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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Medical Women, by Sophia Jex-Blake
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Medical Women
-       Two Essays
-
-Author: Sophia Jex-Blake
-
-Release Date: June 10, 2016 [EBook #52297]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL WOMEN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by MWS, Fay Dunn and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
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-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note
-
-
-In this text version of “Medical Women”: words in italics are marked
-with _underscores_ and words in small capitals are shown in UPPER CASE.
-
-Footnotes have been moved to end of each essay.
-
-Variant spelling and inconsistent hyphenation are retained.
-
-A very few changes have been made to punctuation for consistency. Other
-changes are listed at the end of the book.
-
-
-
-
-  MEDICAL WOMEN
-
-  Two Essays
-
-  BY
-
-  SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.
-
-  I.
-
-  Medicine as a Profession for Women.
-
-  II.
-
-  Medical Education of Women.
-
-
-  EDINBURGH:
-
-  WILLIAM OLIPHANT & Co., 57 FREDERICK STREET.
-  LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co.
-
-  1872.
-
-  [_All Rights Reserved._]
-
-
-
-
-JOHN LINDSAY, PRINTER, 104 HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH.
-
-
-
-
-  Dedicated
-
-  TO
-
-  DR LUCY SEWALL,
-
-  FROM WHOSE DAILY LIFE
-  I FIRST LEARNED WHAT INCALCULABLE BLESSINGS
-  MAY BE CONFERRED ON THE SICK AND SUFFERING OF HER OWN SEX
-  BY A NOBLE AND PURE-MINDED WOMAN
-  WHO IS ALSO
-  A THOROUGHLY SCIENTIFIC PHYSICIAN.
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-Medicine as a Profession for Women.
-
-REPRINTED, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS, FROM “WOMAN’S WORK AND WOMAN’S
-CULTURE.”
-
-
-“We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another
-portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is
-not their ‘proper sphere.’ The proper sphere for all human beings is
-the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is
-cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice.”--Mrs J.
-S. MILL.
-
-
-
-
-MEDICINE AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN.
-
-    “The universe shall henceforth speak for you
-    And witness, She who did this thing, was born
-    To do it; claims her license in her work.
-    And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague,
-    Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech.”
-
-    “_Aurora Leigh._”
-
-
-It is a very comfortable faith to hold that “whatever is, is best,”
-not only in the dispensations of Providence, but in the social order
-of daily life; but it is a faith which is perhaps best preserved by
-careful avoidance of too much inquiry into facts. The theory, if
-applied to past as well as to present times, would involve us in some
-startling contradictions, for there is hardly any act, habit, or custom
-which has not been held meritorious and commendable in one state of
-society, and detestable and evil in some other. If we believe that
-there are eternal principles of right and wrong, wisdom and equity, far
-above and greater than the “public opinion” of any one age or country,
-we must acknowledge the absolute obligation of inquiring, whenever
-matters of importance are at stake, on what grounds the popular
-opinions rest, and how far they are the result of habit, custom, and
-prejudice, or the real outgrowth of deep convictions and beliefs
-inherent in the most sacred recesses of human nature. While the latter
-command ever our deepest reverence, as the true “vox populi, vox Dei,”
-nothing can be more superficial, frivolous, and fallacious than the
-former.
-
-In a country where precedent has so much weight as in England, it
-doubly behoves us to make the distinction, and, while gratefully
-accepting the safeguard offered against inconsiderate and precipitate
-change, to beware that old custom is not suffered permanently to
-hide from our eyes any truth which may be struggling into the light.
-I suppose that no thinking man will pretend that the world has now
-reached the zenith of truth and knowledge, and that no further upward
-progress is possible; on the contrary, we must surely believe that each
-year will bring with it its new lesson; fresh lights will constantly be
-dawning above the horizon, and perhaps still oftener discoveries will
-be re-discovered, truths once acknowledged but gradually obscured or
-forgotten will emerge again into day, and a constantly recurring duty
-will lie before every one who believes in life as a responsible time of
-action, and not as a period of mere vegetative existence, to “prove
-all things, and hold fast that which is good.”
-
-The above considerations arise naturally in connexion with the subject
-of this paper, which is too often set aside by the general public, who,
-perhaps, hardly appreciate its scope, and are not yet fully aroused
-to the importance of the questions involved in the general issue. We
-are told so often that nature and custom have alike decided against
-the admission of women to the Medical Profession, and that there is in
-such admission something repugnant to the right order of things, that
-when we see growing evidences of a different opinion among a minority
-perhaps, but a minority which already includes many of our most earnest
-thinkers of both sexes, and increases daily, it surely becomes a duty
-for all who do not, in the quaint language of Sharpe, “have their
-thinking, like their washing, done out,” to test these statements by
-the above principles, and to see how far their truth is supported by
-evidence.
-
-In the first place, let us take the testimony of Nature in the matter.
-If we go back to primeval times, and try to imagine the first sickness
-or the first injury suffered by humanity, does one instinctively feel
-that it must have been the _man’s_ business to seek means of healing,
-to try the virtues of various herbs, or to apply such rude remedies as
-might occur to one unused to the strange spectacle of human suffering?
