A very large part of our medical business grows out of the diseases of women, as such, and I shall not insult my readers by gravely considering the question whether men or women should examine, manipulate, and treat such affections. When I hear men protesting that women cannot understand and manage these affections, I declare, some very ugly suspicions occur to me. Women and children are the sick ones. Very few men have occasion to seek the doctor.
If those who read these words understood as I do, how little brain is used in the selection of drugs, how simple a routine is followed by the doctor in selecting his medicines from day to day,—if those who read this, knew as I do, how infinitely more important and difficult are the duties devolving upon the nurse, who stands by, and watches day and night, from moment to moment, the changes in the condition of the patient, and who, without having been trained to the profession, is entrusted with the responsibility of determining, throughout all those trying hours, exactly what is to be done upon the occurrence of this or that change; if those who read this, understood, as I do, about these things, they would smile when asked to consider the propriety or possibility of educating women for the medical profession, so that, in addition to performing all the most important services, they should be entrusted with the selection of the drugs, if drugs must be given.
PREACHERS.
Female preachers have appeared among the most enlightened peoples, and have risen to distinction and influence. In America, among the Quakers, women have illustrated the finest pulpit oratory.
It has always seemed to me that women were especially adapted to the pulpit. Their natural eloquence, their sweet persuasive voices, their characteristic unselfishness, purity and piety constitute their unanswerable claim to a place in the pulpit.
It is strange, how rapidly the prejudices of men against women lecturers and women preachers have disappeared. These prejudices lie on the surface; they do not rest upon organic instinct. So completely has this prejudice disappeared from Boston, that a woman is heard by many because she is a woman. If to-day one of our churches should invite to its pulpit a woman of good capacity, of fine pulpit manners, of a noble, sweet spirit, and of fine personnel, its very aisles would be crowded. I should much prefer to go there.
A few hundred educated women would find employment, and good compensation, in New England pulpits.
PROOF-READING.
This has become a distinct profession, and employs a great number of persons. It is a profession to which women are perfectly adapted, and in which a very considerable number could at once find remunerative occupation.