ese laws still continue in force; and a
remarkable case is recorded by Dr. Schmidt of a woman, who, feeling her
own competency to manage a case committed to her care, _did not_ send for
a male physician as the law required. Although it was fully proved that
she had done every thing that could have been done in the case, her
penalty was imprisonment for twenty years. Two other cases are quoted by
Dr. Schmidt, in which male practitioners were summoned before a legal
tribunal, and it was proved that they _had not_ done that which was
necessary; yet their penalty was no heavier than that inflicted on the
woman, who had done exactly what she ought.

At this time (1818), it was also made illegal for any woman to practise
who had not been educated. This brought the profession again into repute
among women of the higher classes. A school for midwives, supported by
the government, was established in Berlin, in which women have since
continued to be educated for practice in this city and in other parts of
Prussia. Two midwives are elected each year, by a committee, from the
applicants, to be educated for practice in Berlin; and, as they have to
study two years, there are always four of these students in the school,
two graduating every year. The remainder of the students are from the
provincial districts. To be admitted to this school is considered a stroke
of good fortune; as there are generally more than a hundred applicants,
many of whom have to wait eight or ten years before they are elected.
There is, besides, a great deal of favoritism; those women being generally
chosen who are the widows or wives of civil officers or physicians; to
whom this chance of earning a livelihood is given, in order that they may
not become a burden on the government. Though educated apart from the male
students while studying the theory of midwifery, they attend the
accouchement-ward together, and receive clinical or practical instruction
in the same class, from the same professor.

The male students of medicine are admitted to the university at the age of
eighteen; having first been required to go through a prescribed course of
collegiate study, and to pass the requisite examination. Here they attend
the lectures of various professors, often of four or five upon the same
subject, in order to learn how it is treated from different points of
view. Then, after having thus studied for a certain length of time, they
present themselves for an examinat