any man. This is one of the main reasons why I have, for twenty
years past, advocated the training of women for the medical
profession; and one which countervails, in my mind, all possible
objections to such a movement. And now, thank God, we are seeing
the common sense of Great Britain, and indeed of every civilised
nation, gradually coming round to that which seemed to me, when I
first conceived of it, a dream too chimerical to be cherished save
in secret--the restoring woman to her natural share in that sacred
office of healer, which she held in the Middle Ages, and from
which she was thrust out during the sixteenth century.

I am most happy to see, for instance, that the National Health
Society, {3} which I earnestly recommend to the attention of my
readers, announces a "Course of Lectures for Ladies on Elementary
Physiology and Hygiene," by a lady, to which I am also most happy
to see, governesses are admitted at half-fees. Alas! how much
misery, disease, and even death might have been prevented, had
governesses been taught such matters thirty years ago, I, for one,
know too well. May the day soon come when there will be educated
women enough to give such lectures throughout these realms, to
rich as well as poor--for the rich, strange to say, need them
often as much as the poor do--and that we may live to see, in
every great town, health classes for women as well as for men,
sending forth year by year more young women and young men taught,
not only to take care of themselves and of their families, but to
exercise moral influence over their fellow-citizens, as champions
in the battle against dirt and drunkenness, disease and death.

There may be those who would answer--or rather, there would
certainly have been those who would have so answered thirty years