* * * * * Meanwhile S. J.-B. wrote the Essay on “Medicine as a Profession for Women,” which was published a few months later in the volume entitled _Women’s Work and Women’s Culture_. “Fairish, not quite satisfactory,” is her own verdict on the first draft, which was doubtless considerably improved by the suggestions of friendly critics. As the Essay appeared later in her book on _Medical Women_, it could scarcely be bettered, and indeed it has proved a storehouse of research and argument for all subsequent writers and speakers on the subject. Professor Newman, to whom Mrs. Butler sent the first draft, wrote an admirable letter: “I have no learning in the history of female physicians, but I know that in my boyhood I read in a magazine an urgent remonstrance with ladies for their prejudice against man-midwives, of whom the writer speaks as a beneficent innovation. I think I have read that they were first used in the Court circle of Louis XIV.... To prove negatives is always hard, but I should not fear to write that the exclusion of women from acting as physicians to women is quite a modern usurpation by the male sex, and limited to the nations which cultivate modern science. The topic reminds me of the address of the nurse to Queen Phoedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus, when she observes her mistress to be wild and out of health,—‘If thy complaint be anything of a more secret kind, _here are women_ at hand to compose the disease. But, if thy distress be such as may be told to males, tell it in order that it may be communicated to the physicians.’ This is almost as if _in no case_ would the male physician do more than give advice when the facts were reported to him through the women. It is nearly so in Turkey to this day. A Pasha wanted advice for his wife from a friend of mine without his seeing her.” “_Do_ quote Euripides in your Essay,” writes Mrs. Butler. “Never mind if we look a little more learned than we are. Let us spoil the Egyptians.” And again,— “I am sure Mr. Newman _intended_ you to use anything in his letter which you could make available. He is so generously helpful.” On February 24th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall: “I have written the Essay I spoke of about Medical Women, and I shall send it to you to see in a week or two, as soon as I can get it copied. There are several points on which I want your authority and opinion;—tell me whenever you think I overstate facts or make mistakes—or tell me if you think I might put things _more_ strongly with advantage. Tell me how many instances have occurred of men doctors putting their womankind under _your_ treatment, or that of other women you know,—Dr. B., Dr. C., and J. W.?—any more? Also anything else that occurs to you generally.