But, undeterred by opposition, Miss Blackwell continued her work, daily making converts to the new movement and receiving substantial aid, as well as sympathetic cooperation, from many people, both men and women, prominent in society and public life. In 1854 she started a free dispensary for poor women. Three years later she founded a hospital for women and children, where young women physicians as well as patients could be received. These were the humble beginnings of the present flourishing institutions known as the New York Infirmary and the College for Women. And in less than ten years after her graduation, Miss Blackwell saw the new departure in medical practice successfully established, not only in New York, but also in other large cities of the United States. In 1869 the early pioneer medical work by women in America was completed. "During the twenty years which followed the graduation of the first woman physician, the public recognition of the justice and advantage of such a measure had steadily grown. Throughout the northern states the free and equal entrance of women into the profession of medicine was secured. In Boston, New York and Philadelphia special medical schools for women were sanctioned by the legislatures, and in some long-established colleges women were received as students in the ordinary classes."[213] Meanwhile, the women in Europe were not idle nor heedless of the example set by their brave sisters in America. The University of Zurich threw open its portals to women, and was soon followed by those of Bern and Geneva. The first woman to obtain a degree in medicine in Zurich--it was in 1867--was Nadejda Suslowa, a Russian. She was soon followed by scores of others from Europe and America, who found greater advantages and more sympathy in Swiss universities than elsewhere. In 1869 the Medico-Chirurgical Academy of St. Petersburg conferred the degree of M.D. upon Madame Kaschewarow, the first female candidate for this honor. When her name was mentioned by the dean it was received with an immense storm of applause which lasted several minutes. The ceremony of investing her with the insignia of her dignity being over, her fellow students and colleagues lifted her on a chair and carried her with triumphant shouts throughout the halls. The first woman graduate from the University of France was Miss Elizabeth Garrett, of England. She received her degree in medicine in 1870, and the following year the same institution conferred the doctor's degree on Miss Mary C. Putnam, of New York. After these precedents had been established, the universities of the various countries on the continent, following the examples set by those in the United States and Switzerland, opened one after the other their doors to women, and in most of them accorded them all the privileges of _cives academici_ enjoyed by the men.