I cite the above facts to show that the demand for female physicians is no artificial or imaginary one, and that it does not spring out of any fanciful whim of an over-refined social state; but lest it should be supposed on the other hand to be confined to half-barbarous nations, I may quote the opinions expressed on this subject two years ago in one of the most thoughtful of our English journals: “We heartily admit that the only way to discriminate clearly what practical careers women are, and are not, fitted for, is to let them try. In many cases, as in the medical profession, we do not feel any doubt that they will find a special kind of work for which they are specially fitted, which has never been adequately done by men at all, and which never would be done but by women.... We have heard the opinion of one of the most eminent of our living physicians, that one of the new lady physicians is doing, in the most admirable manner, a work which medical men would never even have had the chance of doing.”[49] I am told by Catholic friends that a great many cases of special disease remain untreated in convents, because the nuns, with their extreme notions of feminine seclusion, think that it would be little short of profanation to submit to some kinds of medical treatment from a man.[50] Indeed, it is expressly laid down by a great Catholic authority, St Alphonsus,[51] that though monks and nuns are required to place themselves in the doctor’s care when commanded to do so by their superiors, a special exception is to be made in the case of nuns suffering from certain maladies, who can only be required to accept treatment from a skilled woman, if any such be available; as, under existing circumstances, is so rarely the case. I do not ask any reader to applaud or even justify these poor nuns, if they, esteeming themselves “the martyrs of holy purity,” sacrifice life to such scruples; but I do most emphatically ask, in the name of humanity, whether the state of things can be defended which may drive women, from the highest and most holy motives, to submit to the extremity of physical suffering and even death itself, because it is impossible for them to obtain the medical services of their own sex, and because they believe they can best fulfil the spirit of their vows by accepting no other? I am informed by a friend that Archbishop Manning, when expressing to her his strong interest in the question of the medical education of women, alluded to facts like those referred to above, as affording one of the strongest motives for such interest in the minds of Catholics. Nor, surely, need sympathy in such a case be limited within the bounds of any religious denomination.