January 23, 1855.
Your letter came yesterday, giving me an account of M.'s relapse and the many anxieties you have suffered lately. I confess to feeling an intense anxiety about her notwithstanding the hope conveyed in your letter, and I shall look to the coming of the postman with dread for the next three weeks lest he should bring me evil news. You have been pursuing your studies in a way we did not anticipate the last eight weeks, but very surely it is not lost time; the responsibilities of such a case will strengthen you for every future case, and as an illustration of or commentary on Dr. S.'s practice, I don't think it will be lost to you. The whole case from beginning to end strikes me as a horrid barbarism, but at the same time I fully allow that it is the way to make a reputation. M.'s death would be little to him, the responsibility would be staved off in a dozen different ways, and if she succeeded in her object, no end to the trumpeting of his praise! I see every day that it is the 'heroic,' self-reliant, and actively self-imposing practitioner that excites a sensation and reputation; the rational and conscientious physician is not the famous one.
I have just heard one piece of news which decidedly indicates progress and which is peculiarly cheering to me, because I am persuaded that I have been chiefly instrumental in it. The New York Hospital has opened its doors to women this winter; there is now a class of eight women, all pupils from Dr. Trall's hydropathic institute, who attend regularly the clinical visits and lectures in the amphitheatre with all the other students. The matter was discussed in full board, Trimble and Collins both advocating, and it was resolved to make the experiment, Drs. Smith, Buck, and Watson, the then attending physicians, being present and consenting, quite con-