-I think that few would maintain that such ministration would come
-most naturally to the man, and be instinctively avoided by the woman;
-indeed, I fancy that the presumption would be rather in the other
-direction. And what is such ministration but the germ of the future
-profession of medicine?
-
-Nor, I think, would the inference be different if we appealed to the
-actual daily experience of domestic life. If a child falls down stairs,
-and is more or less seriously hurt, is it the father or the mother
-(where both are without medical training) who is most equal to the
-emergency, and who applies the needful remedies in the first instance?
-Or again, in the heart of the country, where no doctor is readily
-accessible, is it the squire and the parson, or their respective wives,
-who are usually consulted about the ailments of half the parish? Of
-course it may be said that such practice is by no means scientific, but
-merely empirical, and this I readily allow; but that fact in no way
-affects my argument that women are _naturally_ inclined and fitted for
-medical practice. And if this be so, I do not know who has the right
-to say that they shall not be allowed to make their work scientific
-when they desire it, but shall be limited to merely the mechanical
-details and wearisome routine of nursing, while to men is reserved all
-intelligent knowledge of disease, and all study of the laws by which
-health may be preserved or restored.
-
-Again, imagine if you can that the world has reached its present
-standing point, that society exists as now in every respect but
-this,--that the art of healing has never been conceived as a separate
-profession, that no persons have been set apart to receive special
-education for it, and that in fact empirical “domestic medicine,” in
-the strictest sense, is the only thing of the kind existing. Suppose
-now that society suddenly awoke to the great want so long unnoticed,
-that it was recognized by all that a scientific knowledge of the
-human frame in health and in disease, and a study of the remedies of
-various kinds which might be employed as curative agents, would greatly
-lessen human suffering, and that it was therefore resolved at once to
-set apart some persons who should acquire such knowledge, and devote
-their lives to using it for the benefit of the rest of the race. In
-such case, would the natural idea be that members of each sex should
-be so set apart for the benefit of their own sex respectively,--that
-men should fit themselves to minister to the maladies of men, and
-women to those of women,--or that one sex only should undertake the
-care of the health of all, under all circumstances? For myself, I have
-no hesitation in saying that the former seems to me the _natural_
-course, and that to civilized society, if unaccustomed to the idea, the
-proposal that persons of one sex should in every case be consulted
-about every disease incident to those of the other, would be very
-repugnant; nay, that were every other condition of society the same as
-now, it would probably be held wholly inadmissable. I maintain that not
-only is there nothing strange or unnatural in the idea that women are
-the fit physicians for women, and men for men; but on the contrary,
-that it is only custom and habit which blind society to the extreme
-strangeness and incongruity of any other notion.
-
-I am indeed far from pretending, as some have done, that it is morally
-wrong for men to be the medical attendants of women, and that grave
-mischiefs are the frequent and natural results of their being placed
-in that position. I believe that these statements not only materially
-injure the cause they profess to serve, but that they are in themselves
-false. In my own experience as a medical student, I have had far
-too much reason to acknowledge the honour and delicacy of feeling
-habitually shown by the gentlemen of the medical profession, not to
-protest warmly against any such injurious imputation. I am very sure
-that in the vast majority of cases, the motives and conduct of medical
-men in this respect are altogether above question, and that every
-physician who is also a gentleman is thoroughly able, when consulted by
-a patient in any case whatever, to remember only the human suffering
-brought before him and the scientific bearing of its details; for as
-was said not very long ago by a most eminent London surgeon, “Whoever
-is not able, in the course of practice, to put the idea of sex out
-of his mind, is not fit for the medical profession at all.” It will,
-however, occur to most people that the medical man is only one of the
-parties concerned, and that it is possible that a difficulty which may
-be of no importance from his scientific standpoint, may yet be very
-formidable indeed to the far more sensitive and delicately organized
-feelings of his patient, who has no such armour of proof as his own,
-and whose very condition of suffering may entail an even exaggerated
-condition of nervous susceptibility on such points.[1] At any rate,
-when we hear so many assertions about natural instincts and social
-propriety, I cannot but assert that their evidence, such as it is, is
-wholly for, and not against, the cause of women as physicians for their
-own sex.
-
-If we take next the ground of custom, I think the position of those who
-would oppose the medical education of women is far less tenable than is
-generally supposed; indeed, that a recent writer stated no more than
-the truth when he asserted that “the obloquy which attends innovation
-belongs to the men who exclude women from a profession in which they
-once had a recognised place.”[2] I believe that few people who have
-not carefully considered the question from an historical point of view
-have any idea of the amount of evidence that may be brought to support
-this view of the case.[3]
-
-Referring to the earliest classical times, we find distinct mention
-in the Iliad of a woman skilled in the science of medicine,[4] and a
-similar reference occurs also in the Odyssey.[5] Euripides is no less
-valuable a witness on this point. He describes Queen Phædra[6] as
-disturbed in mind and out of health, and represents the nurse as thus
-addressing her: “If thy complaint be anything of the more secret kind,
-here are women at hand to compose the disease. But if thy distress is
-_such as may be told to men_, tell it, that it may be reported to the
-physicians;” thus indicating a prevailing public opinion that there
-were natural and rigid limits to the medical attendance of men and
-women, and that therefore some women were specially trained to do what
-the regular physicians must leave undone. It is at least remarkable
-to find such evidence of general feeling on this matter in a state of
-society supposed to possess much less delicacy and refinement than our
-own.
