Victorian London - Women - in Public - women as doctors

The Times, January 7, 1868

THE EMPLOYMENT OF EDUCATION WOMEN

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Sir, - In your able article on the Workshop Regulation Act, you draw a faithful picture of the many obstacles which exist in the way of women procuring honest and profitable employment in England. This difficulty is felt quite as much, if not more, by the educated classes as by those lower in the social scale; witness the over-stocked condition of the governess market. I would not venture to trouble you with these remarks were it not that is it in my power to direct the attention of ladies thrown up their own resources to an occupation well adapted for them, which as yet has but comparatively few disciples - viz, the practise of obstetrics, as taught at the Ladies' Medical College, 4, Fitzroy-square. The proof that this is an occupation ladies will find both suitable and profitable is shown by the fact that patients attended by some of those who have passed through the curriculum of study prescribed at the college are desirous to testify in every way their appreciated of the attendance of ladies in these delicate cases. It is a branch of woman's work which has been strangely neglected of late years in this country, though pursued with much honour and profit by women in other parts of the world. What, in fact, can be more essentially an occupation fit for properly trained women than that they should be the attendants on their sisters at seasons when the assistance of a skilled woman is preferable to any other? That educated ladies can act ably as accoucheuses and obstetrices is undergoing daily proof.
    I shall be happy to give any information either to ladies desirous of entering the college or to those who would like to secure the attendance of a qualified accoucheuse, and thus aid in extending the field of honourable female employment.     I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
ISABEL THORNE.
18, Charles-street, Grosvenor-square, W.

letter to The Times, January 1868

THE FEMININE "FACULTY."

New Housemaid (to her Master). "O, SIR! I'M GLAD YOU'VE COME IN. THERE'S A PARTY A WAITIN' IN THE SURGERY TO SEE YOU." (It was Mrs. Dr. Mandragora Nightshade, who had called professionally about "a Case.") "HE - SHE - WOULD COME IN, SIR - AND - I THINK" (shuddering) "IT'S A MAN IN WOMAN'S CLOTHES, SIR!!!"

Punch, May 24, 1873