It was a stronghold that did not capitulate by any means at the first onslaught of the women’s forces. There was, at least, as you might say, a preliminary skirmish. The Woman’s Hospital Corps raised and financed by British medical women was at the beginning of the war offered to the British Government. But in the public eye these were only “physicians to women and children.” Kitchener swore a great oath and said he’d have none of them for his soldiers. Practically the War Office told them to “run along.” Well, they did. They went over the Channel. “They are going now to advance the woman’s cause by a hundred years. O, if only I were ten years younger,” sighed Elizabeth Anderson wistfully as she waved them farewell at Southampton on the morning of Sept. 15, 1914. France was in worse plight than England. Under the Femmes de France of the Croix Rouge, the Government there permitted the Women’s Hospital Corps to establish themselves in what had been Claridge’s Hotel in the Champs Elysées. In the course of time rumours reached the British War office of this soldiers’ hospital in Paris run by English women. Oh, well, of course, women surgeons might do for French _poilus_. At length it was learned however that even the British Tommies were falling into their hands. And Sir Alfred Keogh, director of the General Medical Council, was hurried across to see about it. “Miss Anderson,” he addressed the surgeon in charge, “I should like to look over the institution.” “Certainly,” she acquiesced. “But it’s Dr. Anderson, if you please.” Three times as they went through the wards, he repeated his mistake. And three times she suggested gravely, “Dr. Anderson, if you please.” [Illustration: DR. ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON The first woman physician in England and after Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell of America the next woman of modern times to practise medicine. ] They had finished the rounds. “This,” he said, “is remarkable, ’er quite remarkable, don’t you know. But may I talk with some of your patients privately?” Then the soldiers themselves, British soldiers, assured him of their complete satisfaction with the surgical treatment they had received. Indeed the word, they said, was out in all the trenches that the Women’s Hospital was the place to get to when a man was wounded. Women surgeons took more pains, they were less hasty about cutting off arms and legs, you see. Oh, the Women’s Hospital was all right. “Extraordinary, most extraordinary,” murmured Sir Alfred Keogh. And this report he carried back to the General Medical Council. “Incredible as it may seem, gentlemen,” he announced gravely, “it seems to be so.”