they have learned how to operate when they have been taught, but that, with very insufficient teaching for the most part, they have contrived to learn so much, and to operate so successfully. Obstetrics and gynecology have here again offered peculiar advantages, in presenting a series of cases for operation whichvary from the most trifling* to the most serious capital operations in surgery. The latter have only been attempted in the last decade, and it is worth while to quote such statistics as I have been able to obtain, even though they are necessarily incomplete:

New York Infirmary: From 1875 to 1890; 535 operations (29 laparotomies); operators, chiefly Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, but in a smaller number of cases, Drs. Blackwell, Peckham, McNutt, Putnam Jacobi.

New England Hospital: From 1873 to 1890; 829 operations (48 laparotomies); operators, Drs. Dimock, Buckel, Keller, Berlin, Whitney, Smith, Crawford, Bissell, Kellogg, Angell, Pagelson.

Chicago Hospital: From 1884 to 1888; 206 gynecological, 114 general surgery. Dr. Mary Thompson operated on all the gynecological cases, except four; the report does not state whether she also operated on the others.

The reports of the Philadelphia Hospital do not give the total number of operations performed in it, but through the kindness of Dr. Fullerton, resident physician, I have received a report of the capital operations, nearly all abdominal:

Women's Hospital, Philadelphia: From 1876 to 1889; 91 operations (all laparotomies, including several Cæsarean sections). Operators, chiefly Dr. Anna Broomall; for a small number of cases, Drs. Croasdale and Fullerton.f

In addition to the above, Dr. Marie Werner of Philadelphia reports 23 laparotomies from private practice.

Other personal statistics I have not been able to obtain. Some are quoted in the list of Literature. These statistics,

* Dr. Sims, in his treatise on Uterine Surgery, declared that the local treatment of uterine diseases was, almost always, surgical.

During this year Dr. Broomall has gone to Asia, to make a tour of the different missionary stations where there are women physicians, and there perform capital operations on the cases which have been accumulating. This is an expedition unique of its kind in history.

At the meeting of the Philadelphia Alumnæ Association, held in March, 1889, six successful cases of capital operations in abdominal surgery were reported by members, including two Cæsarean sections and one hysterectomy, Sixteen laparotomies were further reported from the Woman's Hospital, but these have been included in the statistical table.

though still on a small scale, are, for the time in which they have accumulated, and for the extremely meagre opportunities which have been so far afforded, not at all unsatisfactory.

*

Written contributions to medical literature are also, though not abundant, at least sufficient to prove that "the thing can be done." The 145 citations made in the list all belong to the period ranging between 1872 and 1890, a period of eighteen years.

The intellectual fruitfulness of this period is not to be compared with that exhibited by other and contemporary classes of medical workers, but rather with that of the first 150 or 200 years of American medicine. For, until now, it is a mentally isolated, a truly colonial position, which has been occupied by the women physicians of America. When a century shall have elapsed after general intellectual education has become diffused among women; after two or three generations have had increased opportunities for inheritance of trained intellectual aptitudes; after the work of establishing, in the face of resolute opposition, the right to privileged work in addition to the drudgeries imposed by necessity, shall have ceased to preoccupy the energies of women; after selfish monopolies of privilege and advantage shall have broken down; after the rights and capacities of women as individuals shall have received thorough, serious, and practical social recognition; when all these changes shall have been effected for about a hundred years, it will then be possible to perceive results from the admission of women to the profession of medicine, at least as widespread as those now obviously due to their admission to the profession of teaching.

NOTE-While these pages are passing through the press, the important announcement is made that the trustees of the Johns Hopkins Universityin view of a gift of $100,000, presented by women to the endowment fund of the medical department,-have consented to admit women to the medical school of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, so soon as that school shall be opened. This is the first time in America that any provision for the medical education of women has been made at a university of the standing of the Johns Hopkins. It is expected that the medical education of the future school will be especially directed for the benefit of selected and post graduate students, for such as desire to make special researches and to pursue advanced studies in medical science. The admission of women to a share in these higher opportunities is a fact of immense significance, though only a few should profit by the advantage, the standing of all will be benefited by this authoritative recognition of a capacity in women for studies, on this higher plane, on equal terms and in company with men.

*See APPENDIx D.

