THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.

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regarding some operations performed, then added words of praise and thanksgiving that “the time had come when women coming to the hospital or clinic could there meet women as physician and surgeon, standing side by side as equals with the men in the profession, thus taking away much of the fear and dread which every woman must feel in being in the hands of men only during her unconscious helplessness. Now woman was there as operator or assistant, with deft touch, kindly encourage­ment, gentle womanly ministration, although thoroughly scientific and strong to do her duty.” The pages following were also in regard to her position as physician. The writer, a man, as in the former article, said that “ while women had proven them­selves capable, they had also proved to be utterly heartless, and without pity or sense of care and gentleness;” that they were “ far less cautious in inflicting pain,” and ended by a most solemn warning to all women to “avoid the sex professionally, unless they expected and wish rough handling.” Here were two men speaking from their respective standpoints—the one of elderly years and long experience, a firm friend of woman, and one who has done much to place her in the position which she holds today in the profession. The other, a young man, with probably a rival whom he wished to annihilate. Possibly he had met one who did not honor her calling. Even among the disciples of our Lord there was one who failed utterly in his professions. We do not take him as a type, however, of the other eleven. Women do not ask favors, they expect criticism. They do not ask leniency, but they do ask justice and fair dealing. Taking the same course of study—passing the same examinations, standing, with but few exceptions, at the head of her classes, compelling by her hard- earned success the admiration of both faculty and classmates—woman demands only fair play, at the hands of both the men in the profession and the public at large. She should have, too, in all state and public institutions wdiere women and children are confined, the first positions as physician in charge. The conditions unearthed in some of our insane asylums, so monstrous as to defy, almost, our belief in possibilities, would be made impossible did we have women as physicians and attendants, as we should have. In our police stations, our jails and prisons, wherever we find women degraded, poverty-stricken or diseased, there should we find women by their side as physician. We are so frequently told that women do not stand by each other, do not trust each other, and then when we ask that she may be placed in positions where she may prove this assertion untrue, they are refused her. These congresses, meeting as they have, day after day, and month after month, have been one great object lesson of the fallacy of this saying.

Believing most thoroughly in womanhood and womankind, proud of my sisters in the profession and the business world, you will accept kindly, I trust, one bit of criticism which I have to offer, some of our business and professional women; that is, in regard to the use of our names. Think of Susan B. Anthony as “ Susie,” or Harriet Beecher Stowe as “Hattie” Beecher Stowe. Would our peerless Frances Willard seem quite as dignified as “ Fannie?” Had Abigail Adams lived in our day we hope she would not have been “Abbie,” or that Martha Washington would have been “Mat- tie.” We have grave fears, however, and feel thankful that they got safely into another world before losing the plain but dignified names which always convey a sound of strength and sturdy independence. Personally, we see no necessity for the women in the profession to use the whole name unless they so wish. The initials only are suf­ficient for men—why not for women? Let me make this plea, then, for greater appre­ciation of the small things which go to make up the success of our business life, one of which, by no means the smallest, is a more dignified standard for the names which we bear, and which we all hope to hand down to posterity as honored, worthy a place among those remembered as having done something to lessen the sum total of human suffering, and to have made broader the pathway and brighter the light shining upon woman’s work. That work, in its many departments, has received an impetus by these congresses, held during this never-to-be-forgotten year, which in their results can never be measured. We have taken great strides in learning, in this world-wide touch with