in private practice. It is good news to hear that similar work is being started by the French government in Algeria. The native women who are prevented by their social customs from consulting male doctors will now be able to consult qualified woman physicians free of charge.
Dr. Yamei Kin is the first Chinese woman to take the medical degree in America, and she intends to do work among the Chinese in this country. Women physicians are doing good work in Persia, in China, and the imperial household of Korea has one employed.
Dr. Anneta Newcomb McGee has the honor to the appointed to the United States Army, and did service in the Philippines. Last year she was elected president of the Spanish-American War Nurses. She kindly offered her services to the Japanese government, and was accepted, and for half a year she has been caring for the sick and wounded Japanese and Russians in the Mikado's hospitai and aboard the Imperial Hospital Ship.
While woman physicians are achieving honors at home and abroad, we must not forget their work in the Oregon Country. Dr. Mary P. Sawtelle was probably the first woman in the. Pacific Northwest to practice regular medicine. She located in Salem in the early '70s, and from there moved to California. Following her was Dr. Frances Carpenter Blumauer, a graduate of the Woman's College of Philadelphia, who is now enjoying her well-earned laurels in the City of Portland.
Later we find the names of Dr. Owens-Adair, now residing in North Yakima, who is still in active practice. Dr. Lydia Hunt King, Dr. Denlinger and Dr. Helen Parrish have passed to the great beyond. Dr. N. J. A. Simons, of Vancouver, Washington, one of the pioneer workers, and a graduate of the Homeopathic College of Boston, has retired from the practice of medicine on account of loss of sight. Dr. Victoria Hampton stands at the head of the profession as an expert chemist, and when the testimony of minute chemical analysis is required her authority is unquestioned. There are between two hundred and three hundred women physicians engaged in the regular practice of medicine in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
The woman doctor of to-day asks of her fellow practitioner nothing but her right of equal advantages for her sex, and of the world at large the opportunity to prove for herself that the time-honored profession of medicine may be successfully followed by her daughters as well as her sons.
In February, 1843, Mrs. Spalding was so sick it was feared she would not live. A Nez Perce chief said: "If it could be, I would gladly die in her stead that she might live to teach the people."
"Shortly after my arrival at Portland, in '52," says Rev. John Flinn, "I attended a marriage ceremony, a family wedding. The minister officiating received a pair of gloves and fifty dollars in gold for his services."
