Liz bwell

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             The suggestion was immediately repelled, as utterly repugnant to her tastes and habits. She had a peculiar and extreme aversion to anything connected with the sick-room, or with the human body in its infirmities. Even the ordinary physical sciences were uncongenial to her. Metaphysics and moral philosophy, the abstract sciences, accorded far more with her inclinations. Pressed upon her, however, as a question for conscientious consideration, and, with characteristic firmness, setting aside personal preferences, she soon decided that the call upon her was providential, and her duty plain. The opprobrium to be encountered and the difficulties to be surmounted only deepened her determination. .
             Writing for advice to six different physicians in different parts of the country, their invariable reply was, that the object, though desirable, was impracticable; "utterly impossible for a woman to obtain a medical education. The idea eccentric and utopian." Her reasoning from such counsel was brief, and her conclusion peculiar. "A desirable object, a good thing, to be done, said to be impossible. I will do it.".
             She at once commenced medical reading, under the direction of Dr. John Dixon, of Ashville, N. C., in whose family she was residing as governess. Removing the next year to Charleston, S. C., she supported herself by giving lessons in music, but continued to study, with regular instruction from Dr. S. H. Dixon, .
             afterwards professor in the medical department of the New York University, and pursued it further under Drs. Allen and Warrington, of Philadelphia. She found the study deeply interesting, and followed it with ardor and thoroughness, while benevolence and singleness of purpose speedily overcame her aversion to the associations of disease. Upon applying for admission to the medical schools of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, she was uniformly refused. From ten others the same answer was returned, until at Geneva the faculty submitted the question to the students, who unanimously voted for her reception, at the same time assuring her that nothing on their part should ever occur to wound her feelings while in attendance, -a pledge which they nobly kept.