Had the tiny college been a virulent pest-house, the _cordon sanitaire_ could not have been more rigidly drawn around it. Nevertheless, the trustees claimed that their graduates rapidly secured medical practice, at least to the extent of a thousand dollars a year; and that applications were frequently received from communities in different parts of the country, requesting that women physicians be sent to settle among them.[74] In 1857 115 students had matriculated at the college. In 1859 Elizabeth Blackwell estimated that about 300 women had managed to “graduate” somewhere in medicine, supposing that their studies had really “qualified them to begin practice, and that by gaining experience in practice itself, they would gradually work their way to success.” “It is not until they leave college, and attempt their work alone and unaided, that they realize how utterly insufficient their education is to enable them to acquire and support the standing of a physician. Many of them, discouraged, having spent all their money, abandon the profession; a few gain a little practical knowledge, and struggle into a second-rate position.” This view of the realities of the situation is in curious contrast with the cheerful optimism of the leaders of the Philadelphia School. These did indeed walk by faith,—and the numerous addresses of Ann Preston, who for many years was its guiding spirit, breathe a spirit of moral enthusiasm which, as the final result proved, really did manage to compensate for the intellectual inadequacy. Dr. Preston seems to have been thoroughly convinced, that if the moral behavior of the new physicians were kept irreproachable, intellectual difficulties would take care of themselves, or be solved by an over-ruling Providence.[75] The fifth period for women physicians began with the founding of hospitals, where they could obtain clinical training, and thus give some substance to the medical education they had received in mere outline. The oldest of these institutions is the New York Infirmary, chartered, as has been said, in 1854 as a dispensary,—opened with an indoor department in 1857, with the Drs. Blackwell and Zakzrewska as attending physicians. The Infirmary was fortunate in securing several eminent New York physicians as consultants, Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. Kissam, Dr. James B. Wood, Dr. Stephen Smith, and Dr. Elisha Harris. The medical profession in New York never took the trouble to organize opposition and pronounce the decrees of ostracism that thundered in Philadelphia; its attitude was rather that of indifference than active hostility.