During the reign of Henry VIII a law was again enacted in favor of women physicians; for at that time an act was passed for the relief and protection of "Divers honest psones, as well men as women, whom God hathe endued with the knowledge of the nature, kind and operacon of certeyne herbes, rotes and waters, and the using and ministering them to suche as be payned with customable diseases, for neighbourhode and Goddes sake and of pitie and charitie, because _that_ 'The Companie and Fellowship of Surgeons of London, _mynding only their owne lucres and nothing the profit or case of the diseased or patient_, have sued, vexed and troubled' the aforesaid 'honest psones,' who were henceforth to be allowed 'to practyse, use and mynistre in and to any outwarde sore, swelling or disease, any herbes, oyntments, bathes, pultes or emplasters, according to their cooning, experience and knowledge--without sute, vexation, penaltie or loss of their goods.'"[205] The italicized words in this quotation prove that the women doctors of England had the same difficulties as their sisters in France, and that the real reason of the opposition of the male practitioners was that they wished to monopolize the practice of medicine. They, like the medical faculty of Paris, strenuously objected to women "putting the sickle into their harvest," and they, accordingly, left nothing undone to circumvent the intrusion of those whom they always regarded as undesirable competitors. It was argued by the men that women, to begin with, lacked the strength and capacity necessary for medical practice. It was also urged that it was indelicate and unwomanly for the gentler sex to engage in the healing art, and that, for their own good, they should be excluded from it at all costs. Those who were willing to waive these objections contended that women had not the knowledge necessary for the profession of medicine and should be excluded on the score of ignorance. When women sought to qualify themselves for medical practice by seeking instruction under licenced practitioners or in medical schools, they found a deaf ear turned to their requests. The doctors declined to teach them and the medical schools, one and all, closed their doors against them. Thus it was that in England, France and Germany the practice of medicine and surgery was always practically in the hands of men until only a generation ago. Even the English midwives gradually "fell from their high estate," and were left far behind the female obstetricians of Germany and France. For these two countries can point to a number of midwives who, by their knowledge, successful practice, and the books they wrote, achieved a celebrity that still endures. Chief among these in Germany were Regina Joseph von Siebold, her daughter Carlotta, and Frau Teresa Frei, all of whom, in the early part of the last century, enjoyed an enviable reputation in the Fatherland.