The strain upon us all, added to the very meager diet, was immense, and it became a necessity to provide relaxations. So I arranged that during the summer, once a month, we all went on a picnic during an afternoon in the hills across the Hudson; and in the winter, once a month, we went to a good theater which was near by, and where we often saw Joseph Jefferson, Laura Keene, Karl Formes or Brignoli. These entertainments were highly refreshing, and, what was very important, they were cheap; theater prices were then very moderate and simple picnics were furnished at low rates.

Oh! how delightful were those days, in their youthful enthusiasm and filled with hopes. They were full of hard work, both day and night, for our out-door poor practice increased almost faster than the dispensary morning clinics, but a few leisure hours once in a while were enjoyed as we had never before in our lives enjoyed the most desirable events or festivities.

Also, we were patronized by those families who, in favor of our medical work as reformers, often invited us to their receptions where we enjoyed intellectual diversion. Among others already mentioned were the Sunday evenings at the house of the sisters, Alice and Phœbe Cary, where distinguished men and women filled the homelike parlors and partook of plenty of ice water as refreshment.

Another house open to us was that of Mrs. Oakes Smith, where art and literature were represented. Another was that of the leading lady of fashion, Mrs. Cole, where whist and music formed the entertaining pleasures. Here I felt especially at home with Mr. George Hildreth as whist partner, his being almost deaf giving me a fine opportunity to be diverted without exertion when too tired even to talk.

To be seen and noticed in these circles was an advantage to medical women and to our little hospital, for, in spite of our very simple diet and the plain living of the patients, we were always in debt; and we had to make great efforts to raise money, holding even a little Sale again before Christmas. This Sale was held in our own wards, the patients being removed for a whole week, but we raised the two thousand, six hundred dollars which was the cost of our first year’s experiment, not including the rent which was pledged, as already told.

It was a great oversight and much to be regretted, that we considered this hospital experiment and ourselves of so little importance in themselves that no printed report had been preserved until the year 1868, that is, eleven years from the time we opened the Infirmary.

I have also only very imperfect private notes, but I find that the expense, all in all, including the board of the students, was a little over two thousand, six hundred dollars, from May 1, 1857, to May 1, 1858; and that the average morning dispensary attendance was thirty; while the in-door patients were about one hundred during the year. But we had a very large out-door practice, one of the four students alone, Dr. Mary E. Breed, attending fourteen cases of childbed in one month; while I was often sent for in the night to assist them with advice when their knowledge was not sufficient.

The practical gain to these young women was so great that they were not only devoted, hardworking and conscientious in their professional duties, but they were more than willing to bear great physical discomfort, as well as the ridicule which they encountered when they attempted to demand the recognition and the respect due to their calling. Everywhere among the better situated people, they met with discouraging remarks and questions, giving evidence that the opinion was that the practice of medicine by women would, in the course of time, be impossible, even if the present few were received as exceptions, or as the novelties of a fad. And the greatest tact was called for in accommodating ourselves and our work to the need of even the poorest people.

I may here describe one picture which memory recalls. Dr. Breed had been attending a difficult case of childbirth, in a negro quarter, and she called on me for consultation and assistance.

I entered a room which seemed filled with people of all sizes, and with faces shading from pitch black through all colors to what seemed pure Caucasian. This latter was the woman in the corner, near the table on which stood the lamp, and she was just being delivered of a mulatto baby by the doctor.