[The early history of private education of western medicine for women].

As early as in the 6th year of King Taejo of the Chosŏn Dynasty (1406), there emerged a medical training organization which turned out women doctors who would engage in the treatment of diseases for women and conduct the service of midwifery. Of course the healing art those women doctors adopted at that time was Oriental medicine, and due to the strict Confucian prejudice against women, the medical treatment for women did not go beyond the limit of home treatment. Such being the situation, from the viewpoint of Western medicine, it is hard to say that there existed women doctors in Korea before the advent of the Kyongsong Women's Medical Training Institute. Such social situations and the customs peculiar to the Korean women badly required the existence of women doctors. However, the Chosŏn Government-General which was the ruler of the Korean Peninsula at that time, was quite indifferent to the urgent need. ...