LADIES' COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 224, 16 May 1872, Page 8

LADIES' COLUMN.

WOMEN DOCTORS. (From, the "iVew York Tribune,")

The prospects of medical education for women aro brightening. The medical faculty of Moscow, it is stated, have not only- decided that the privilege of acquiring a thorough medical knowledge would be of utility to women, but have " resolved to admit them to the educational courses and lectures of the University, and to the privilege of following all the labours of the Medico-Cbirurgical Academy. The Emperor has also issued an order that women shall be instructed in midwifery, and authorised them to act as surgeons, to vaccinate, and be employed as chemists." In contrast to this is tho course of the professors in Edinburgh, who have just gained their point in tho University Court for the present, and stopped the progress of the ladies who have successfully passed their first examination. This action of tho doctors is an odd example of Scotch obstinacy ; the University, in 1800, passed resolutions admitting women to the full rights and privileges of tho medical instruction, *' provided tho classes were kept separate from those of the male students." Several women paid their matriculation fees, but have been baulked by the simple dogged refusal of the individual professors to lecture to them. Whether the Edinburgh ladies have followed the most effective or politic course in the manner of urging their claims, there is certainly great room to question. In one or two instances they have been neither wise nor womanly ; but Scotch women, as Scotch men, are apt to trample down any small- gentleness or courtesies that blossom on their way when they aro on the trail of'an abstract bit of justice. The quibble of individual right to chooso their pupils urged by the professors, by which the women are deprived of their legal right to instruction, will not, however avail very long. John Bull's strong love of fair play and weaker sense of chivalry are both roused, and Mr. Gladstone but uttered the popular feeling, when he expressed, in his late speech at Greenwich, his willingness to aid " in removing the serious social inequalities under which women labour, so far as it could be done without tampering with the fundamental laws which providentially determine their place iv the world." Ihe slow pi ogress made by women who sincerely desire to educate themselves thoroughly for this profession is the more singular in view of the fact that, since the days of Pharaoh's midwives, women have been amateur doctors all over the world. The fair mistresses of the Crusaders could not read or write very probably, •but they had no inconsiderable skill in pharmacy, and even surgery ; and in the East women have, of necessity, the medical care of their own sex. Tet Dr. Beddoes, in 1790, was the first physician who delivered lectures to ladies, and urged their proper training for the work. We know of no reason for this tardy advance, apart from the strenuous opposition of regular physicians. The higher the rank a practitioner holds in his profession, the more apt he is to protect its bounds by strict class etiquette and conservatism, and to guard against quackery with an over sensitive jealousy. Women, as they know, either as scholars or workers, are not unjustly held to be open to the foregone suspicion of shallowness, hastp, and lack of thoroughness or precision. The female student of medicine, therefore, enters the field with the stigma of her sex clinging to her, and it is by no vituperation or coup de force, such as Miss Jex Blake attempted in Edinburgh, that she will ensure success, but rather by the thoroughness and patience as scholars which have marked some of the American women when striving for their position, and the skill and unpretentious merit which they have shown when it was gained.

They have a woman orator in San Francisco. Here is a portion of a speech she made recently :—": — " They say man was created first. Sposin he was ! Ain't all first experiments failures ? If I was a betting mau I'd bet two dollars and half they are. The only decent thing about him, anyhow, was a rib, and that went to make something better. And then they throw it in our face about Eve taking that apple. I'll bet five dollars Adam boosted her up in the tree, and then gave her only the core. And what did he do when he was found oub? True to his masculine instinct, ho sneaked behind Eve's Grecian bend, and " Twaren't me, twas her." Bring up your little daughters to love and caress the ballot, and when they are old and scrawny they will not depart from it. Teach them that man occupies no position that woman cannot fill, even to a pair of pants. We have plenty of ballet girls, but what we want is ballot women.

A dangerous practice for beautifying the personal appearance, is rapidly spreading among the fashionable women of the United State?, which, if not stopped, will be productive, of much alarming results. It is ar enic eating. The drug produces a most pleasing, fresh, and healthful appearance, together with a certain degree of "embonpoint." It is- taken in the commencement in a very small doses, a fraction of a grain, and is continued for some length of time, when the

quantity has to be increased until the desired effect is obtained. After a person begins' to use it there is no turning back, and the amount has to be continually increased until it breaks down the constitution. Finally tbe point is reached where . to continue it is death, to turn back is death also ; there is no escape, no means to avert the dreadful fate which sooner or later meets the arsenic eater ; and a most horrible death fron poisoning is the penalty which all have to paj who once begin to practise the temporary enjoyment.