"For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women and impostors have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion, 'If it befall to me as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?'"--Lord Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_. It is time to say something about the ladies as physicians. Once they were the chief practitioners of medicine; and even to recent times had a monopoly of that branch of art over which Dr. Locock presides. The question has lately been agitated whether certain divisions of remedial industry ought not again to be set aside for them; and the patronage afforded to the lady who (in spite of the ridicule thrown on her, and the rejection of her advances by various medical schools to which she applied for admission as a student), managed to obtain a course of medical instruction at one of the London schools, and practised for a brief time in London previous to her departure for a locality more suited to her operations, would seem to indicate that public feeling is not averse to the thought of employing--under certain conditions and for certain purposes--female physicians. Of the many doctresses who have flourished in England during the last 200 years, only a few have left any memorial of their actions behind them. Of _the wise women_ (a class of practitioners, by-the-by, still to be found in many rural villages and in certain parts of London) in whom our ancestors had as much confidence as we of the present generation have in the members of the College of Physicians, we question if twoscore, including Margaret Kennix and Mrs. Woodhouse, of the Elizabethan era, could be rescued from oblivion. Some of them wrote books, and so, by putting their names "in print," have a slight hold on posthumous reputation. Two of them are immortalized by mention in the records of the "Philosophical Transactions for 1694." These ladies were Mrs. Sarah Hastings and Mrs. French. The curious may refer to the account there given of the ladies' skill; and also, for further particulars relative to Sarah Hastings, a glance may be given to M. de la Cross's "Memoirs for the Ingenious," published in the month of July, 1693. We do not care to transcribe the passages into our own pages; though, now that it is the fashion to treat all the unpleasant details of nursing as matters of romance, we presume there is nothing in the cases mentioned calculated to shock public delicacy.