In addition to the above, Dr. Marie Werner of Philadelphia reports 23 laparotomies from private practice.

Other personal statistics I have not been able to obtain. Some are quoted in the list of Literature.[[149]] These statistics, though still on a small scale, are, for the time in which they have accumulated, and for the extremely meagre opportunities which have been so far afforded, not at all unsatisfactory.

Written contributions to medical literature are also, though not abundant, at least sufficient to prove that “the thing can be done.” The 145 citations made in the list[[150]] all belong to the period ranging between 1872 and 1890, a period of eighteen years.

The intellectual fruitfulness of this period is not to be compared with that exhibited by other and contemporary classes of medical workers, but rather with that of the first 150 or 200 years of American medicine. For, until now, it is a mentally isolated, a truly colonial position, which has been occupied by the women physicians of America. When a century shall have elapsed after general intellectual education has become diffused among women; after two or three generations have had increased opportunities for inheritance of trained intellectual aptitudes; after the work of establishing, in the face of resolute opposition, the right to privileged work in addition to the drudgeries imposed by necessity, shall have ceased to preoccupy the energies of women; after selfish monopolies of privilege and advantage shall have broken down; after the rights and capacities of women as individuals shall have received thorough, serious, and practical social recognition; when all these changes shall have been effected for about a hundred years, it will then be possible to perceive results from the admission of women to the profession of medicine, at least as widespread as those now obviously due to their admission to the profession of teaching.

Note.—While these pages are passing through the press, the important announcement is made that the trustees of the Johns Hopkins University—in view of a gift of $100,000, presented by women to the endowment fund of the medical department,—have consented to admit women to the medical school of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, so soon as that school shall be opened. This is the first time in America that any provision for the medical education of women has been made at a university of the standing of the Johns Hopkins. It is expected that the medical education of the future school will be especially directed for the benefit of selected and post graduate students, for such as desire to make special researches and to pursue advanced studies in medical science. The admission of women to a share in these higher opportunities is a fact of immense significance, though only a few should profit by the advantage, the standing of all will be benefited by this authoritative recognition of a capacity in women for studies, on this higher plane, on equal terms and in company with men.

The directors of the Johns Hopkins have in this matter shown the broad and liberal spirit which befits the noble trust they are called upon to administer. It is characteristic of America that the stimulus to the trustees’ action came from without the university, from the initiative of women. This time, women have not only asked but they have at the same time given. The $10,000 gift originally offered by Miss Hovey to Harvard on condition of its admitting women, and declined by its medical faculty, has been enrolled in the gift now accepted by the Johns Hopkins. Half of the whole donation is the noble gift of one woman, Mary Garrett,—daughter of one of the original trustees of the Johns Hopkins University. The formation of committees among women in all the principal cities of the United States, for the purpose of raising money for the woman’s part of the endowment fund, and even for the remaining amount needed to open the school, is itself a most important fact, for it indicates that interest in the intellectual advancement of women, and especially interest in the success of women in the medical profession, has at last become sincere and widespread in quarters where hitherto it has been entirely and strangely lacking.

Hardly had we pronounced the present position of women in medicine to be “colonial,” when, by a sudden shifting of the scene, barriers have been thrown down that seemed destined to last another half century; an entire new horizon has opened before us. Sic transit stultitia mundi.

VIII.
WOMAN IN THE MINISTRY.

BY

(Rev.) ADA C. BOWLES.