More of This Feature • General • Mosaic Law, Ancient India • Roman Law • Christian Law • Northern Europe Law • English Law • Husband and Wife • Criminal Law • Education • Professions • Nursing and Medicine • Government and Politics • Women Practicing Law • Women as Clergy • Women's Rights Agitation • Woman Suffrage   • Woman Suffrage 1865-1906 • Woman Suffrage 1906-1910 • Woman Suffrage Societies • Woman Suffrage New Zealand and Australia • Woman Suffrage America • Woman Suffrage Europe • Woman Suffrage International • Sources

Related Resources • Index to Etexts on Women's History • Women's History: Medicine • Female Physicians • Nurses and Nursing

Note that this entry is a product of its time, and should be read in that context. Footnotes have been omitted to make the text easier to follow. Also note that scanning and editing may have introduced a few errors into the transcription. Because of these errors, if you need to use this information in an academic paper, please consult the original, available at many libraries.

This continues the entry under "Women" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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Women have always found a peculiarly fitting sphere as nurses, though it is only in recent years that nursing has been professionalized by means of proper education. But their admission to the medical profession itself was one of the earliest triumphs of the 19th-century movement. It began in America, but was quickly followed up in England. After having been refused admission to instruction by numerous American medical schools, Miss Elizabeth Blackwell was allowed to enter as a student by the Geneva Medical College, N.Y., in 1847, from which she graduated in 1849. Hers was the first woman's name to be placed on the Medical Register of the United Kingdom (1859). In Great Britain the struggle to obtain admission to the teaching schools and to the examinations for medical degrees and diplomas was long and bitter. Though the Society of the Apothecaries admitted Mrs Garrett Anderson to their diploma in 1865, it was only after a series of rebuffs and failures that women were admitted to the degree examinations of the various universities. In August 1876 an ?enabling? act was passed, empowering the nineteen British medical examining bodies to confer their degrees or diplomas without distinction of sex. In 1908 the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons decided to admit women to their diplomas and fellowships. In the meantime women doctors had become a common phenomenon.

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More of this article: General | Mosaic Law, Ancient India | Roman Law | Christian Law  | Northern Europe Law | English Law | Husband and Wife | Criminal Law | Education | Professions | Nursing and Medicine | Government and Politics | Women Practicing Law | Women as Clergy | Women's Rights Agitation | Woman Suffrage | Woman Suffrage 1865-1906 | Woman Suffrage 1906-1910 | Woman Suffrage Societies | Woman Suffrage New Zealand and Australia | Woman Suffrage America | Woman Suffrage Europe | Woman Suffrage International | Sources

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Part of a collection of etexts on women's history produced by Jone Johnson Lewis. Editing and formatting © 1999-2003 Jone Johnson Lewis.