The Express.
London, England, 1866-10-02 00:00:00

FEMALE MEDICAL SOCIETY.

The introductory address in connexion with
this newschool of medicine was delivered at the Queen's
Concert Room, Hanover-square, by Dr. J. Edmunds. There
was a large attendance of the general public and of ladies,
in addition to the students and their friends. After sonic
introductory observations, Dr. Edmunds said the speech
of Dr. William Farr at the last annual meeting of the
Female Medical Society contained the following remark:—
" Midwifery is probably the most advanced and useful
branch of medicine, and is now quite in a state in which
its practice may easily be taught to educated women.
Midwives have never hitherto in this country been taught
the mechanism of childbirth, yet they attend large num-
bers of women in their confinement." Those words,
coming as they did from one of the most useful men whom
the medical profession has hitherto given to the public—
from one who in his study at Somerset-house lins been
quietly laying down the foundation of a real science of
medicine—from one whose judgment possesses the confi-
dence alike of the mathematician, the stat'stician, the
physicist, the medical practitioner, and the public, have a
significance and an interest which make them
well worthy of consideration on the present occasion.
Midwifery was woman's branch of surgery, and a great
truth was propounded when Dr. Farr said that "it is
probably the most advanced and useful branch of medi-
cine." Yet, at this day, on the part of a section of those
who appear to advocate the admission of women to higher
and better fields of labour, they actually met with a revival
of the exploded doctrine that the practice of midwifery
was a menial occupation, unfit for the employment of
educated women, and the teaching operations recently in-
stituted by the Female Medical Society, at 4, Fitzroy-
square, had been described as "an attempt to revive the
oldi midwives," a notion as false as to say that their
great surgical college was designed to revive barber-sin •
geons. The Female Medical Society, without setting any
limits to the medical education of women, or to the fu .ure
extension of the college it had recently commenced, with-
out in any way interfering with those who wished to agitate
for the admission of women to university degrees,
and to the general practice of medicine pre-
cisely as now followed by men, had organised
its present rudimentary teaching operations for the
purpose of meeting a great and pressing social want,
and of superseding that of "the old midwife institutions"
had not necessarily perished in presence of the educa-
tional advantages monopolised by men. It proposed to
induct educated intelligent women with a full knowledge
of modern obstetric science, and the accessory branches of
medicine, and while attempting to do for female mid-
wifery what the now wealthy and powerful corporation of
the Royal College of Surgeons had done in barber surgery,
and thus to raise women to a level in midwifery with
medical men, it would leave the other questions to the
course of events. When they remembered that more than
2,ooobirths occurred every week in London alone, and that
probably more than 2000 guineas were every week paid in
this one city for midwifery fees— that midwifery ac'erc4
ministered alike to the necessities of the poor and of the
rich, of the colonist, of the villager, and of the citizen,
and that woman's hand possessed advantages in this voca-
tion which that of man could never rival, they would be
led to comprehend the fact that the administration of this,
" the most advanced and useful branch of medicine,"
opened up to women a field of professional employment,
womanly as well as lucrative, and unrivalled in scope,
variety, or usefulness by anything now accessible to women
of average gifts. Dr. Edmunds wound up a most inte-
resting address by an appeal to the public to plasm larger
pecuniary means in the bands of the committee of the
Female Medical Society, so that adequate facilities
might be provided to encourage and assist the ladies
who were now devoting themselves to this field of
social usefulness, and that English civilization might
not remain under the reproach conveyed by Dr. Farr.

EMIGRATION FROM LIVERPOOL.—'rho returns
which were issued yesterday by the Liverpool Govern-
ment Emigration officials show an enormous decrease in
the emigration, for the quarter ending September 30, from
tbat port. As usual the larger proportion of the people
emigrating from Liverpool belong to Ireland, and the follow-
ing are the returns of the ships and passengers which have
left the Mersey during the past quarter. The ships sailing
under the act to the United States were 65, with 1,744
cabin and 19,539 steerage passengers ; to Canada, 10 ships,
with 420 cabin and 1,141 steerage passengers ;to Queens-
land, 1 ship, with 4 cabin and 927 steerage passengers ; to
Victoria, 6 ships, with 47 cabin and 1,738 steerage pas-
sengers ; and to South America, 1 ship, with 3 cabin and
72 steerage passenger—making a total of 82 ships, with
2,218 cabin and 23,208 steerage passengers. The ships
sailing from Liverpool without undergoing govert meat
superviskin are as follows :—To the tufted States
29, with 1,933 cabin and 396 steerage passengers ; to
Canada 6, with 194 cabin and 31 steerage passengers ; to
New Brunswick, 1 ship, with 4 cabin pauengers ; to Nova
Scotia, 1 ship, with 34 steerage passengers; to Newfound-
land, 1 ship, with 5 cabin passengers ; to New South
Wales, 2 ships, with 5 cabin and 17 steerage passengers ;
to Victoria, 3 ships, with 26 cabin and 12a steerage pas-
sengers ; to the West Indies, 5 ships, with 32 cabin pas-
sengers ; to South America, 15 ships, with 149 cabin and
96 steerage passengers ; to the Sandwich Islands, 1 ship,
with 4 cabin passengers; to West Coast of Africa, 4
shipe, with 61 cabin passengers ; and to the East Indies,
4 ships, with 17 cabin passengers ; making a total of 72
ships, 2,430 cabin and 702 steerage passengers. The
grand total for the quarter is 154 ships and 28,553 pas-
sengers, which, when compared with the corresponding
quarter, shows a decrease of 10,691 emigrants.
BRMAIYABT.—Eppa's Cocoa (more commonly
called Eppe's Homeopathic Cocoa, as being prepared and in-
troduced by Jas. Epps, the homeopathic chemist Orsteesta-
Mashed la England). For breakfast, no other beverage lsequally
. invigorating and sustaining. By the special mode of preparation
employed, the One Savour possessed by high-class cocoa is re-
' Sued, and tendered extremely delicate and grateful. So general
a favourite has it become, that thousands now use cocoa who
never used it before. "Cocoa stands very much higher than tea
I.thaVte," Realessalleaya en., and 11b. paateis,-(Atered-
R 1