-
-We find records of several Grecian women who were renowned for their
-medical skill, among whom may be instanced Olympias of Thebes, whose
-medical learning is said to be mentioned by Pliny; and Aspasia, from
-whose writings on the diseases of women, quotations are preserved in
-the works of Aëtius, a Mesopotamian physician.[7] On the authority of
-Hyginus rests the history of Agnodice, the Athenian maiden whose skill
-and success in medicine was the cause of the legal opening of the
-medical profession to all the free-born women of the State.[8]
-
-In more modern times, when almost all learning was garnered into the
-religious houses, which were not only the libraries but the hospitals
-of the day, it seems evident that the care of the sick and wounded fell
-at least as often to the share of the Nunneries as of the Monasteries,
-and probably medical skill, such as it was, found place among the
-sisters quite as often as among the brethren of the various religious
-Orders.
-
-The old ballad of Sir Isumbras gives one illustration out of many of
-the prevailing state of things, relating how the nuns received the
-wounded knight, and how
-
-    “Ilke a day they made salves new,
-    And laid them on his wounds,
-    They gafe hym metis and drynkes lythe,
-    And heled the knyghte wonder swythe.”[9]
-
-It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott,[10] after describing how
-Rebecca “proceeded, with her own hands, to examine and bind up the
-wounds,” goes on to remark, “The youngest reader of romances and
-romantic ballads must recollect how often the females, during the
-dark ages, as they are called, were initiated into the mysteries of
-surgery.... The Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the
-medical science in all its branches.”
-
-In the fourteenth century, when the Medical School of Salerno enjoyed
-high reputation, we find record of a female physician named Abella, who
-lived there, and wrote in Latin various works on medicine.[11]
-
-Early in the next century an Italian lady, Dorotea Bocchi, was actually
-Professor of Medicine at the University of Bologna,[12] and among the
-traditions of the same University is preserved the name of Alessandra
-Gigliani, who, in even earlier times, was a learned student of
-anatomy.[13]
-
-In the sixteenth century, at Alcarez in Spain, lived Olivia Sabuco de
-Nantes, who “had a large knowledge of science and medicine,” and whose
-medical works were printed at Madrid in 1588.[14]
-
-It is clear that in Great Britain at an early period women were
-commonly found among the irregular practitioners of medicine; and
-it is equally clear that their male competitors greatly desired to
-deprive them of the right to practise. In 1421 a petition was presented
-to Henry V., praying that “no woman use the practyse of fisyk under
-payne of long emprisonment.”[15] Within a few years after the first
-incorporation of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, an Act[16]
-was passed for the relief and protection of “Divers honest psones, _as
-well men as women_, whom God hathe endued with the knowledge of the
-nature, kind, and operaçon of certeyne herbes, rotes, and waters, and
-the using and ministering them to suche as be payned with customable
-diseases, for neighbourhode and Goddes sake, and of pitie and
-charytie,” because the “Companie and Fellowship of Surgeons of London,
-mynding onlie their owne lucres and nothing the profit or ease of the
-diseased or patient, have sued, vexed, and troubled,” the aforesaid
-“honest psones,” who were henceforth to be allowed “to practyse, use,
-and mynistre in and to any outwarde sore, swelling, or disease, any
-herbes, oyntements, bathes, pultes or emplasters, according to their
-cooning experience and knowledge ... without sute, vexation, penaltie,
-or losse of their goods.”[17]
-
-This provision clearly referred to general practice other than that
-of midwifery, which latter branch of the profession was then, as for
-centuries both before and after, almost exclusively in the hands of
-women. The very word _midwife_, with its Latin synonym “_obstetrix_,”
-is sufficiently significant on this point, for in neither language has
-it any masculine equivalent, and the clumsy term “Man-midwife” served,
-when first needed and used, to mark the general sense of what the
-writer in the _Athenæum_ forcibly calls “masculine intrusion into that
-which natural instinct assigns to woman as her proper field of labour;”
-and this same very suggestive title is the only one which at the
-present day in legal phraseology distinguishes the male practitioners
-of this branch of medical art.
-
-From the time of Moses onwards this part of the profession has always
-been mainly in the hands of women, and in many countries of Europe
-no other usage has ever prevailed. The first regular French medical
-society, “La confrairie de St Cosme and St Damien,” included within its
-organization the Company of Midwives,[18] and from that time down to
-the present it seems in France to have been the custom to give to these
-women a regular education, terminating in sufficient examinations, an
-example which England would have done well to follow.
-
-In this country, however, midwives appear to have held a most
-respectable position some centuries ago, and a curious idea of their
-importance, their duties, and their credit, may be gathered from a
-MS. volume (without date) now preserved in the British Museum,[19]
-which was evidently written at a time when hardly any but women
-were employed in the “mysteries of the profession,” and when it was
-a comparatively rare thing, that needed to be specially advised in
-certain cases, for them to “make use of (_i.e._, call in) a physitien.”
