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The following letter, lately published in the New York 'Church Union' by a well-known physician of New York, is interesting as the testimony of a gentleman who was a fellow-student in the Geneva Medical College.
The Medical Co-education of the Sexes. By Stephen
Smith, M.D.
Medical circles were recently entertained by a symposium of prominent physicians discussing the propriety of the medical co-education of the sexes. All of the writers were opposed to the suggestion; some, notably Dr. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, expressed the utmost disgust at the proposition. It happened to me to have witnessed the first instance of the co-education of medical students of both sexes in this country, and the results quite upset the theories of these gentlemen.
The first course of medical lectures which I attended was in a medical college in the interior of this State in 1847-48. The class, numbering about 150 students, was composed largely of young men from the neighbouring towns. They were rude, boisterous, and riotous beyond comparison. On several occasions the residents of the neighbourhood sent written protests to the faculty, threatening to have the college indicted as a nuisance if
