1870 cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper celebrates the competence and dedication of the first generation of women medical students. The entrance of women into American medical practice during the mid-nineteenth century was a direct outgrowth of the social reform movements that characterized the period. The census of 1870 counted 525 trained women doctors in America, more than in the rest of the world combined. Of these, the large majority were practitioners of homeopathic, eclectic, or botanical medicine. Only 137 women were enrolled in regular medical schools, and most of these were in separate women's medical colleges. The most ambitious of these was the Medical College for Women in New York City, founded by Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to graduate with an MD degree. Frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining medical and hospital training for women, Elizabeth and her physician sister Emily, with the assistance of Dr Marie Zakrzewska, started an infirmary in New York in 1857. In 1868, the sisters Blackwell opened a medical school of high standards in conjunction with the infirmary, thus offering women a complete medical education on a par with the best of the regular medical colleges of the day. The rigorous, graded curriculum included the first course in hygiene (public health and preventive medicine) offered anywhere in the country. This image has been color enhanced.