-The writer remarks that “it is meet that the midwife be a woman well
-read and well experienced,” and gives a caution that “drunkenness is a
-sordid sin in any who use it, but is a blemish worthy greater blame in
-ministers, magistrates, midwives, physitiens, and chirurgeons.”
-
-Mrs Celleor, in her letter previously referred to,[20] tells us that in
-1642, “the physitiens and chirurgeons contending about it, midwifery
-was adjudged a chirurgical operation, and midwives were licensed at
-Chirurgeon’s Hall, but not till they had passed three examinations
-before six skilful midwives, and as many chirurgeons;” but for some
-reason (connected probably with their occasional baptismal functions)
-the midwives were, in 1662, referred for their licence to Doctors’
-Commons, thus losing their official connexion with the medical world.
-
-How it came that English midwives fell gradually from their high
-estate is partly explained by a very public-spirited book (with the
-appropriate motto “Non sibi sed aliis”) written by a surgeon in
-1736.[21] The writer adverts to the accusations of ignorance then
-brought against the midwives, and remarks that “the only method by
-which this fatal distemper can be cured, is to put it in the power of
-midwomen to qualify themselves thoroughly and at a moderate expense....
-To which method of qualifying themselves I doubt not the midwomen will
-object, and say that they would readily be at any reasonable expense
-and fatigue to be so thoroughly instructed, but it is not in their
-power. The midwomen cannot, and the midmen will not instruct them. The
-midmen will object and say that the midwomen want both capacity and
-strength (instruct them as ye please). To which I reply (_ore rotundo,
-plenis buccis_) that it is not want of capacity, docility, strength, or
-activity ... which is evident to a demonstration from the successful
-practice of women in the Hôtel Dieu at Paris (the best school for
-midwifery now in Europe).... Would not any person then be deservedly
-laughed at who should assert that our women are not as capable of
-performing their office had they the same instruction as the French
-women?” This chivalrous surgeon then proposes that regular provision
-should be made for proper instruction, and for examinations by two
-surgeons (who have lectured to the women), “and six or seven other
-persons appointed by His Majesty, because I don’t think it reasonable
-that so many people’s bread should depend on the humour or caprice of
-two men only;” adding that “If some such scheme was put in execution,
-I’m satisfied that in a very few years there would not be an ignorant
-midwife in England, and consequently the great agonies most women
-suffer at the very sight of a man would be almost entirely prevented,”
-and great expense and much life saved.
-
-However, we must suppose that these noble words of protest fell upon
-deaf ears, and the midwives, being left in their ignorance, their
-practice gradually passed into the hands of the medical men, who had
-every advantage of learning at their command.[22]
-
-It is, however, only very recently that men-midwives have been allowed
-to attend on royal patients in this country; indeed, I believe that
-the Princess Charlotte was the first to establish the precedent, and
-that our present Sovereign was the first queen who followed it. In a
-very interesting series of papers, by Dr Aveling, recently published
-in the _Lancet_,[23] accounts have been given of a number of the royal
-midwives whose names have been honourably preserved in history, such as
-Alice Dennis, who attended Anne of Denmark, and received a fee of £100
-“for her pains and attendance upon the Queen, as of His Highness’s free
-gift and reward, without account, imprest, or other charge to be set on
-her for the same.”
-
-The same writer mentions that Margaret Mercer was sent express from
-England in 1603 to attend on “His Majesty’s dearest daughter, the
-Princess Electress Palatine.”
-
-It is also recorded that “Mrs Labany attended Mary of Modena, Queen
-of James II., when she was delivered, on June 10th, 1687, of James
-Francis Edward, afterwards called the Pretender.”[24] Mrs Wilkins,
-another midwife, seems also to have been present on this occasion, and
-it is stated that each of these persons received a fee of five hundred
-guineas for her services.
-
-It is well known that Queen Charlotte was always attended by a
-woman,[25] and the late Duchess of Kent employed the Frau von Siebold,
-of whom mention is made elsewhere.[26]
-
-Now that public attention is awaking to the subject, and educated
-women are once more desirous of undertaking this peculiarly womanly
-work, we may indeed anticipate, with the already quoted writer in the
-_Athenæum_, that a reactionary movement will soon make itself felt, and
-that the usage “which even up to the present time a large proportion
-of our English families, especially those of our northern towns and
-outlying country districts, have never adopted, will most likely be
-discontinued in all classes of English society before the end of the
-present century.”
-
-On the Continent of Europe, owing to their better education, the
-midwives retain much of the position that they have for a time lost
-in England; and we hear that in Russia “a medical man is very rarely
-called in; notwithstanding, fatal cases are of far less frequent
-occurrence in Russia than in England;” and the same authority tells us
-that ladies practising midwifery are admitted into society as doctors
-would be, and are well paid, both by the Government and by private
-fees.[27]
-
-While thus briefly tracing out the history of midwifery in modern
-times, and the causes which led to its practice passing from the hands
-of women into those of men, I have not paused to mention, in due
-chronological order, those women who, in the last three centuries, have
-been distinguished for a knowledge of the other branches of Medicine
-and Surgery. Of these I will now enumerate a few, though my time and
-space are far too limited either to give a complete list, or to relate
-any but the most prominent particulars of each case mentioned; but I
-can promise that any one who will consult the authorities quoted will
-be abundantly repaid by the long and interesting details that I am
-forced to pass over in almost every instance.
