ion, of course, sets strongly in favor of the medical education of females. In the medical profession, the question has already been mooted, Shall female physicians be recognized? This is a new question in medical ethics, which is not provided for in our national code. How shall it be decided? Shall we, or shall we not, recognize properly educated female physicians as practitioners in good and lawful standing? To recognize them is to encourage their study of medicine, and to commit ourselves to the removal of every obstacle to their education. It were well therefore if this question were definitely settled. We have sketched above a representative example of a female physician. Let us consider the salient points which it presents; and incidentally indicate the principal sphere of usefulness which medically educated women are calculated to fill with advantage to themselves and the public. 1st. The allegation of the incompetency of women can not be sustained. This lady was one of the best qualified of the graduating class, many members of which have since risen to positions of usefulness and distinction. She persisted in her resolution to attend the entire course on anatomy, not from any morbid taste, but from a firm determination to make her medical education thorough and complete. She won the respect of the most learned of our profession abroad by her intelligent zeal in the pursuit of her professional studies. But we need not discuss the question of

woman's intellectual abilities to cope with the most abstruse questions in the medical sciences, while the admirable works of Mesdames Boivin and Lachapelle are recognized as authorities. 2d. Nor could it be alleged against her that she sought to pursue any irregular course of medicine. On the contrary, she was in the highest sense orthodox; and it can not be proved that female physicians will be more prone to quackery than the opposite sex, provided the same educational advantages are accorded to them. 3d. This lady physician engaged in general practice, and though she had the sympathies of a large circle of wealthy and influential friends, as well as physicians, she failed of patronage, and hence of success. She was found unable to meet the exigencies of the every-day duties of her profession, as every one practically familiar with the exacting nature of those duties would have foreseen. The storm, the cold, the night, the distance, were barriers which she could not overcome without assuming the habits, dress, and manners of the opposite sex. And often the disease which she encountered was of such a nature as to compel her either to unsex herself in regard to her instinctive habit of reticence and modesty, or preserve her feminine sensibilities by neglecting her professional duty. 4th. Subsequently she became the medical head of a private charity for the treatment of sick women, in which capacity her medical education is admirably adapted to

develop and give efficiency to her natural tastes and instincts, and thus render her life one of eminent usefulness. In this sphere of professional duty, we shall doubtless yet see woman take a most prominent part. There is scarcely a charity, having a medical element, which she is not in many respects better adapted to manage than the opposite sex. In hospitals and asylums for her own sex, for children, and for the aged, she is pre-eminently qualified to have the entire management. It is questionable also if her quick perception, her generous sympathies, her kindly influences, and her admitted jurisdiction over all that pertains to domestic regulations, would not peculiarly qualify her for the care and superintendency of lunatic asylums, reformatories, etc., if a proper medical education were superadded. These are but few of the many branches of medical service which will open inviting fields of labor to those women who are attracted to the study of medicine. It is idle to resist the progress of public opinion toward the largest liberty in the education of women for the most active duties of society, and their free choice of, and perfect equality in, such departments as they may elect to enter. It is certain that medicine, which gives such scope to the study of the natural sciences, and such development to the higher sentiments and holier feelings in the practical application of its principles, will hereafter invite women to our ranks in yearly increasing numbers.

XI.

FOREIGN EMIGRATION.

TH

HE facilities for emigration from European ports have been largely increased within a few years, and it is gratifying to notice a corresponding improvement in the class of persons who are now seeking homes among us. The protection which our authorities now extend to the immigrant immediately upon his arrival, and the facilities which they afford him for reaching his destination, should be noticed as having an important bearing upon his happiness and future success. For a long period the immigrant was left a prey to desperate bands of land-pirates who hovered about quarantine. Ignorant of the language, unaccustomed to traveling, unsuspicious and confiding, the poor traveler would readily fall into the toils laid for him, and even before landing would often be divested of every farthing of his carefully preserved treasure. Thus thousands, whose destination was the far West, were left destitute in our city, and compelled to seek daily bread by any menial service. Happily these outrages are now rarely perpetrated, and the immigrant, with his family and goods, passes directly, rapidly, and undisturbed

to his ulterior destination. There is, however, one passage in the history of the emigrant which deserves the immediate attention of government. We refer to the wholesale prostitution of unprotected females on shipboard by the ship's crew. The revelation of these crimes, which are frequently made, are discreditable in the highest degree to masters of ships, and even to shipowners. If we are not misinformed, emigrant vessels are often but floating brothels. Government should throw around the emigrants, during the voyage, such safeguards as will protect them from the hand of violence and of crime of every nature. There are some features in the history of emigration to this country which we shall take occasion to notice in connection with the above facts. Previously to September 30, 1819, no reliable records of immigration were kept by our government, and all computations of its amount at any given period before that date are conjectural. It is estimated, in round numbers, that from 1754 to 1819, 150,000 immigrants landed on our shores. After 1819 the public records give us reliable data from which to ascertain the extent and fluctuation of immigration. It appears that from this date, to December 31, 1855, the number of alien emigrants was 4,212,624. For the first year of this period, ending September 30, 1820, the number was 8,385, the increase was gradual, until 1831-2, when it rose from 22,633 to 53,179. From this period the increase regularly continued