Note 80 — VII. WOMAN IN MEDICINE.

“She was as fresh and girlish as if such qualities had never been pronounced incompatible with medical attainments. She had, indeed, a certain flower-like beauty, a peculiar softness and elegance of appearance and manner. I have wondered whether she did not resemble Angelica Kaufman. Underneath this softness, however, lay a decision of purpose, a Puritan austerity of character that made itself felt, though unseen. “She ruled the hospital like a little Napoleon,” said a lady who had been there.... Both the surgical talents and surgical training of Dr. Dimock are certainly at the present date (1875), exceptional among women. It is on this account that our loss is irreparable, for at this moment there seems to be no one to take her place. Many battles have been lost from such a cause. But although ours be ultimately won, we would not, if we could, grieve less loyally for this girl, so brilliant and so gentle, so single of purpose and so wide of aim, whose life had been thus ruthlessly uprooted and thrown upon the waves at the very moment it touched upon fruition.”—M. P. Jacobi in New York Medical Record, 1875.

Dr. Dimock, like so many of the early gynæcological surgeons of America, was a Southerner, born in North Carolina.