As it happened, Dr. Sims was introduced into the same social circle in which we were acquainted, and learning from certain members that they were enthusiastically interested in women physicians, he advanced in a year’s time in such a friendly manner that he had hard work to live down his friendly advances when he later learned from his professional brethren, as well as from a wider public, that women physicians were by no means popular and could in no way forward his plans. However, he remained outwardly polite to the Drs. Blackwell and myself, inviting us to his operations in the then small beginning of the Woman’s Hospital, but excusing himself from further assistance to medical women as a hindrance to the philanthropic enterprise of enlarging the above-mentioned institution. Dr. Sims stood on common ground with the women physicians in that he also found the medical profession unfriendly, and realized that his only hope of establishing himself was to open a hospital for himself. He says in his autobiography, which was published under the title of _The Story of My Life_, “I said to myself, ‘I am a lost man unless I can get somebody to create a place in which I can show the world what I am capable of doing.’ This was the inception of the idea of a woman’s hospital.... If the profession had received me kindly in New York and had acted honorably and gentlemanly and generously towards me, I would not have thought of building a woman’s hospital.... When I left Alabama for New York, I had no idea of the sort in the world. I came simply for a purpose the most unselfish in the world--that of prolonging my life.” While no more fortunate than the women physicians in enlisting the coöperation of the medical profession, Dr. Sims had greater success with some prominent and wealthy women, who eventually established the hospital for him. The work of Dr. Blackwell and the movement in favor of women physicians had evidently made an impression upon these women also, because they adopted a by-law providing that “the assistant surgeon should be a woman”; and Dr. Blackwell and her sister, Dr. Emily, both well-qualified by their added clinical training in Europe, were the logical candidates for this position. Dr. Sims cynically refers to this by-law as follows: “One clause of the by-laws provided that the assistant surgeon should be a woman. I appointed Mrs. Browne, a widowed sister of my friend, Henri L. Stuart, who had been so efficient in organizing the hospital. She was matron and general superintendent.” Six months later, he told the board of lady managers that he must have an assistant. He then offered this position, successively, to two young men who had just been graduated and who declined it. His third choice was made because the man had married a young Southern friend of his youth!