-
-In the seventeenth century, in England, one of the women most noted for
-medical skill was Lady Ann Halket,[28] born in 1622, daughter of the
-then provost of Eton College. “Next to the study of Divinity she seems
-to have taken most delight in those of Physick and Surgery, in which
-she was no mean proficient; nay, some of the best physicians in the
-kingdom did not think themselves slighted when persons of the greatest
-quality did consult her in their distempers, even when they attended
-them as their ordinary physicians. Many from England, Holland, and
-the remotest parts of the kingdom, have sent to her for things of her
-preparing; and many whose diseases have proved obstinate under all the
-methods of physicians, have at length, by the physicians’ own advice,
-been recommended and sent to her care, and have been recovered by her.”
-
-In 1644 was born Elizabeth Lawrence, afterwards wife of the Rev.
-Samuel Bury, of Bristol, who wrote her life,[29] and who bears witness
-that “it was not possible there should be a more observant, tender,
-indulgent, and compassionate wife than she was; a more sympathising
-spirit is very rarely found.” He records that “she took much pleasure
-in Anatomy and Medicine, being led and prompted to it partly by her own
-ill health, and partly with a desire of being useful.” The difficulties
-that she encountered in her studies may be guessed, since “she would
-often regret that so many learned men should be so uncharitable to
-her sex, and be so loath to assist their feebler faculties when they
-were anywise disposed to an accurate search into things profitable
-and curious. Especially as they would all so readily own that souls
-were not distinguished by sexes. And therefore she thought it would
-have been an honourable pity in them to have offered something in
-condescension to their capacities, rather than have propagated a
-despair of their information to future ages.” Her husband, however,
-tells us that “she improved so much, that many of the great masters of
-the Faculty have often been startled by her stating the most nice and
-difficult cases in such proper terms;” and, remarking that, “How much
-knowledge and skill soever she attained in the practice of Physick,
-by long observation, conversation, and experience, yet she was very
-distrustful of herself,” he adds that the “instances of her successes
-in the preservation of human lives were not easily numbered.”
-
-As a contemporary of these Englishwomen, we find in Germany Elizabeth
-Keillen, who published several medical works, and died in 1699. She
-is said by Finauer to have had “great knowledge of medicine and
-chemistry.”
-
-In comparatively recent times, Bologna was remarkable as ever for its
-liberal encouragement of learned women, and about the middle of the
-last century the Chair of Anatomy at that University was filled by
-Anna Morandi Mazzolini, whose exquisitely delicate anatomical models,
-executed in wax, became the pride of the Museum at Bologna. She first
-became interested in the study of Anatomy in consequence of her wish
-to help her husband, who was a distinguished anatomist, and a maker
-of anatomical designs and models. He fell into ill-health and mental
-despondency, and therefore “his wife, loving him dearly, and fearing
-that he would desist from his work, gave herself up to his comfort;
-and for this purpose became herself an anatomical sculptor, reading
-works of anatomy, consulting anatomical tables and preparations, taking
-theoretical and practical lessons from her husband, and, marvellous
-to say, even dissecting dead bodies with resolute mind, and with
-incredible perseverance.... Too long to describe are the works executed
-in wax by the able hands of this illustrious woman. They were collected
-in five elegant cases in our Anatomical Museum.... The fourth case
-encloses delicate illustrations of all the parts belonging to the
-senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch--stupendous works in
-which she surpassed herself, and also her husband, and his colleague,
-Ercole Lelli.... These models were for some time kept in her own house,
-and each one who saw them spread her renown, so that through distant
-countries was spread the fame of her works, so that every learned and
-distinguished person passing through Bologna was solicitous to visit
-and know personally the maker of these wonders.”[30] Signora Mazzolini
-also made original discoveries in anatomical science, which obtained
-for her many marks of distinction from the learned colleges and
-societies of the day. She was offered a Chair at Milan, with increased
-revenues, but preferred to remain at Bologna, where she lived till
-her death in 1774. Medici, in his records of the Anatomical School of
-Bologna, speaks of this lady with profound respect, as distinguished
-alike by “rare powers, great erudition, gracious manners, and delicate
-and gentle temperament,” and relates that her fame reached the ears of
-the Emperor Joseph II., who visited her in 1769, and “having seen her
-works and heard her conversation,” loaded her with public honours. Her
-example seems to have inspired others of her countrywomen to follow
-in the steps of one so honoured, alike in the stern duties of her
-profession, and in the sanctities of household life; for in the course
-of the next half century several Italian women availed themselves of
-the thorough medical education which the Italian Universities never
-refused.
