Student Life at the World’s First Medical School for Women

(via Atlas Obscura) Joseph S. Longshore – a Quaker, abolitionist, and physician, along with other Quaker physicians, cofounded Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania .  WMCP opened in 1850, the world’s first medical college for women.  Its first class included Longshore’s sister Anna and sister-in-law Hannah. “That the exercise of the healing art, should be monopolized solely by the male practitioner … can neither be sanctioned by humanity, justified by reason, [nor] approved by ordinary intelligence,” he declared at the College’s introductory lecture. The idea of female physicians was welcomed by some, shunned by others.