As was the case in other domestic arts, girls depended for their training in medicine chiefly on the tradition they received from their mothers, but this was reinforced from other sources as occasion offered. “The Ladies Dispensatory” was not the only handbook published for their use; sometimes, though schools were closed to women, an opportunity occurred for private coaching. Thus Sarah Fell entered in her account book, “July ʸᵉ 5º 1674 by mᵒ to Bro: Loweʳ yᵗ hee gave Thomas Lawson foʳ comeinge over hitheʳ to Instruct him & sistʳˢ, in the knowledge of herbs. 10.00,”[586] and when Mrs. Hutchinson’s husband was Governor of the Tower she allowed Sir Walter Raleigh and Mr. Ruthin during their imprisonment to make experiments in chemistry “at her cost, partly to comfort and divert the poor prisoners, and partly to gain the knowledge of their experiments, and the medicines to help such poor people as were not able to seek physicians. By these means she acquired a great deal of skill, which was very profitable to many all her life.”[587] Footnote 586: Fell, (Sarah). _Household Accounts_, p. 95. July 5, 1674. Footnote 587: _Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson_, p. 12. Neither did ladies confine their services to their own household, but extended their benefits to all their suffering neighbours. The care of the sick poor was considered to be one of the duties of a “Person of Quality,” whose housekeepers were expected “to have a competent knowledge in Physick and Chyrurgery, that they may be able to help their maimed, sick and indigent Neighbours; for Commonly, all good and charitable Ladies make this a part of their Housekeepers business.”[588] The “Good Woman” is described as one who “distributes among the Indigent, Money and Books, and Cloaths, and Physick, as their severall Circumstances may require,” to relieve “her poorer Neighbours in sudden Distress, when a Doctor is not at Hand, or when they have no Money to buy what may be necessary for them; and the charitableness of her Physick is often attended by some cure or other that is remarkable. God gives a _peculiar Blessing_ to the Practice of those Women who have no other design in this Matter, but the doing Good: that neither prescribe where they may have the Advice of the Learned, nor at any time give or recommend any thing to try Experiments, but what they are assured from former Tryals is safe and innocent; and if it do not help cannot hurt.”[589] Footnote 588: _Compleat Servant-maid_, p. 40. Footnote 589: Rogers, Timothy. _Character of a Good Woman_, p. 42-43.