Though several English ladies are recorded in history as having studied medical science, I am not aware that any of our country-women ever graduated in medicine before the year 1849, when Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, after surmounting many difficulties, obtained the degree of M.D. from a college in the State of New York. Returning subsequently to England, she took advantage of the clause in the Act of 1858, which I have already mentioned, and demanded and obtained registration in the British Register. But the clause referred to was, as I have explained, retrospective only, and no one can now obtain an American degree, and in virtue of it claim registration in this country. This being the case, when, in the year 1860, Miss Garrett resolved to begin the study of medicine, with a view to practising in England, it was necessary that she should obtain her education under the auspices of some one of the medical corporations empowered to give registrable qualifications. After trying in vain to obtain admission to one School and College after another, she finally found entrance at Apothecaries’ Hall, which was, from its charter, taken, as I suppose, in conjunction with the provisions of the Apothecaries’ Act of 1815,[71] incapable of refusing to examine any candidate who complied with its conditions of study. In order to observe the regulations of Apothecaries’ Hall, she was obliged to attend the lectures of certain specified teachers; and though she was, in some cases, admitted to the ordinary classes,[72] in others she was compelled to pay very heavy fees for separate and private tuition by the recognised lecturers. She had also considerable difficulty in obtaining adequate hospital teaching, though there was, in truth, hardly the slightest difference between the advantages she needed and those now habitually accorded to lady probationers and trained nurses, who are constantly present with the ordinary students at the bedside and in the operating theatre.[73] She obtained admission, however, to the Middlesex Hospital, and might, I suppose, have studied there as long as she pleased, had she not been unfortunate enough to acquit herself too well in some of the _vivâ-voce_ examinations in which she took part with the male students, thus arousing their manly wrath, which showed itself in a request that she should be required to leave the Hospital,[74] and this noble and magnanimous application was actually granted! She, however, completed her studies elsewhere, and especially at the London Hospital; being, it is to be presumed, too discreet to enter again on the field of competition. Thus, at length, she obtained her education, and, in 1865, received the licence to practise from Apothecaries’ Hall, which enabled her to place her name upon the British Register. But no sooner had she thus demonstrated the existence of at least a postern gate by which women might enter the profession, than the authorities took alarm, and,