In the eighteenth century there were, outside of the recognized profession, a number of women who practised medicine with considerable success; but, although skilful, they would be regarded to-day as mere quacks. Mrs. Joanna Stephens, who proclaimed that she had found a remarkable cure for a painful disease, appears to have been so successful in her treatment of cases as to enlist genuine respect for her attainments. Parliament voted her a grant of five thousand pounds sterling. Mrs. Mapp, commonly termed "Crazy Sally," who had repute as a bonesetter, received from the town of Epsom the offer of an annuity of one hundred pounds sterling if she would remain in that neighborhood. She was such a popular character that the managers of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre sent her a special request to attend a performance at which they desired to have a large audience. She complied, and the attendance was satisfactory. Early in the century there was a renewal of attempts which had formerly been made to require women who practised obstetrics to come under some form of registration; but when the matter came before Parliament, in the form of an enactment prepared by the Society of Apothecaries, a committee of the House of Commons reported that "It would not allow any mention of female midwives." Although women were not received into the regular profession as qualified practitioners until after the middle of the century, they were under no legal prohibition to practise medicine; but in 1858 the passage of the Medical Act, which required a doctor to qualify by passing the examination of one of the existing medical boards, set up a barrier to women, as it placed them subject to the discretion of the boards, which unanimously refused to admit them. The only exceptions to this rule were made in favor of those persons who had received a medical degree abroad and had been practising before the passage of the act. It was in this way that Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell became registered. Miss Elizabeth Garret, whose studies did not begin till two years after the compulsory registration law, was also enrolled under exceptional conditions.