200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gusting mixture of herbs, soap, and honey, boiled in water ; and the 

 pills were made of "calcined wild-carrot seeds, burdock-seeds, ashen 

 keys, hips, and haws all burned to a blackness soap and honey." 



Contemporary Avith Mrs. Stephens lived another impostor, Mrs. 

 Mapp, sometimes known as " Crazy Sally of Epsom," and described as 

 an "enormously fat, ugly creature, accustomed to frequent country 

 fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming, abusive, and in a state 

 of beastly intoxication." This attractive lady was by pi-ofession a 

 bone-setter, and was patronized by patients of rank and wealth, who 

 sought her charily bestowed favors with ill-disguised contempt of her 

 person. The town authorities of Epsom greatly esteemed Mrs. Mapp, 

 or, perhaps we should say, highly valued the benefit the town derived 

 from the influx of wealthy patients, and they offered her the sum of 

 five hundred dollars per annum if she would continue to reside in the 

 town. 



The fii'st half of this century has witnessed the career of a few 

 women eminent in the art of healing ; in France Madame La Chapelle 

 had an extensive gynecological practice, and Madame Boivin attained 

 to such distinction that she was honored with the degree of Doctor of 

 Medicine by the University of Marburg. In Germany Charlotte Hei- 

 denreich and Fran Heiland, her step-mother, were similarly honored 

 with doctors' diplomas. 



It is the glory of America that she is distinguished above all coun- 

 tries not only as the cradle of liberty but also as the foster-mother of 

 the intellectual advancement of women. Yet this has not always been 

 the case ; in the early chronicles of the colonists (themselves refugees 

 from persecution) we find, strangely enough, many laws of an exacting 

 and repressive character, some of which were aimed directly at the 

 ambition and zeal of women. In the famous Blue Laws of Connecti- 

 cut the following curious entry occurs under the date of March, 1638 : 

 " Jane Hawkins, the wife of Richard Hawkins, had liberty till the 

 beginning of the third month called May, and the magistrates (if shee 

 did not depart before) to dispose of her ; and in the mean time shee is 

 not to meddle in surgery or phisick, drinks, plaisters or oyles, nor to 

 question matters of religion except with the Elders for satisfaction." 

 (" True Blue Laws of Connecticut," by J. H. Trumbull, 1876.) 



A hundred and forty years later we find marked progress in lib- 

 erality in the State of Connecticut. As early as 1773, in the town 

 of Torrington, Litchfield County, two women were greatly honored 

 and much sought for on account of their remarkable skill as accou- 

 cheuses. The first of these, Mrs. Jacob Johnson, to quote the historian 

 of Torrington (Rev. Samuel Orcutt), was as thoroughly known and 

 trusted in her profession as any physician that was ever in the town. 

 " She rode on horseback, keeping a horse for the special purpose, and 

 traveling night and day, far and near," to meet her engagements. 

 "She kept an account of the number of cases she had, and the success 



