE PULPIT.
A very interesting account has lately been published of Amélie von Braum, an educated Swedish lady, the daughter of an army officer. She began to preach in 1843, at Carlshamm, where she lived, in the lowest dens of vice and misery. She carried with her a clean cloth and lighted candles, which give a festive impulse to the Swedish mind; and her serious words produced an extraordinary effect. In 1856 she removed to Stockholm, and was earnestly entreated to go to Dalecadin, and instruct the people. From that time, she has acted as an itinerant evangelist, preaching in summer in the open air. People listen to her for hours in rapt attention.
In Sweden, there is also Mamsell Berg,[49] a brave young woman, who thought herself moved by the Holy Spirit to teach the young Laps. She could not get away from the thought that she ought to do it. A clergyman, to whom she spoke upon the matter, counselled her wisely: "Endeavor to shake off the feeling; if you cannot, then accept it as a vocation from God, and try it for six months." She said, "If I go, it shall not be for six months, but for three years." She went; and the three years became seven. She seems also to have been a noble and beautiful creature. She gathered the children around her, under the most difficult circumstances, expending her little property in putting up a schoolhouse for them, and laying in sacks of potatoes, that she might feed the half-famishing; learning herself the Laplandish language, teaching them the Swedish, and discoursing to them about the love of God.