That women, in the early days of the church, blessed and administered to the sick by laying on of hands. When did this actually stop?

So much for LDS arguing that speaking in 'tongues' is false unless it's a foreign language for advancing the gospel etc.

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/women/chapter17.htm#Woman

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/women/chapter19.htm#Healers

Since the founding of Mormonism, women have been a tremendous resource in the church for exercising the gifts of the spirit, including prophesying, blessing, and healing. Several important articles and books by LDS scholars trace the tradition of Relief Society sisters exercising gifts of the spirit.3 Our nineteenth-century foremothers gave Mormon women an unparalleled heritage of spiritual activism—a sacred tradition still awaiting rediscovery.4

A few examples will illustrate. Between 1833 and 1837 when the church was headquartered in Kirtland, Ohio, Sarah Leavitt healed her daughter of illness, and church patriarch, Joseph Smith, Sr., told Eda Rogers that when her husband was absent, she could “lay hands” on her family, and “Sickness shall stand back.”5 In 1838 Amanda Smith and Louisa Pratt individually reported administering to and healing their children from sickness. Also Abigail Leonard told of healing a woman from near death, recalling that when she [441] and the sisters arrived at her bedside, the woman was cold and her eyes set, but before the sisters finished their administration, “the blood went coursing through her system … and she was sensibly better … [B]efore night her appetite returned … and in 3 days she sat up.”6

In Nauvoo, Illinois, the women of the Relief Society frequently pronounced blessings upon each other. Sister Durfee and Abigail Leonard tell of receiving blessings of health from Emma Smith and her counselors.7 Joseph Smith said, “Who are better qualified to administer than our faithful and zealous sisters whose hearts are full of faith, tenderness, sympathy, and compassion. No one.”8 Elizabeth Ann Whitney received her authority to bless through ordination. “I was … ordained and set apart under the hand of Joseph Smith the Prophet to administer to the sick and comfort the sorrowful. Several other sisters were also ordained and set apart to administer in these holy ordinances.”9

In April 1896 Apostle Franklin D. Richards reaffirmed the independent source of women's authority to perform healing ordinances. As an apostle and Church Historian, he instructed LDS women that they have “the right” to say these words in administering to the sick: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ & by virtue of the Holy Anointing which I have received.”16

These women did not consider themselves radical innovators. They functioned according to the promises and authority given to them as members of the church. Unfortunately, in this century the church gradually revoked women's exercise of those promised gifts and authority to bless until they were no longer known or known only in secret. Yet the exercise of these gifts is promised in abundant measure—and promised through faith regardless of gender.

In determining whether or not women can serve as healers in the modern church, we must ask: What are the sources of spiritual healing and is ritual important?



Spiritual Authority to Heal


The promise of healing power came directly from Jesus Christ to anyone born of the Spirit: “And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17-18). The Book of Mormon prophet Moroni also tells us that “all these gifts come by the spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man [or woman] severally, according as he [or she] will” (Moro. 10:17).

Church leader Bruce R. McConkie explained the gifts of the [443] spirit in Mormon Doctrine: “Faithful persons are expected to seek the gifts of the Spirit with all their hearts. They are to 'covet earnestly the best gifts' (1 Cor. 12:31; D&C 46:8), to 'desire spiritual gifts' (1 Cor. 14:1), to ask of God, who giveth liberally, (D&C 46:7; Matt. 7:7-8). To some will be given one gift; to others, another.”17 In explaining the gifts of the spirit, Joseph Smith included the gift of healing: “And again, to some it is given to have faith to be healed; and to others it is given to have faith to heal” (D&C 46:19-20). Women are clearly included in these admonitions to “seek the gifts of the Spirit with all their hearts.”



http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/women/chapter17.htm#Woman

For 150 years Mormon women have performed sacred ordinances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every person who has received the LDS temple endowment knows that women perform for other women the “initiatory ordinances” of washing and anointing.1 Fewer know that LDS women also performed ordinances of healing from the 1840s until the 1940s.2 Yet every Mormon knows that men who perform temple ordinances and healing ordinances must have the Melchizedek priesthood. Women are no exception.3

Two weeks after he organized the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith announced his intention to confer priesthood on women. He told them on 30 March 1842 that “the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood” and that he was “going to make of this Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch's day—as in Paul's day.”4 In printing the original minutes of the prophet's talk after his death, the official History of the Church omitted Joseph's first use of the word “Society” and changed the second “Society” to “Church.” Those two alterations changed the entire meaning of his statement.5 More recently an LDS general authority removed even these diminished statements from a display in the LDS Museum of Church History and Art which commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Relief Society.6

Women began as disciples and preachers and were kicked out as it turned into another Boy's Club. (Sigh)

From some of the tirades of St.(sic) Paul, women were getting away with such uppity behaviour still by the time he came along.

Try reading "Women in Mormondom" - you will find it on BYU library catalog -(Google it). Lots more tidbits than that

JB