Hasket Derby,
for the Surgeons.
Miss Sophia Jex-Blake.”
A certain amount of clinical teaching in the Massachusetts General Hospital the women did obtain, and for this they were duly grateful, though it only made them feel more keenly the deficiencies of their lecture-room and laboratory training. And, even in hospital, they walked with a constant sense of insecurity, as one member of the staff was keenly opposed to the presence of women, and was on the look-out for causes of offence. Little by little S. J.-B. began to feel the wear and tear.
“July 5th. Rest yesterday, but altogether weighed down yesterday and today with the fear and horror of this irritability which seems so fatally unconquerable,” she writes in her diary.
And one knows how terrible an enemy that irritability was.
Fortunately, a few weeks later, she and Dr. Sewall got away together for a holiday; and this, apparently, was the first of the long series of driving-tours which were to prove the great joy and recreation of an arduous life.
“Tuesday. July 30th. Atlantic House,
‘Town of Wells,’ Maine.
Darling Mother,