“SIR,--In the present controversy regarding the extension to women of facilities for obtaining a complete medical education, it is reiterated on one side that there is a no demand among women themselves for doctors of their own sex. In visiting a district of nine families in a poor quarter of the Old Town, inhabited principally by Irish, I found four women seriously out of health; not so seriously, however, but that they might have been cured by timely medical advice. I urged each of them more than once to go to the Dispensary, but all persistently refused, each of them saying in different words that, if ladies were doctors, as they had heard they were in some places, they would have had medical advice long before. The feelings of these poor women were so strong on the subject that I found it was useless to urge them further. It seems only just and reasonable that qualified female medical attendants should be within the reach of those who either have a strong preference for it, or who will not avail themselves of any other.--I am, &c., A DISTRICT VISITOR.” _Scotsman_, Dec. 29, 1870. “As one who, for a short time, was a patient under a late very eminent doctor of Edinburgh, I say that I believe nothing would again induce me to do what I then did, in ignorance of what was before me. The anguish of mind suffered silently by women in such circumstances is not to be described, and is likely seriously to influence the effect of the medical treatment. It is surely time for men to cease to speak of what _women feel_ in this matter. It is impossible for them to know what women will never tell them--the unwillingness, the delay, often _too long_, which precedes their stammered request for advice. What women need is, that some of their own sex should have the power of qualifying themselves to act as their advisers. Who has a right to say they shall not, when the voice of their countrywomen calls on them to do it?--I am, &c., AN ENGLISHWOMAN.” _Scotsman_, June 6, 1872. NOTE B, p. 37. In answer to the sufficiently arrogant enquiry from Dr Henry Bennet,--“What right have women to claim mental equality with men?”--I addressed the following letter to the _Lancet_, and as it seems to me to sum up our position fairly enough, I here reprint it. EDINBURGH, June 21st, 1870. “SIR,--I see in your columns of June 18th a letter on ‘Women as Practitioners of Midwifery,’ and appeal to your sense of fairness to allow me a fourth part of the space it occupied, for a few words in reply.