She was a daughter of Colonel John Harris Thompson, who came of one of the old families of the Empire State, and her mother was Calista (Corbin) Thompson. The daughter received her early education in the private and public schools of Washington county, and her higher education at Fort Edwards Institute and the West Poultney, Vermont, boarding school.

The idea of becoming a physician had never suggested itself to her in her girlhood days, and her inclination at that time was to become an artist, for which she had both taste and talent. After completing her education, however, she became a teacher in public and private schools, and among the studies in which she was called upon to instruct her pupils were physiology and anatomy. While giving instruction in these branches, her own interest in the study became more thoroughly awakened than it had ever been before, and to qualify herself for better work as a teacher, she determined to attend a course of lectures at the New England Female Medical College, where she could have access to the dissecting room, and thereby gain a practical knowledge of anatomy. From the study of physiology and anatomy to a general study of medicine the transition was easy and natural.

Before completing her attendance upon the first course of lectures she had made material alterations in her plans for the future, and reached the

conclusion that there was a place in the medical profession for women who had industry enough to thoroughly qualify themselves for the work, and perseverance enough to labor earnestly in the profession after they had once entered it. She attended her second course of lectures at Boston in 1861-62, and then went to New York city, where she spent a year as assistant physician in Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's New York infirmary for women and children. At the end of that time she returned to Boston, and was graduated with the degree of M. D. from the New England Female Medical College in 1863.

Soon after her graduation she came to Chicago to establish herself in practice. In coming to the city she came among total strangers, relying entirely upon her own resources for success. She felt that her coming to Chicago, to engage in the practice of medicine, would be looked upon by the profession as an innovation, and whether she was to receive from established practitioners a modicum of sympathy and encouragement, or was to meet with professional ostracism, was a question which gave her no little uneasiness, while she was by no means sure that the general public, in a western city, had at that time been educated up to the point of looking kindly upon lady physicians.

Her actual subsequent experience, during the first few years of her practice while by no means free embarrassment and annoy

from

ances of various kinds, was less unpleasant than she had expected it to be. Her intelligence, culture and thorough womanliness commended her to all with whom she came in contact, and she received the kindly aid and encouragement of some of the most eminent physicians in the city.

Before she had been long in Chicago she discovered that an institution much needed in the city was a hospital which should be devoted exclusively to the care and treatment of women and children, particularly those belonging to the indigent classes. With an energy and strength of purpose which has characterized all her movements in the enterprises with which she has since been identified in Chicago, she at once set about formulating a plan for building up such an institution, and succeeded in interesting in the work Rev. Dr. W. H. Ryder, Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer, Rev. Dr. Tiffany, Hon. J. Y. Scammon, Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Gardner, Mrs. W. G. Dyas, and a considerable number of charitably inclined ladies. After several meetings had been held and Dr. Thompson's plans had been fully considered, a hospital association was formed, and she was authorized to make an effort to secure a suitable building for hospital purposes. With limited means at her command, this was not an easy matter, but in the spring of 1865 the arrangements were finally perfected, and the Chicago Hospital for Women

and Children was opened for the reception of patients, under her management.

A full staff of consulting physicians was organized, composed of some of the most prominent and able members of the medical profession in the city, with Dr. Thompson as the attending physician, and patients received from the start the most careful attention and the most skilful treatment. Within the next five years hundreds of unfortunate sufferers were cared for at the institution, although it was all the time. struggling to maintain its existence, and the ultimate success of the enterprise was far from being assured.

In 1871, after passing through various vicissitudes, and making several changes of location, the hospital enterprise had progressed so far that it began to be looked upon as one of the established institutions of the city.

A modest, but comfortable building had been purchased, the ground upon which it was located being held in trust for the institution by two of its friends, and its founder began to feel that the hopes which she had cherished of building up a great charity were reasonably certain to be realized.

A crushing blow came, however, with the great fire. The hospital building, with its contents, was swept away in an hour's time, and Dr. Thompson was compelled to gather

her patients together, and seek refuge from the fire fiend, on the open prairie.

Temporary shelter was secured for these patients, and after the fire the work of building up a new institution was commenced. After a time the Relief and Aid Society of the city came to its assistance with an endowment of twenty-five thousand dollars, given on condition that twenty-five "indigent patients" should be cared for yearly in the institution thereafter. With this fund new grounds were purchased, and buildings fitted. up for hospital purposes, which were occupied for the next eleven years. While it labored under many disadvantages during this time, and was cramped and crippled in various ways, it was adding to the number of its influential friends, and the beneficence of its work becoming all the time more apparent.

In 1884, the demand for more room and better accommodations for patients became almost imperative, and Dr. Thompson set about devising ways and means to meet this demand.

As a result of her efforts, a new hospital building was erected, at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars, and opened for the reception of patients in 1885. At the present time, the value of the hospital association property is probably in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, and in no city in the United States can a more admirably managed institution of its

kind kind be found. This magnificent

charity stands to-day, a monument to the charitable impulses, the enterpřise, the tireless energy and laborious efforts of Dr. Thompson.

