Those
vulgar unions I have mentioned exclude women from skilled labor they
excel in, by violence and conspiracy, though the law threatens them with
imprisonment for it. Was it in nature, then, that the medical union would
be infinitely forbearing, when the Legislature went and patted it on the
back, and said, you can conspire with safety against your female rivals.
Of course the clique were tempted more than any clique could bear by the
unwariness of the Legislature, and closed the doors of the medical
schools to female applicants. Against unqualified female practitioners
they never acted with such zeal and consent; and why? The female quack is
a public pest, and a good foil to the union; the qualified doctress is a
public good, and a blow to the union.
"The British medical union was now in a fine attitude by act of
Parliament. It could talk its contempt of medical women, and act its
terror of them, and keep both its feigned contempt and its real alarm
safe from the test of a public examination--that crucible in which cant,
surmise, and mendacity are soon evaporated or precipitated, and only the
truth stands firm.
"For all that, two female practitioners got upon the register, and stand
out, living landmarks of experience and the truth, in the dead wilderness
of surmise and prejudice.
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