Note 52 — I. Medicine as a Profession for Women. REPRINTED, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS, FROM “WOMAN’S WORK AND WOMAN’S CULTURE.”
Reading edition
A curious coincidence recently occurred which may illustrate this feeling. Not long ago I was attacked in the newspapers for having alluded to this subject, and a certain doctor published three letters in one week to prove that “ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishwomen suffering from female diseases freely consulted medical men.” During that very week no less than three women, in different classes of society, appealed to me for advice and treatment for sufferings about which they “did not like to ask a gentleman.” In each case I advised them to consult a medical man, as I was not yet myself in practice, and there were no women doctors in Edinburgh; but in each case I found that their feeling in the matter was too strong to allow them to do so.