-
-In 1788 Maria Petraccini[31] took a degree in medicine at Florence,
-and we find her, a little later, lecturing on anatomy at Ferrara, in
-presence of the medical professors. She married Signor Feretti, and has
-left several works on the physical education of children.
-
-Her daughter, Zaffira Feretti, seems to have inherited her mother’s
-talents, for she studied Surgery in the University of Bologna, and
-there received a medical degree[32] in May 1800. She obtained an
-appointment under the Italian Government, and for some time lived in
-Ancona acting as Director-General of the midwives in all parts of the
-country. She afterwards went to Turkey, and died at Patras in 1817.
-
-Maria Mastellari seems also to have been a woman of unusual talent,
-and “progressed diligently in the most rigid sciences.” She obtained
-a medical degree at Bologna in 1799. She subsequently became the wife
-of Signor Collizoli-Sega, and is described as possessing a “sweet and
-gentle temperament, with special love of silence and quiet. She centred
-her interests in her family, which she managed admirably.”[33]
-
-Still more distinguished in the annals of medicine was Maria delle
-Donne, who also studied in the University of Bologna, and “received
-the doctoral laurel” in 1806.[34] She “constantly practised both
-Medicine and Surgery,” and was appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte to the
-Chair of Midwifery at Bologna. The _Gazette Medicale_, quoting from the
-“_Raccoglitore Medico_,” gives the following account of her:--“Anna
-Maria delle Donne, docteur en médecine, auteur d’élégants vers latins,
-professeur d’obstetrique, à l’Université de Bologna, membre de
-l’Academie, bénédictine, &c., est décedée le 9 Janvier, 1842. Cette
-femme distinguée qui a succedé à Madame Mazzolini et à Madame Bassi,
-est une des gloires scientifiques de Bologna. Elle soutint en 1800,
-avec un très grand succès, une thèse de Philosophie, de Chirurgie, and
-de Medicine. Peu après, à la suite d’un examen public, on lui conféra
-le grade de docteur et de consultant. Napoleon en passant à Bologne
-fut frappé du savoir de cette dame, et institua pour elle une Chaire
-d’Obstetrique, où elle se fit une grande renommée.”[35]
-
-Nor was Italy alone noted as the birthplace of women skilled in
-Medicine. In Germany, early in this century, Frau von Siebold so
-greatly distinguished herself in the practice of midwifery that the
-degree of M.D. was conferred on her by the University of Giessen;[36]
-and her daughter Marianne, afterwards Frau von Heidenreich, studied
-in the Universities of both Göttingen and Giessen, and took her degree
-in the regular way in 1817. She is spoken of as “one of the most famed
-and eminent female scholars of Germany,” and as being “universally
-honoured as one of the first living authorities in her special branch
-of science.”[37] She died only in 1859.
-
-In France, the name of Madame Lachapelle[38] was known and honoured as
-that of one of the ablest teachers of Midwifery during the latter part
-of the last century. She has left several valuable works on subjects
-connected with her specialty. Her funeral in 1821 was followed by
-all the chief physicians of Paris. Her pupil and successor, Madame
-Boivin,[39] was still more distinguished for her medical knowledge and
-skill, and for her contributions to anatomical science. Her “Memoire de
-l’art des Accouchements” was approved by the highest medical authority,
-and was appointed as the text-book for students and midwives by the
-Minister of the Interior. She was invested with an Order of Merit
-by the King of Prussia in 1814, and in the same year was appointed
-co-director (with the Marquis de Belloy) of the General Hospital for
-Seine and Oise, and in 1815 was entrusted with the direction of a
-temporary Military Hospital, for her services in which latter capacity
-she received a public vote of thanks. She was also entrusted with the
-direction of the Hospice de la Maternité, and of the Maison Royale de
-Santé, and was one of the most distinguished practitioners of the time.
-She made original discoveries in Anatomy, invented various surgical
-instruments, and obtained prizes for medical theses from the Société de
-Medicine.
-
-Her medical writings were distinguished by “precision et clarté,
-jugement sain, erudition choisie, et savoir solide.” In 1846 one of her
-books was eulogized by Jourdan as “ouvrage éminemment pratique, et le
-meilleur que nous possedions encore sur ce sujet,” with the additional
-remark that “tout se réunit pour lui mériter une des premières places
-parmi les productions de la littérature medicale moderne.” She was a
-member of the Medical Societies of Paris, Bordeaux, Berlin, Brussels,
-and Bruges, and was honoured with the degree of M.D. from the
-University of Marbourg. She died in 1841.
-
-These numerous instances of the successful practice of Medicine by
-women seem to have been little known, or else forgotten, to judge by
-the surprise expressed when, after surmounting many difficulties,
-an English lady, named Elizabeth Blackwell, succeeded in obtaining
-medical education and the degree of M.D. from a medical school in
-America in 1849. The novelty, in truth, was not in the granting
-of the medical degree to a woman, but in its being received by an
-Englishwoman, for it is hardly gratifying to one’s national pride to
-find that England never has accorded such encouragement to female
-learning as was found in Italy, Germany, and France; and it is still
-more painful to realize that this country, almost alone, stands still
-aloof from the movement of liberal wisdom that has now in all these
-lands, as well as in Switzerland, and even in Russia, granted to woman
-the advantage of University education and degrees. English women are
-not behind others in desiring knowledge, but as yet they are forced to
-seek it on foreign shores, for hitherto no British University has ever
-fully admitted women to its educational advantages; and a few years
-ago, that of London, with all its professions of liberality, refused a
-woman’s petition even for examination for the degree of M.D.!
