Sarah soon began to improve and Harriot then decided to become a physician, giving up her teaching so that she might have more time to study. Sarah’s new treatment eliminated the rather drastic use of drugs then prevalent in medical practice, and confined itself principally to attention to the somewhat neglected laws of hygiene, combined with cheering assurances of a cure. As her health became established, Sarah joined in the study, and in October, 1835, the two sisters formally began practice by advertising the fact in the daily papers. Sarah later married and became the mother of six children, gradually withdrawing from the practice which Harriot continued alone. Harriot persevered in her studies while building up a very successful practice in Boston, and, in 1847, she applied to Harvard College for permission to attend medical lectures but was refused. In 1850, she renewed her application and this time she received the desired permission, five of the seven members of the Faculty voting in the affirmative. Of the two men who voted in the negative (Drs. James Jackson and Jacob Bigelow), it was Dr. Jackson who had introduced into Boston the midwife, Mrs. Janet Alexander. “Thus,” comments Dr. Putnam-Jacobi, “it would seem that his objection was not to women but to _educated_ women who might aspire to rank among regularly educated men physicians.” But again Dr. Hunt’s hopes met disappointment for, as noted in a previous chapter, the men students sent to the Faculty two petitions of remonstrance--one against the admission of negro men students, and one against the admission of women students. The Faculty referred these petitions to a committee of which Dr. Jacob Bigelow (one of the two members originally voting against Dr. Hunt’s admission) was chairman. This committee reported the following votes regarding the petition against women students (and this report was accepted): _Voted_, that the Faculty are at all times anxious to promote the gratification and welfare of the members of the medical class so far as their duty and the great interests of medical education permit. _Voted_, that the female student who had applied for liberty to attend the lectures having by advice of the Faculty withdrawn her petition, no further action on this subject is necessary. In 1853, Dr. Hunt received the honorary degree of M.D. from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. I found among those whom Mrs. Severance had interested in my behalf, kind and intelligent as well as sympathizing friends who were willing to assist me even financially in my studies. These good people, I saw well, pitied my benightedness concerning the emancipation of women, without trying to proselyte, but leaving me in good faith that I would work out my own salvation and see the righteousness of their demands for a larger sphere for women.