In the seventeenth century, in England, one of the women most noted for medical skill was Lady Ann Halket,[28] born in 1622, daughter of the then provost of Eton College. “Next to the study of Divinity she seems to have taken most delight in those of Physick and Surgery, in which she was no mean proficient; nay, some of the best physicians in the kingdom did not think themselves slighted when persons of the greatest quality did consult her in their distempers, even when they attended them as their ordinary physicians. Many from England, Holland, and the remotest parts of the kingdom, have sent to her for things of her preparing; and many whose diseases have proved obstinate under all the methods of physicians, have at length, by the physicians’ own advice, been recommended and sent to her care, and have been recovered by her.” In 1644 was born Elizabeth Lawrence, afterwards wife of the Rev. Samuel Bury, of Bristol, who wrote her life,[29] and who bears witness that “it was not possible there should be a more observant, tender, indulgent, and compassionate wife than she was; a more sympathising spirit is very rarely found.” He records that “she took much pleasure in Anatomy and Medicine, being led and prompted to it partly by her own ill health, and partly with a desire of being useful.” The difficulties that she encountered in her studies may be guessed, since “she would often regret that so many learned men should be so uncharitable to her sex, and be so loath to assist their feebler faculties when they were anywise disposed to an accurate search into things profitable and curious. Especially as they would all so readily own that souls were not distinguished by sexes. And therefore she thought it would have been an honourable pity in them to have offered something in condescension to their capacities, rather than have propagated a despair of their information to future ages.” Her husband, however, tells us that “she improved so much, that many of the great masters of the Faculty have often been startled by her stating the most nice and difficult cases in such proper terms;” and, remarking that, “How much knowledge and skill soever she attained in the practice of Physick, by long observation, conversation, and experience, yet she was very distrustful of herself,” he adds that the “instances of her successes in the preservation of human lives were not easily numbered.” As a contemporary of these Englishwomen, we find in Germany Elizabeth Keillen, who published several medical works, and died in 1699. She is said by Finauer to have had “great knowledge of medicine and chemistry.”