-
-So much for the historical evidence bearing on this question. I am
-indeed sorry to have paused so long on this part of the subject, but it
-seemed essential to a proper statement of the whole case.
-
-If, then, nature does not instinctively forbid the practice of the
-healing art by women, and if it cannot be denied that some at least of
-its branches have long been in their hands, we must go further to seek
-on what grounds their admission to the medical profession should be
-opposed.
-
-Probably the next argument will be that women do not require, and
-are not fitted to receive, the scientific education needful for
-a first-rate Physician, and that “for their own sakes” it is not
-desirable that they should pursue some of the studies indispensably
-necessary. To this the answer must be, that the wisest thinkers teach
-us to believe that each human being must be “a law unto himself,”
-and must decide what is and what is not suitable for his needs, what
-will and what will not contribute to his own development, and fit him
-best to fulfil the life-work most congenial to his tastes. If women
-claim that they do need and can appreciate instruction in any or all
-sciences, I do not know who has the right to deny the assertion.
-
-That this controversy is no new one may be proved by reference to a
-very curious black-letter volume now in the British Museum,[40] wherein
-the writer protests, “I mervayle gretely of the opynyon of some men
-that say they wolde not in no wyse that theyr doughters or wyves or
-kynneswomen sholde lerne scyences, and that it sholde apayre their
-cödycyons. This thing is not to say ne to sustayne. That the woman
-apayreth by connynge it is not well to beleve. As the proverbe sayeth,
-‘that nature gyveth maye not be taken away.’”
-
-If it be argued that the study of Natural Science may injure a woman’s
-character, I would answer, in the words of one of the purest-minded
-women I know, that “if a woman’s womanliness is not deep enough in her
-nature to bear the brunt of any needful education, it is not worth
-guarding.” It is, I think, inconceivable that any one who considers
-the study of natural science to be but another word for earnest and
-reverent inquiry into the works of God, and who believes that, in
-David’s words, these are to be “sought out of all them that have
-pleasure therein,” can imagine that any such study can be otherwise
-than elevating and helpful to the moral, as well to the mental nature
-of every student who pursues it in a right spirit. In the words of
-Scripture, “To the pure, all things are pure,” and in the phrase of
-chivalry, “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”
-
-It has always struck me as a curious inconsistency, that while almost
-everybody applauds and respects Miss Nightingale and her followers
-for their brave disregard of conventionalities on behalf of suffering
-humanity, and while hardly any one would pretend that there was any
-want of feminine delicacy in their going among the foulest sights and
-most painful scenes, to succour, not their own sex, but the other,
-many people yet profess to be shocked when other women desire to fit
-themselves to take the medical care of those of their sisters who would
-gladly welcome their aid. Where is the real difference? If a woman is
-to be applauded for facing the horrors of an army hospital when she
-believes that she can there do good work, why is she to be condemned
-as indelicate when she professes her willingness to go through an
-ordeal, certainly no greater, to obtain the education necessary for a
-medical practitioner? Surely work is in no way degraded by being made
-scientific; it cannot be commendable to obey instructions as a nurse
-when it would be unseemly to learn the reasons for them as a student,
-or to give them as a doctor; more especially as the nurse’s duties may
-lead her, as they did in the Crimea, to attend on men with injuries and
-diseases of all kinds, whereas the woman who practises as a physician
-would confine her practice to women only. It is indeed hard to see any
-reason of delicacy, at least, which can be adduced in favour of women
-as nurses, and against them as physicians.
-
-Their natural capacity for the one sphere or the other is, of course,
-a wholly different matter, and is, indeed, a thing not to be argued
-about, but to be tested.[41] If women fail to pass the required
-examinations for the ordinary medical degree, or if, after their
-entrance into practice, they fail to succeed in it, the whole question
-is naturally and finally disposed of. But that is not the point now at
-issue.
-
-That the most thorough and scientific medical education need do no
-injury to any woman might safely be prophesied, even if the experiment
-had never been tried; but we have, moreover, the absolute confirmation
-of experience on the point, as I, for one, will gladly testify from
-personal acquaintance in America with many women who have made Medicine
-their profession; having had myself the advantage of studying under
-one who was characterized, by a medical gentleman known throughout the
-professional world, as “one of the best physicians in Boston,” and who,
-certainly, was more remarkable for thorough refinement of mind than
-most women I know,--Dr Lucy Sewall.
-
-Of course there may always be unfortunate exceptions, or rather there
-will always be those of both sexes who, whatever their profession may
-be, will be sure to disgrace it; but it is not of them that I speak,
-nor is it by such individual cases that the supporters of any great
-movement should be judged.
