The pioneer medical women (Drs. Elizabeth Blackwell, Marie E. Zakrzewska, Emily Blackwell, and Ann Preston) to whose successful struggles are due, for the first time in the history of the world, the real opening of the profession of medicine to women equally with men, had no sooner begun to take breath after their first stupendous battle, than they found themselves confronted with a new foe. This foe was within the ranks of their own sex, and its development threatened an undermining campaign which seemed almost more disheartening than the militant one from which they had just emerged. This new foe was the increasing number of women doctors, poorly educated and otherwise unfitted, who began to appear all over the country. Because the evil was so insidious and was cloaked by the necessity and the desire for competent medical women which had been demonstrated and aroused throughout the country, it was most difficult to meet. The Philadelphia women met it by striving even harder to bring up the standard of the Woman’s Medical College and to expand the field of the Woman’s Hospital. The more eastern women, meaning those of New York and Boston at the New York Infirmary and the New England Hospital, met it by trying to establish a standard and by trying to educate both the profession and the laity to accept nothing lower than such a standard. To these women, the simplest as well as the wisest procedure seemed to be an attempt to persuade some of the best of the already existing medical colleges to accept a number of properly prepared women students. To this end, it was proposed to inform the community at large of the situation (the subject being really as vital to the laity as to the profession, since doctors can practice only through patients), and to collect a large sum of money which might serve to endow a number of scholarships for women in some of the leading medical colleges of the country. As early as 1865, a fund of fifty thousand dollars had been collected for this purpose, but all the colleges refused to accept women as students, even under such auspices. As the situation was particularly pressing in New York, the Drs. Blackwell were then so urged to take the next best step (the best having proved to be beyond their power) that they consented to add a college to their Hospital. And thus, in 1868, was opened the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary. This college set a standard which was never surpassed by any of the colleges for men. But one small college insisting on a high standard could not compete numerically with rivals offering apparently equally desirable advantages and with standards easier of attainment. So the campaign continued! In 1877, Dr. Zakrzewska being invited to address a body of leading nonmedical women (the _New England Women’s Club_), brought this problem to them for conference. She said in part: