WOMAN'S LONG IMPOSTURE.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 130, 29 April 1926, Page 2

WOMAN'S LONG IMPOSTURE.

Dr M. V. Mayfield, who was by everybody supposed to he a man, has during her recent illness proclaimed herself to be a woman. The doctor, who is aged 74 years, lias for the last 25 years practised medicine, put up her brass plate (says an exchange), and, was accepted! by the community for what she professed to be—a male general practitioner. In the course of time the doctor’s practice became extremely profitable, and so great was “ his ” skill and reputation that sufferers came from far and wide to be treated for their various ills. Dr Mayfield never on any occasion, even to intimates, told anything of her life history. They are not inquisitive folk, and hence nothing was known of her. , .Since her serious and long illness, which it is feared may be her last, she has confided, to those at her bedjside something of her history. In England, where she was born, her parents needed a son to protect their property rights, and she was dressed als a boy and grew u.p wearing the male garb. Taking to the study of .medicine, which she pursued with zeal, she became a qualified physician, but kept to the clothing which she had worn since childhood.