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Reade, Charles, 1814-1884

"A Woman-Hater"

We were angels compared with this paltry
creature, and she was the standing butt of public censure, until it was
found that an imaginary picture of her could be made the handle for
insulting her betters.
"Against these seven prudes, decent dotards and their foul-mouthed allies
flung out insinuations which did not escape public censure; and the
medical students declared their modesty was shocked at our intrusion into
anatomy and surgery, and petitioned against us. Some of the Press were
deceived by this for a time, and _hurlaient avec les loups._
"I took up, one day, my favorite weekly, in which nearly every writer
seems to me a scholar, and was regaled with such lines as these:
"'It appears that girls are to associate with boys as medical students,
in order that, when they become women, they may be able to speak to men
with entire plainness upon all the subjects of a doctor's daily practice.
"'In plain words, the aspirants to medicine and surgery desire to rid
themselves speedily and effectually of that modesty which nature has
planted in women.' And then the writer concludes: 'We beg to suggest that
there are other places besides dissecting-rooms and hospitals where those
ladies may relieve themselves of the modesty which they find so
troublesome.


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