aboard the padded seat in the rear of the Gouverneur Hospital ambulance, the first woman to receive an appointment as ambulance surgeon in New York City. Twice before in competitive examinations she had won such a place, but the commissioner of public charities had declined to appoint her because she was a woman. In 1908 another girl doctor, Dr. Mary W. Crawford in a surgeon's blue cap and coat with a red cross on her sleeve, answered her first emergency call as ambulance surgeon for Williamsburg Hospital, Brooklyn. It happened this way: the notification sent by the Williamsburg Hospital to Cornell Medical College that year by some oversight read that the examination for internship would be open to "any member of the graduating class."
When "M. W. Crawford" who had made application in writing, appeared with a perfectly good Cornell diploma in her hand, the authorities were amazed. But they did not turn her away. They undoubtedly thought as did one of the confident young men applicants who said: "She hasn't a chance of passing. Being a girl is a terrible handicap in the medical profession." When she had passed however at the head of the list of thirty-five young men, the trustees endeavoured to get Dr. Mary to withdraw. When she firmly declined to do so, though they said it violated all established precedent, they gave her the place. And a new era in medicine had been inaugurated.
Here and there throughout the country, other women now began to be admitted to examinations
