508 JVOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Women doctors are now found in all parts of the civilized 

 world and are numbered by thousands. And so great has 

 been their professional success, so widespread is the desire 

 to secure their services, especially in countries like Amer- 

 ica and England, where opposition was in the beginning 

 especially bitter, that the proportion of women practition- 

 ers in medicine and surgery is now regarded as the best 

 index of a nation's enlightenment. 



The healing art of Greece and Rome has broadened out 

 into the noble sciences of medicine and surgery of to-day. 

 For, based as they now are on the sciences of chemistry, 

 botany, biology, hygiene, physiology, anatomy and bacteri- 

 ology, which have all witnessed such extraordinary devel- 

 opments during the last half century, they both deserve a 

 preeminent place in the history of the sciences. And the 

 success which has crowned woman's efforts in surgery and 

 medicine is not only a conclusive indication of her capac- 

 ity, so long denied by her self-interested opponents, but 

 also the most convincing indication that she is at last 

 properly occupied in a field of activity from which she 

 was too long excluded. Her contributions as writer and 

 investigator toward the progress of both sciences, even dur- 

 ing the short time in which she has been able to give proof 

 of her ability, have been notable and augur well for the 

 share she will have in their future advancement. But 

 more important still is the refining influence she has al- 

 ready exerted on both professions, and the relief she has 

 been able to afford to countless thousands of her own sex 

 who would otherwise have been the voluntary victims of 

 untold misery. Women doctors are, indeed, not only 

 worthy representatives of ^sculapia Victrix and of the 

 two sciences which they have so elevated and so ennobled, 

 but are also ministering angels to poor, suffering human- 

 ity comparable only with the heroic Sisters of Charity and 

 the devoted nurses of the Red Cross. 