While her efforts have been nobly seconded by many good and benevolent people, and by an able corps of both male and female physicians, hers has been the task of gathering about the institution these helpful friends.

She now occupies the position of chief physician and surgeon of the hospital, but for many of its early years she was sole physician in charge. Through all the years since the hospital was founded in 1865, it has been the object of her tenderest care and solicitude, and during all that time she has been its executive head. As upon her shoulders have rested the chief responsibility for its conduct. and management, to her must be credited, in like measure, the success of the enterprise.

Dr. Thompson's efforts in behalf of the higher education of women have not been less conspicuously successful than her efforts to build up the hospital for sick and indigent women and children.

In 1869, to aid and encourage three young ladies who had begun the study of medicine under her preceptorship, she made application to be allowed to attend a course of lectures at the Chicago Medical College, in company with these lady students. Her application was favorably considered, and the following year she received her

diploma from that institution, she being the only lady who has ever graduated from a Chicago medical college of the allopathic school, other than the Women's Medical College.

The three young ladies who attended Chicago Medical College with Dr. Thompson were not permitted to graduate at that institution, on account of objections being made to their presence in the classes by male students; but they were not allowed to leave Chicago with half-finished medical educations. With the assistance of Bishop E. O. Haven, at that time president of the Northwestern University, who became president of the board of trustees; Dr. W. H. Byford, who became president of the faculty; Dr. W. G. Dyas, and other prominent physicians, Dr. Thompson organized the Women's Hospital Medical College, which was for some years afterwards connected with the Hospital for Women and Children. The two institutions separated later, and the Woman's Medical College is now one of the prosperous educational institutions of the city, occupying and owning its own buildings, and having an average annual attendance of one hundred lady students.

Dr. Thompson, now professor of gynæcology, has held a professorship in the women's college from the date of its foundation down to the present time, with the possible exception of one or two years, when private practice and hospital duties demanded. her entire attention, and her opinions

had great weight, in its early history, in shaping its policy, as her influence has contributed greatly to its upbuilding. She has always insisted that women who have an ambition to enter the medical profession should qualify themselves for the study of medicine by thorough preliminary education, and has never given assent to any proposition looking to their admission. to the profession by an easier road than men have to travel to obtain a doctor's degree.

Early in her professional career Dr. Thompson began giving special attention to surgery, and among the eminent Chicago physicians who encouraged and assisted her in this branch of the practice, was the late Dr. Wm. H. Byford, an ardent friend and advocate of the higher education of women. She became acquainted with him during the first year after the establishment of the Hospital for Women and Children, and in her ́earlier major surgical operations,she received his assistance and advice whenever 'she deemed it necessary to call him in consultation.

It is now nearly twenty years since her first operations in abdominal and pelvic surgery were performed, and the degree of success which has attended her operations is evidenced by the fact that several years since, she was called upon to perform the first major operation for women, and for the attending staff of women, in the Woman's Hospital at Minneapolis.

Asking from the profession to which she belongs no other recognition for those of her sex who may enter the profession, than that to which their attainments may entitle them, and from the public no unmerited patronage, she has labored earnestly and

conscientiously to enlarge the field of women's usefulness, and to demonstrate that intelligence, industry and well-directed effort cannot fail to achieve success.

HOWARD LOUIS CONARD.

ONE of the first women physicians of the west is Sarah Hackett Stevenson of Chicago. A native of Illinois, she was educated in that State, and after a most successful pupilage, graduated at the Illinois State Normal School at Bloomington, with the highest honors.

With this training it was a natural transition to the teacher's chair, and she was given the principalship of a large school.

She never filled the chair of Physiology to which she was elected in the North-western University at, Evanston, Illinois, as she had just then decided to go abroad with Miss Emily Faithful, whose acquaintance she had made in this country.

Previous to this, however, her attention had been turned toward literary work, and her friends predicted for her a brilliant future in the world of letters.

At this time she entered the Woman's Medical College of Chicago, intending thereby to lay a scientific foundation for a literary career.

Her strong scientific tastes were aroused, she concluded to devote herself to the science of Esculapius, and with characteristic energy gave herself unreservedly to this work.

Then came the election to Evanston, but she went abroad instead, studying unremittingly, taking, among other studies, a course of biological work, under Prof. Huxley, at the South Kensington Science Schools, and writing her first book, "A Biology for Beginners," in the form of letters addressed to a young nephew in America.

During her residence abroad, Dr. Stephenson made friends among men and women of world-wide reputation in letters and philanthropy.

Upon her return to this country, she commenced the practice of medicine in Chicago where she has ranked second to none. Immediately upon her graduation at the Woman's College, Dr. Stevenson was offered and accepted a professorship in her Alma Mater, since when she has held continuously some chair therein. In