h it was publicly approved by the French
Academy of Surgeons, December 1, 1758.
Morandi, born in Bologna in 1716, and Beheron, born at Paris in 1730,
invented and perfected the use of wax preparations to represent
diseases. Beheron's collection was purchased by Catharine II, of Russia,
and went to St. Petersburg. Hunter acknowledged his obligations to her.
Morandi's collection, at Bologna, was visited and purchased by Joseph
II. She was Professor of Anatomy at the university. Lady Mary Wortley
Montague introduced inoculation into Europe; and the intelligent
observation of a farmer's wife led Dr. Jenner to his experiments with
vaccine matter.
The services of regularly qualified lady physicians are now eagerly
sought, not only in the United States, where they in later times first
proved their capability, but also in foreign countries. Medical
universities, the sage faculties of which once frowned with scorn upon
"women who would be guilty of the indelicacy of pushing themselves into
the medical profession," now gladly open their doors to them; the more
candid of the professors admitting that the "indelicacy," not to say
indecency, is upon the side of men who would push themselves into the
sick-chamber of a woman, and make inquiries of her concerning symptoms
peculiar to her sex, when there are women who are competent to attend to
her case.
Little by little the mists of superstition and error, incident to
barbaric times, are being dispelled by the genial light of a brighter
day. Even now, genteel ignorance is not esteemed the acme of feminine
perfection, except by those theorists who would degrade woman mentally,
that they themselves may thus acquire so much a higher elevation--at
least in their own imaginations--as to stand to them in God's stead, or,
at the very least, to be a semi-deity whose superior wisdom is to be
worshiped.
The facilities for acquiring a good common education, of late years
afforded to the masses, in which there was not so wide a distinction
made between the sexes as formerly, have accomplished much in removing
old-time prejudices; as the searching examinations of these public
schools have fairly tested the capabilities of both boys and girls, and
have established the fact that, with equal opportunities, the girls were
fully equal to the boys in mental ability and attainments. Grudgingly,
girls have been allowed to enter the grammar and higher schools; and
here, too, by their proficiency, t
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