Whereas fifty years ago there was great objection to admitting women to the medical societies, now the men of the profession welcome women physicians to the societies and to their discussions, and are more than willing to consult with them. The advantage of employing women physicians has been recognized likewise by many hospitals, sanitariums and insane asylums; the courts too recognize the justice of women’s preferring women in the physical examination required by law. There can be no doubt, that the 20th Century opens to women physicians undreamed-of possibilities in science and in the art of healing. [Illustration] WOMAN IN THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW. When in the year of our Lord 1869 American papers reported that in Iowa a woman had been admitted to the bar, most readers were inclined to regard this “bit of news” as one of the many jokes, sprung occasionally upon credulous people in order to warn them what the “new woman” might be able to do. But in this case the “joke” turned out to be a fact. And if people had been somewhat better acquainted with their Bibles, they would have known that the woman lawyer of Iowa was only another confirmation of Rabbi Ben Akiba’s famous saying: “There is nothing new under the sun!” Open your Bible and read in Chapter 4 of the Judges IV about =Deborah=, the Joan of Arc of the Hebrews. Of this most extraordinary woman recorded in Jewish history it is stated that she was a prophetess as well as a judge, “to whom the children of Israel came for judgment.” The Greeks and Romans too had female lawyers. From writers of the classic past we know that =Aspasia= pleaded causes in the Athenian forum, and =Amenia Sentia= and =Hortensia= in the Roman forum. And Valerius Maximus (Hist. lib. VIII, Chapter 3) states that the right of Roman women to follow the profession of advocate was taken away in consequence of the obnoxious conduct of =Caliphurnia=, who, from “excess of boldness” and “by reason of making the tribunals resound with howlings uncommon in the forum,” was forbidden to plead. The law, made to meet the especial case of Caliphurnia, ultimately “under the influence of the anti-feministic tendencies” of the period, was converted into a general one. In its wording the law sets forth that the original reason for woman’s exclusion “rested solely on the doings of said person.” The “howlings of Caliphurnia” furnished the legislators of all later periods with a welcome pretext to exclude women from practice of the law, and it was not till 1869 that a woman again obtained admission to the bar. This pioneer was =Miss Arabella A. Mansfield= of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, who was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869, under the statute providing only for admission of “white male citizens.”