Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/215

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FEMALE PHYSICIANS.
211
mistake, the whole scheme must be abandoned for want of support. That females may, under certain circumstances and to a certain extent; render medical services to the sick, and especially those of their own sex, is not denied; but the idea of their engaging in the general practice of medicine and surgery, is preposterous.

Nature has evidently designed each of the sexes for some common and some special duties. Besides those offices which may be performed with equal propriety by either sex, there are others which clearly belong to one or the other exclusively, and which can never become the common province of both. This separation of duties and offices is a plain dictate of common sense, and has obtained in all ages and in every, condition of society. Among the rudest nations, the business of war and the chase, and all the more athletic offices, have always been assumed exclusively by the male sex. As men became more enlightened and society more refined, a nicer and more complete separation of offices and employments became established. The sterner, more arduous and more hazardous were by com-