The directors of the Johns Hopkins have in this matter shown the and liberal spirit which befits the noble trust they are called upd administer. It is characteristic of America that the stimulus to the tru action came from without the university, from the initiative of women. time, women have not only asked but they have at the same time g The $10,000 gift originally offered by Miss Hovey to Harvard on con of its admitting women, and declined by its medical faculty, has bee rolled in the gift now accepted by the Johns Hopkins. Half of the donation is the noble gift of one woman, Mary Garrett,-daughter of o the original trustees of the Johns Hopkins University. The formati committees among women in all the principal cities of the United S for the purpose of raising money for the woman's part of the endow fund, and even for the remaining amount needed to open the school, is a most important fact, for it indicates that interest in the intellectual adv ment of women, and especially interest in the success of women in the cal profession, has at last become sincere and widespread in quarters v hitherto it has been entirely and strangely lacking.

Hardly had we pronounced the present position of women in medici be" colonial," when, by a sudden shifting of the scene, barriers have thrown down that seemed destined to last another half century; an entire horizon has opened before us. Sic transit stultitia mundi.

VIII.

WOMAN IN THE MINISTRY.

BY

(Rev.) ADA C. BOWLES.

THE entrance of women upon the work of the Christian ministry in America waited for no ordaining council and imposition of hands, but may be said to have begun with the preaching of Anne Hutchinson. Arriving in Boston in 1634, and being admitted to membership in the church, she forthwith began the advocacy of her peculiar doctrines, which carried with them her commission to preach. Believing that "the power of the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer, and that the inward revelations of the spirit, the conscious judgment of the mind, are of paramount authority," what need could she feel of other sanction? Large numbers of women gathered to the meetings in which she boldly discussed the sermons of the preceding Sabbath, as was the custom of the men of the congregation, and set forth her own belief. The dispute among her followers and their opposers, according to Bancroft, "impressed its spirit into everything. It interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war; it influenced the respect shown to the magis trates, the distribution of town lots, the assessment rates, and, at last, the continued existence of the two opposing parties was considered inconsistent with the public peace."

In 1637 a synod of the church was called at Newtown and, although Cotton, Vane, and Wheelwright, together with all but five members of the Boston church, had become warm partisans of Mrs. Hutchinson, her tenets were among the eighty-two opinions condemned as erroneous. A few months later, she was summoned before the General Court and, after a trial of two days, sentenced to banishment from the territory of Massachuestts. That her loss was felt by the church which had excommunicated her may be inferred from the effort made to reclaim her by a deputation sent for that purpose to the Island of

Aquidneck, afterward called Rhode Island, where she had found a refuge. After the death of her husband in 1642, she removed to the Dutch settlement, then at war with the Indians, by whose hand she, with all her family, save one child (carried captive), cruelly perished.

This experience of the church was not calculated to encourage the public preaching of women, nor incline it, a score of years later, to receive with open-armed hospitality the two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, whose books and trunks were burned on shipboard, and who, upon landing, were haled to prison, in the same spirit of persecution which had driven them from England to the West Indies, and thence to this socalled "land of liberty." Vainly searched for signs of witchcraft, they were then banished for heresy.

Yet the mild doctrines of the Quakers were destined to take root upon American soil, and do their full share in the liberalizing of thought and especially in securing to woman that freedom to preach which has made itself felt in other Christian denominations. The name of no preacher among the Quakers, or "Friends," as they prefer to be called, stands above the name of Lucretia Mott, whose history is too well known to. demand more than a word concerning her call to such public service, as given by herself:

"At twenty-five years of age, surrounded by a little family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life and devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in our Society, receiving every encouragement from those in authority, until a separation from us, in 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than taking authority for truth.

This step into the larger freedom of the Hicksites, or Unitarian branch of Quakers, proved no mistake for one whose heart and life could not measure themselves by theological creeds. To use her own words, "I have felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of our age, than in any theological discussion." And her eloquent pleadings and practical charities for three-quarters of a century are ample witness of her sincerity. The domestic life of Mrs. Mott was in itself a noble refutation of the assertion that eminent public service by women is incompatible with home making, since few homes could show such perfect conjugal union and such thrifty household management. There are about three hundred and fifty. women preachers in this branch of the Christian church at present.