“He said, 'Woman's sphere is the hearth and the home: to impair her delicacy is to take the bloom from the peach: she could not qualify for medicine without mastering anatomy and surgery--branches that must unsex her. Providence, intending her to be man's helpmate, not his rival, had given her a body unfit for war or hard labor, and a brain four ounces lighter than a man's, and unable to cope with long study and practical science. In short, she was too good, and too stupid, for medicine.' “It was eloquent, but it was _'a priori_ reasoning, and conjecture _versus_ evidence: yet the applause it met with showed one how happy is the orator 'qui hurle avec les loups.' Taking the scientific preacher's whole theory in theology and science, woman was high enough in creation to be the mother of God, but not high enough to be a sawbones. “Well, a professor of _belles-lettres_ rose on our side, not with a rival theory, but with facts. He was a pupil of Lord Bacon, and a man of the nineteenth century; so he objected to _'a priori_ reasoning on a matter of experience. To settle the question of capacity he gave a long list of women who had been famous in science. Such as Bettesia Gozzadini, Novella Andrea, Novella Calderini, Maddelena Buonsignori, and many more, who were doctors of law and university professors: Dorotea Bocohi, who was professor both of philosophy and medicine; Laura Bassi, who was elected professor of philosophy in 1732 by acclamation, and afterward professor of experimental physics; Anna Manzolini, professor of anatomy in 1760; Gaetaua Agnesi, professor of mathematics; Christina Roccati, doctor of philosophy in 1750; Clotilde Tambroni, professor of Greek in 1793; Maria Dalle Donne, doctor of medicine in 1799; Zaffira Ferretti, doctor of medicine in 1800; Maria Sega, doctor of medicine in 1799; Madalena Noe, graduate of civil law in 1807. Ladies innumerable, who graduated in law and medicine at Pavia, Ferrara, and Padua, including Elena Lucrezia Cornaro of Padua, a very famous woman. Also in Salamanca, Alcala', Cordova, he named more than one famous doctress. Also in Heidelberg, Gottingen, Giessen, Wurzburg, etc., and even at Utrect, with numberless graduates in the arts and faculties at Montpellier and Paris in all ages. Also outside reputations, as of Doctor Bouvin and her mother, acknowledged celebrities in their branch of medicine. This chain, he said, has never been really broken. There was scarcely a great foreign university without some female student of high reputation. There were such women at Vienna and Petersburg; many such at Zurich. At Montpellier Mademoiselle Doumergue was carrying all before her, and Miss Garrett and Miss Mary Putnam at Paris, though they were weighted in the race by a foreign language. Let the male English physician pass a stiff examination in scientific French before he brayed so loud. He had never done it yet. This, he said, is not an age of chimeras; it is a wise and wary age,