Even if I am wholly mistaken, and if all that needs doing _can_ in England be effectually done by men, we have still, I think, no reason for the exclusion of women from the medical profession;--there is still no ground on which it can be right to refuse to every patient the power of election between a physician of her own sex and of the other, when women as well as men are desirous of qualifying themselves for this work, seeing that it will after all be always a matter of choice; for we cannot suppose that the time will ever come when women will be arbitrarily prevented from employing men, as they now are arbitrarily prevented from employing women, as their medical attendants. The assertion that women _are_ at present “arbitrarily prevented from employing women as their medical attendants” may sound startling, but it is at this moment practically true in England, in the most literal sense. Since medical practice has, for the protection of the public, been made a matter of legislation, it has been absolutely illegal for any physician or surgeon to practise as such in this country, unless registered by the appointed Medical Board, and that Board is not obliged to register any one who has not a British medical degree. It is evident, then, that to deny all British medical degrees to women,--not only to refuse them instruction, but to refuse to examine them if they have acquired knowledge elsewhere,--_is_ most arbitrarily to prohibit all women, whatever their qualification, from practising medicine in the United Kingdom, except under legal pains and penalties. Of course no such arbitrary action was even contemplated when the Act of 1858 was passed; and I think that when once the great practical injustice of the present state of things is fully understood by the public, a change is inevitable,--either British medical degrees will be thrown open to women, as is most desirable, or the legal conditions of practice will be modified to meet the case of those to whom such degrees are denied. It is perhaps hardly to be expected, though very much to be desired, that medical men as a body should themselves take the initiative in this matter, and throw open the doors to all women who desire worthily to join their fellowship, for it proverbially “needs _very_ good men to give up their own monopoly;” but the action of the general public in the matter can hardly be doubtful except as a question of time;--no English court could be expected to condemn to legal penalties a succession of highly-educated ladies who may have seized, often with great effort, every opportunity open to them to fit themselves thoroughly for a work which they believe to be especially their own.