CHAPTER VII
RETURN TO ENGLAND
1869
In 1869 the early pioneer work in America was
ended. During the twenty years which followed the
graduation of the first woman physician, the public
recognition of the justice and advantage of such
a measure had steadily grown. Throughout the
Northern States the free and equal entrance of
women into the profession of medicine was secured.
In Boston, New York, and Philadelphia special
medical schools for women were sanctioned by the
Legislatures, and in some long-established colleges
women were received as students in the ordinary
classes.
Our New York centre was well organised under able guidance, and I determined to return to England for a temporary though prolonged residence, both to renew physical strength, which had been severely tried, and to enlarge my experience of life, as well as to assist in the pioneer work so bravely commencing in London, and which extended later to Edinburgh.
I soon found that social questions of vital im-
