before the law
includes the rights to

(1) Practise in any department of medicine in
which their services may be demanded.

(2) Recover fees if necessary.

(3) Sign death certificates.

(4) Sign any certificates for which a medical
signature is essential.

Under this latter heading a curious anomaly arises. If a man is signed
up as a lunatic, he is, for so long as he remains a lunatic, debarred
from using his Parliamentary vote, and, as may be seen from the above,
a medical woman's signature is as valid as that of a man for this
disfranchising certificate of lunacy. The State, therefore, at the
present time allows that a medical woman may be sufficiently learned
and reliable to disfranchise a man, though she be not sufficiently
learned and reliable to vote herself.

The Insurance Act concerned medical women only in the same way that
it affected their men colleagues. The sole reason, therefore, for
mentioning it in this paper is that it affords an indication of two
things:--

(1)that the Government therein makes no sex distinction in the
profession;

(2)that the bogey of sex cleavage, so often mentioned by the timorous
in the political world, is here, as always where it is put to the
test, proved to be without foundation.

Unfortunately, the Insurance Act divided the medical profession into
two parties; women, no more than men, were unanimous on the subject
and some were to be found on either side.

Women are still debarred from the full use of their medical powers in
the following ways:--

(1) The demand for their services from the general public is at
present not so great nor so universal as that for men. This is not
surprising when it is realised for how short a time there have been
medical women; however, the demand on the part of the public is very
rapidly increasing, naturally, of course, amongst their own sex.

(2) As in other work the tendency is to restrict women to the
lower branches of public work, or to the so-called "blind alley"
occupations. This can only be cured by public demand, and some
improvement is to be noted in this respect. There is, however, no
doubt that general practice affords at present the most unrestricted
field for a medical woman's activity, because there she suffers from
no limitations except those of her own personality in relation to
society. Any patients who are inclined to trust her are absolutely
free to do so, and it is open to her to demand what fees