To pass to the consideration of other cases of a less exceptional kind, there can, I think, be little doubt that an enormous amount of preventible suffering arises from the unwillingness of very many girls on the verge of womanhood to consult a medical man on various points which are yet of vital importance, and to appeal to him in cases of apparently slight illness, which yet issue but too often in ultimately confirmed ill-health. I firmly believe that if a dozen competent women entered upon medical practice at this moment in different parts of England, they might, without withdrawing a single patient from her present medical attendant, find full and remunerative employment in attending simply to those cases which, in the present state of things, go without any adequate treatment whatever; for I believe that many suffering women would be willing to consult one of their own sex, if thoroughly qualified, when they refuse, except at some crisis of acute suffering, to call in a medical man.[52] Probably Queen Isabella of Castile[53] was neither the first nor the last woman whose life was sacrificed to her modesty. Even if such extreme instances are rare, I think it cannot be denied that very much needless pain, “and pain of a kind that ought not to be inflicted,” is caused, especially to young girls, by the necessity of consulting men on all occasions, and I believe that those who know most of the facts insist most strongly on this point. I do not know how far the Medical Profession would acknowledge the truth of the above statement; it is probable that they are really less competent to judge about it than women are themselves, for, as an eminent divine remarked that it was considered a point of politeness not to express theological doubts before a clergyman, it may probably be thought still more obligatory not to question the adequacy of the existing medical profession before one of its members. One can hardly imagine a lady sending for a doctor to tell him why she will _not_ consult him; it is sufficient to know that many cases of disease among women go without treatment; it is surely open to any one at least to suggest the above as one of the possible reasons. And indeed, if no such special suffering were often involved in the idea of consulting a man on all points, it seems self-evident that a woman’s most natural adviser would be one of her own sex, who must surely be most able to understand and sympathise with her in times of sickness as well as of health, and who can often far more fully appreciate her state, both of mind and body, than any medical man would be likely to do.[54]