Though she was now a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, as a woman, Garrett could not hold a medical post in any hospital. So in late 1865, Garrett opened her own practice at 20 Upper
Berkeley Street, London. At first patients were scarce, but the practice gradually grew. After six months in practice, she wished to open an
outpatients dispensary, to enable poor women to obtain medical help from a qualified practitioner of their own gender.
In 1865, there was an outbreak of cholera in Britain, affecting both rich and poor, and in their panic, some people forgot any prejudices they had in relation to a female physician. The first death due to cholera occurred in 1866, but by then Garrett had already opened St Mary's Dispensary for Women and Children, at 69
Seymour Place. In the first year, she tended to 3,000 new patients, who made 9,300 outpatient visits to the dispensary. On hearing that the Dean of the faculty of medicine at the
University of Sorbonne, Paris was in favour of admitting women as medical students, Garrett studied French so that she could apply for a medical degree, which she obtained in 1870 after some difficulty. The same year she was elected to the first
London School Board, an office newly opened to women; Garrett's was the highest vote among all the candidates. Also in that year, she was made a visiting physician of the East London Hospital for Children (later the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children), becoming the first woman in Britain to be appointed to a medical post, but she found the duties of these two positions to be incompatible with her principal work in her private practice and the dispensary, as well as her role as a new mother, so she resigned from these posts by 1873. In 1872, the dispensary became the
New Hospital for Women and Children, treating women from all over London for
gynaecological conditions; the hospital moved to new premises in Marylebone Street in 1874. Around this time, Garrett also entered into discussion with male medical views regarding women. In 1874,
Henry Maudsley's article on Sex and Mind in Education appeared, which argued that education for women caused over-exertion and thus reduced their reproductive capacity, sometimes causing "nervous and even mental disorders". Garrett's counter-argument was that the real danger for women was not education but boredom and that fresh air and exercise were preferable to sitting by the fire with a novel. In the same year, she co-founded the
London School of Medicine for Women with
Sophia Jex-Blake and became a lecturer in what was then the only teaching hospital in Britain to offer courses for women. She continued to work there for the rest of her career and was dean of the school from 1883 to 1902. This school was later called the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, This was "one of several instances where Garrett, uniquely, was able to enter a hitherto all male medical institution which subsequently moved formally to exclude any women who might seek to follow her." In 1892, women were again admitted to the British Medical Association following a long campaign by Anderson and others. She, along with Dr Sarah Gray and Dr
Eliza Walker Dunbar attended the BMA meeting at Nottingham that year, lobbying successfully for the readmission of women to the association. In 1897, Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the BMA. Garrett Anderson worked steadily at the development of the New Hospital for Women and Children and in 1874 co-founded and served as dean who took into his employment Anderson's sister
Agnes Garrett and her cousin
Rhoda Garrett, who contributed to its design. For many years, the hospital was staffed entirely by medical women. The schools (in Hunter Street, WC1) had over 200 students, most of them preparing for the medical degree of
London University, which was opened to women in 1877. == Women’s suffrage movement ==