stranger, unheralded, to obtain practice. Ignorance, prejudice, and spetty persecution were to be encountered. Sneers and ridicule were the staple arguments against her. Some gentlemen of the profession took special pains to array public sentiment against the movement. "A woman's intellectual incapacity and her physical weaknesses will ever disqualify her for the duties." "She will either kill her patients or let them die." "It would be evidence of insanity or idiocy to employ her." "If you call in a woman you will have to call a man afterward, and no man will meet a woman in consultation." These expressions were heard on every side. With unwavering purpose and confidence in ultimate success, she was not discouraged, but availed herself of this enforced leisure, to prepare and deliver a course of "Lectures to Ladies on Medical Subjects." She also delivered a carefully written lecture, on the "Medical Education of Women," to a large and appreciative audience, in one of the largest halls of the city, and repeated it, as well as the course to ladies, in other halls and churches. These lectures, besides inducing consideration and right views upon the general subject, introduced her more fully to the public, and enabled her hearers to form some judgment of her qualifications for the duties she had assumed. The result was, that, one by one, many of those who heard her called on her for advice and aid. By the third year her practice had increased so that she was obliged to abandon all idea of further lectures, and also to resign her position as demonstrator in the college. Since then it has steadily extended, until few physicians of either sex, and among women perhaps none, except Mrs. Lozier, can equal it. As many as three hundred families in the city rely upon her exclusively for medical care, and it is no uncommon thing for her to prescribe for forty patients in a day. Her practice is legitimate and general, that is, it includes all forms of disease, acute and chronic, in respectable family treatment, with sur

gery among women and children. Of the latter, she has had occasion to perform many extremely delicate and dangerous operations, with what success, the best testimony that can be desired, is the growing confidence with which she is called upon by the most intelligent class of citizens. The objection often urged against the introduction of female physicians, — that they cannot endure the inevitable fatigues and exposures, - has met a practical answer in the instance of Mrs. Longshore. Inheriting from her mother a delicate constitution, her early childhood was one of sensitiveness and suffering, notwithstanding the benefit derived from the mode of life which we have described, judiciously regulated. At the age of fifteen she very narrowly escaped from a prostrating and protracted attack, requiring many months for recovery. At the time of graduation, the faculty predicted an early death from consumption. Since then her weight has greatly increased, and she gives every token of vigor. It is her conviction that her continued life and present degree of health are due to the active habits of the profession.

Mrs. Longshore is constitutionally extremely diffident. For many years she was so easily embarrassed that she dreaded and shunned society, beyond the limited circle of a few friends. To appear in public as a lecturer, and to visit strangers professionally, always required a struggle against this timidity and the habit of reserve; yet she has so far subdued it, by absorption in her objects, that it would hardly be detected in her deportment. In appearance she is characterized by entire simplicity, equally removed from coarseness and from affectation; not adopting the Quaker costume and language, but plain in her mode of speech and dress, with an openness of countenance expressive of a truthful spirit. Direct, unhesitating, and informal in her approach to a case; unpretending, and yet evidently assured in the exercise of her judgment; with a peculiar mingling of personal molesty

and professional positiveness, she inspires patients with immediate trust, which is rarely forfeited. Cool, cheerful, rapid in her manner as physician, almost seeming to make light of their ailments, she leaves them refreshed by her visit, scarcely conscious of their need of condolence, and yet often before leaving the houses of those endeared to her by long acquaintance or dependence upon her care, she sheds the tears of a true woman and a sympathizing mother. Her mind acts with the quickness of intuition or of keen perceptions, and a brief interview, with a few questions, usually suffices to guide her in the choice of remedies. In her selection of these, she is not governed by any routine, nor limited to one school of medicine, but considers that she is at liberty to avail herself of any means which her experience has proved useful or the peculiarities of the case suggest. For some time past, the prejudices which she at first encountered from the "fraternity," especially under the pressure of resolutions early adopted by the county society and some other organizations, have yielded to the evidences of her ability; and now some of the leading physicians of the city freely meet her in consultation, while others, too much trammelled by regulations, or personal fears, to act openly, have recommended her to their female patients, and, in several instances, while publicly uniting in measures of opposition to women as practitioners, have privately sent to her for treatment their own wives and daughters.

In the midst of these exacting and exhausting claims upon her time, Mrs. Longshore is, in her domestic relations, affectionate and faithful. Her husband and children are preferred above all other objects of interest. Without them, she often declares that life would lose its chief charm to her, a declaration the sincerity of which they and her intimate friends fully credit and abundantly testify, and which is confirmed by the order of her household, and by her readiness at any

time to consult their comfort at the sacrifice of her own. Her warm and active sympathy, also, with every movement promising benefit for the wronged, the oppressed, and suffering, especially to those of her own sex, is well known among her friends. Her gratuitous labors among the poor she has always felt to be a duty, and congenial to her disposition. She never knowingly accepts a fee from the needy, while she is constantly distributing food, clothing, and other comforts, gathered from every source within her reach. Not so much marked by the devotional element, or uplifting spirituality, as some whom we have already noticed, she is certainly abundant in those fruits of pure and undefiled religion, which consist in visiting the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, and keeping unspotted from the world, and we trust is actuated in it by the divine precept "to do good and to communicate; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."

A younger sister, Miss Jane V. Myers, M. D., resides in her family, and has a large and lucrative independent practice. An older half-sister, Mrs. Mary F. Thomas, M. D., now living at Camden, Indiana, has been actively engaged in that State several years. For two years she was editor, and for a longer time contributor to a semi-monthly journal devoted mainly to the cause of women, published in Richmond, Indiana. During the rebellion she was occupied much in collecting and distributing supplies, and a portion of the time her husband, O. Thomas, M. D., and herself had charge of a hospital in Tennessee.

MISS ANN PRESTON, M. D.

If we were seeking a subject for an attractive biography merely, there are many women whom we might have chosen in preference to Miss Preston, for the striking characteristics

or stirring incidents which their lives would have furnished; yet there are few whose lives are more worthy of record, or their qualities of imitation, or whose work has been more effective for the cause we are advocating. Indeed, the few facts which we are allowed to use are given us for their bearings upon the cause, rather than for personal representation. Identi. fied with the college and the hospital, she prefers to be known chiefly through them, and to have her reputation merged in whatever good they may accomplish. Yet the public, who witness and honor these results of unobtrusive labor, have right to know more of the personality of one who is so clearly a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.

She was born December, 1830, at West Grove, Pennsylvania, in the old homestead of her grandfather, where her father was born and died, and where she lived until constrained to leave it for a wider sphere of action. Her father was Amos Preston, a devoted Quaker. An obituary notice of him, by one who had known him from childhood, speaks of him as a man of unusual intellectual gifts, "enthusiastic in the pursuit of truth, particularly on those subjects which most nearly affect the present and everlasting welfare of the race, and inflexibly faithful to his convictions of duty; possessed of a warm social nature and a rare faculty for entering into sympathy with the wants and interests of others, which, together with his acknowledged disinterestedness, inspired confidence, so that he was trusted and loved by his personal friends as few men have been. In the domestic relations the beauty of his character shone conspicuous. The family government was that of perfect love, while frankness and mutual confidence marked his intercourse with his children." Her mother also is mentioned as "fond of literature and having an intense love of nature, with a sensitive nervous organization. "Miss Preston evidently combines in herself the constitutional traits of both parents. Her only sister dying in infancy, the delicate health