“There is much reason to believe that many women, either owing to the nature of their malady, or from constitutional nervousness or reserve, never avail themselves of the services of a medical man without reluctance. To them it is always a painful effort--the twentieth time as much as the first. It would, I think, be odd if something of this kind were not felt very strongly by every woman on some occasions, and I have seen very experienced mothers quite distressed, if by any chance, they were deprived of the assistance of ‘the doctor they were used to.’ The wives of medical men have told me that it was their one comfort to feel that in their hour of suffering only their own husband and a good nurse need be with them. I think this is not unnatural.”--Letter by “MEDICUS,” _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 11, 1870. “I happened to be speaking to a young shopwoman--a total stranger to me--and in the course of conversation advised her to seek medical advice, when she replied, with a sudden gush of tears in her eyes, that she _had_ been in the Infirmary, in Dr Matthews Duncan’s wards for a fortnight, and had during that time suffered so much from the constant presence of crowds of male students during certain inevitable but most unpleasant examinations of her person, that, as she herself forcibly expressed it, ‘it almost drove me mad.’” _Daily Review_, Nov. 18, 1870. “SIR,--A new obstacle has been thrown in the way of women acquiring a knowledge of the medical profession. The special obstacle at present is injury to the delicacy of mind of the male students. This delicacy, if real, must be a serious drawback to the proper exercise of their profession in after life. That it is so, many a suffering woman knows. “The question, however, arises--which evil is the greater,--that five hundred youths, in full health and vigour, should be made a little uncomfortable by the presence of seven women, or that seven times five hundred women, unnerved by suffering, should be subjected to the very trial they shrink from. “That women do truly shrink from this trial, the number of wretched, broken-down sufferers from chronic disease but too clearly proves. It is only when racked by constant pain that a woman’s natural delicacy at last gives way, often only to hear said the words (how bitter they are!) ‘too late.’ “The returns of the Registrar-General could easily prove the vast sacrifice of life, did delicacy not again step in with ‘consumption and liver complaints,’ as more euphonious terms for the real disorders of which these are the mere after-results. “This objection, looked at fairly, is a case of the delicacy of five hundred men _versus_ that of all suffering women. “I leave the fathers and husbands of Edinburgh to judge righteous judgment thereon.--I am, &c., A SUFFERER.” _Scotsman_, November 21, 1680.