The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-10-22

women are not admitted to the medical
school, neither are they at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania. At the College
of Physicians and Surgeons in New
York, none Of the great doctors lecture
to women. Cornell has just opened its
medical department to them, and this
is the nearest that any institution has
come to admitting women students of
medicine on an equality with men.
Johns Hopkins admits the two on an
equality, it is true, and there, while
the university is neither so large nor so
old as Harvard the most scientific
work is done, but even there there are
many positions not open to women. 1t
is a great advantage to a student upon
graduating, to have a year or two in a
hospital, and the chance to do so is
eagerly anticipated, but
ALL SUCH OPPORTUNITIES
are at Johns Hopkins reserved for men.
Now, as to women going into medi-
cine, l shouldn't advise their doing 1t
MERELY AS A BUSINESS ENTER
PRISE.
1t would be impossible to succeed in the
right way if money only were the aim.
There is money to be made in it I'M
doubtedly, but many women go into
it in consequence of newspaper and
other articles that they read, which
give them exaggerated and false ideas
of the life of a woman practitioner and
her profits. They fancy that all they
will have to do is ride around the coun-
try, making little society calls here and
there and gathering in the money. They
do not realize that they must work
hard and that often the
RESPONSIBILITY OF A LIFE
must rest in their hands"
Are women as well able to stand that
responsibility as menu
Some women are; there are women
and women as there are men and men,
A great many women graduate whom
as members of the profession you can
be proud of. l should say that the
character of the women students had
changed since the early days. Many
have the idea that medicine will afford
them large pay, and they rush into it
as other women rush into nursing;
then, when they find it harder and less
remunerative than they had expected
they drop out. But as a rule, they
are very earnest girls, a good many
have been teachers who have made
money enough to study medicine, and
their four years of college life are filled
with hard work and self-denial. They
make the most of their time and of
every advantage that is offered to Them
and are in the profession to stay. The
pity of it is when a woman who is not
fitted for a doctor, undergoes such
hardshps, only to find herself disap-
pointed and discouraged at the end of
the first year of practice. Enough CAPT
tai is required to live on for a year or
two after graduating; without it life
would be decidedly precarious.
Among the most determined anita
gonists of the woman physicians are
women themselves. If they come out
strongly for them, they would be popu-
lar, but many women are weak and
have no minds of their own, and be-
sides they are used to men and to look
ing UP to them. There is no opening
for women outside of women and chill
dren; a woman is not fitted by nature
to practice among men. She ought to
be ready to do it, for the time might
come when she would be called upon
to practice among them, but till that
time comes, 1 can't see that she would
have any excuse for it. A woman can
be womanly physician and a wom-
anly woman"