The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's WorkPenny, Virginia
General
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work
Penny, Virginia
Women -- Employment
clinical teachings of two of the largest dispensaries in the city. These
dispensaries furnish upwards of 60,000 cases of disease annually. In
1850, a charter was granted to the Female Medical College of
Pennsylvania. A college was commenced in Boston about the same time.
Both of these schools are for females exclusively, and each has
graduated about fifty pupils. In the Pennsylvania Medical University
both sexes are received. In some branches the presence of mixed classes
is embarrassing to both professors and pupils, and that free
communication desirable for acquiring and imparting information is
partially checked. This difficulty is done away in some female colleges
by employing competent lady professors. In Europe, women are not
permitted to receive instruction with the male students, but in hospital
practice they have excellent opportunities of gaining information as
nurses and physicians. I know of no pursuit that offers a more inviting
field for educated women than the practice of medicine. The ability of
woman to study and practice medicine has been satisfactorily
demonstrated. Some ladies have graduated at both the allopathic and
homoeopathic schools in Cleveland. The allopathic school in that place
was the first to admit ladies. Different motives actuate ladies in the
study of medicine. The wives of some manufacturers, planters, and
others, who reside where medical advice is not easily obtained, study
medicine that they may prescribe for their husbands' employées. Some
study medicine that they may have something to rely upon in case other
resources should fail them. Some teachers have studied that they may
instruct their pupils in the laws of hygiene and remedies for disease.
Quite a number of lady physicians are employed in female boarding
schools. The benefit resulting from having the advice of a physician at
any hour of the day or night is very great, and must relieve the
superintendents of schools and absent parents from much anxiety. Some
ladies prefer giving advice at their residences. A lady that devotes
herself to a speciality should endeavor to keep posted in all the
branches of her profession, so far as she can without neglecting to
acquire all the information possible in her speciality. "In the United
States there are 40,564 physicians, 191 surgeons, 5,132 apothecaries,
456 chemists, 923 dentists, 59 oculists, 59 patent medicine makers.
There are 35 medical colleges, 230 professors, and about 5,000
students." Dr. Ann Preston, of the Pennsylvania Female Medical College,
writes me: "Of those in practice who graduated with us, quite a number
have found it very remunerative, and the prospect for others to secure
practice is most encouraging, if they only possess the requisite
qualifications. The desire to employ ladies as physicians is constantly
extending, and my faith in the triumphant and extensive vindication of
the movement deepens from year to year. There are openings in perhaps
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