The great and multiplied difficulties which every lady has been compelled to encounter in the study of medicine and surgery has by no means dampened the ardor of the sex for such an undertaking. In all parts of Europe, as well as in America, women are loudly knocking at the door of the college and the hospital. The University of Zurich, in Switzerland, conferred the degree on its first female medical student in 1867, and the number of Russian women applying for admission into the college of medicine at St. Petersburgh has been so numerous, that the subject was several years since brought up for discussion in the Imperial Council of Education. These applications have been numerous in England, and in some recent instances, in France, ladies have received opportunities in hospitals and colleges not hitherto granted. Ten native female physicians have recently graduated in India. But no country affords such opportunities to women as America, and no city to female medical students as New York. The prevalence of liberal sentiments has of late thrown open to them the great city hospitals and dispensaries, with their admirable clinics; and colleges, encouraged by the first medical talent of the age, have been erected with every appliance for their especial culture. The infirmary established by the Blackwell sisters, and so successfully conducted, proved the practical capacity of woman as a medical adviser, and was an indispensable prerequisite to a successful appeal to the public for means to establish an institution for such education. This having been clearly demonstrated at that infirmary, the projectors of this Institution established first the college, leaving the practical matters of hospital and dispensary to be added at a later period. The origin of this Institution should perhaps date from April, 1863, when a series of lectures were delivered to a class of females by Mrs. Losier of this city, in her own private parlor. This lady had graduated some sixteen years previously at a well-known medical college, and in these lectures was assisted by Doctor I. M. Ward. In the autumn of the same year, rooms were rented at No. 724 Broadway. Two or three years were subsequently spent at No. 74 East Twelfth street, and in June, 1868, the present eligible building, corner of Twelfth street and Second avenue, was purchased. The society was incorporated as a medical college in 1863, and the following year the act was amended adding the term "Hospital." The trustees are all females. The main building is a fine four-story brown stone, twenty-six by eighty-one feet, and cost $43,000. A rear addition, fronting on Twelfth street, twenty-four by fifty-five feet and three stories high, has been added, containing dispensary, anatomical, lecture, and dissecting rooms. The hospital department was not opened until September, 1869, since which about four hundred female and children patients have been received. The dispensary has also treated several thousand indigent applicants. The Homeopathic system is principally taught, with a liberal leaning to all other good practice. The course of study lasts three years, and aims at great thoroughness, the students being required to practise in the dispensary and diagnose in the Hospital. Great pains are taken to perfect their attainments in obstetrics, a field in which they are expected to find their largest practice. In order to matriculation, the applicant must present an approved certificate of good moral character, be eighteen years of age, have a good English education, including elementary botany and chemistry, and be under the instruction of a respectable medical practitioner.

A free scholarship is offered to one graduate from each chartered female college in this State. The expense of tuition does not exceed $130. Students are not boarded in the Institution. About thirty students are now in attendance, and nearly sixty have been graduated. After graduation, one or two years are usually given to the further pursuit of their studies, before they really begin practice. Two of the graduates of this Institution are now conducting a lucrative practice in this city, and may be seen daily riding in their carriages to the dwellings of their patients. Others are practising in other places, and proving that the practice of medicine is at present the most remunerative calling open to a woman. The Institution received $10,000 from the State in 1869, about $7,000 having been previously received from the city. It has also received many private donations, among which we may mention one from Mrs. Losier, M.D., one of its founders, of $10,000.