-
-The next argument usually advanced against the practice of medicine
-by women is that there is no demand for it; that women, as a rule,
-have little confidence in their own sex, and had rather be attended by
-a man. That everybody had rather be attended by a competent physician
-is no doubt true; that women have hitherto had little experience of
-competent physicians of their own sex is equally true; nor can it be
-denied that the education bestowed on most women is not one likely
-to inspire much confidence. It is probably a fact, that until lately
-there has been “no demand” for women doctors, because it does not
-occur to most people to demand what does not exist; but that very many
-women have wished that they could be medically attended by those of
-their own sex I am very sure, and I know of more than one case where
-ladies have habitually gone through one confinement after another
-without proper attendance, because the idea of employing a man was so
-extremely repugnant to them. I have indeed repeatedly found that even
-doctors, not altogether favourable to the present movement, allow that
-they consider men rather out of place in midwifery practice;[42] and
-an eminent American practitioner once remarked to me that he never
-entered a lady’s room to attend her in confinement without wishing to
-apologize for what he felt to be an intrusion, though a necessary and
-beneficent intrusion, in one of his sex.
-
-I suppose that the real test of “demand” is not in the opinions
-expressed by those women who have never even seen a thoroughly educated
-female physician, but in the practice which flows in to any such
-physician when her qualifications are clearly satisfactory. In England
-there are at present but two women legally qualified to practise
-Medicine, and I understand that already their time is much more fully
-occupied, and their receipts much greater, than is usually the case
-with medical men who have been practising for so short a period. Dr
-Garrett Anderson’s Dispensary for poor women is also largely attended,
-and during the five years which have elapsed since it was opened, more
-than 40,000 visits have been made to it; 9000 new patients have been
-admitted, and 250 midwifery cases have been attended by the midwives
-attached to the charity, Dr Garrett Anderson being called in when
-necessary.
-
-When we turn to America, we find that a considerable number of
-women have very extensive practice and large professional incomes
-(more, indeed, than in some cases seems warranted by their medical
-qualifications). The Report of a little hospital, managed entirely
-by women, in Boston, U.S., relates that during 1867 the number of
-in-patients was 198; of persons visited at their homes, 281; and of
-those able to attend at the dispensary, 4,576; all these patients being
-women and children only. In fact, the attendance at the Dispensary
-became so excessive in proportion to the resources of the charity,
-that in 1868 a rule was passed by the Committee requiring each patient
-to pay twenty-five cents (or about ninepence) for medicines, at each
-visit, except when she brought “a certificate of her poverty, properly
-authenticated.” This regulation brought out still more strongly the
-distinct _choice_ of poor women in this matter, for, though the General
-City Dispensary gave medicines gratuitously, the number of those who
-attended at the Woman’s Hospital was much less diminished than was
-expected, being still 3,236 in 1868. In New York also, where the
-Dispensary managed by women doctors is but one of many, the crowd of
-patients is very great, the numbers being, in 1867, no less than 6354,
-while 545 persons were attended at their homes either in confinement
-or during severe illness. Of course it will be understood that each
-patient thus entered on the books implies not one visit, but many, paid
-to the Dispensary, or often repeated attendance at the patient’s home.
-
-Of the Boston Hospital for Women and Children I can speak from
-lengthened experience in it as a student. When standing in its
-dispensary I have over and over again heard rough women of a very poor
-class say, when questioned why they had not had earlier treatment for
-certain diseases, “Oh, I _could not_ go to a man with such a trouble,
-and I did not know till just now that ladies did this work;” and from
-others have repeatedly heard different expressions of the feeling that,
-“It’s so nice, isn’t it, to be able at last to ask ladies about such
-things?”
-
-As I am alluding to my own experience in this matter, I may perhaps
-be allowed to say how often in the same place I have been struck with
-the _contingent_ advantages attendant on the medical care by women of
-women. How often I have seen cases connected with stories of shame or
-sorrow to which a woman’s hand could far most fittingly minister, and
-where sisterly help and counsel could give far more appropriate succour
-than could be expected from the average young medical man, however
-good his intentions. Perhaps we shall find the solution of some of our
-saddest social problems when educated and pure-minded women are brought
-more constantly in contact with their sinning and suffering sisters, in
-other relations as well as those of missionary effort.
-
-So far from there being no demand for women as physicians, I believe
-that there is at this moment a large amount of work actually awaiting
-them; that a large amount of suffering exists among women which never
-comes under the notice of medical men at all, and which will remain
-unmitigated till women are ready in sufficient numbers to attend
-medically to those of their own sex who need them, and this in all
-parts of the world. From India we hear urgent demands for “educating
-native women of good caste, so as to qualify them to treat female
-patients and children.”[43] We are informed that “this is a work
-which can only be carried on by women, as the native women in many
-cases will rather die than be seen by a man in times of sickness,”[44]
-and arrangements have already been made for a systematic “Female
-Medical Mission,” though perhaps the standard of medical knowledge
-required can, under existing circumstances, hardly be fixed as high
-as is desirable. To show, however, the eagerness with which the
-native women avail themselves of the aid thus offered, I may mention
-that when a lady (who had had some medical training, but possessed
-no degree,) was sent out by the Society[45] in December 1870, she,
-during the first three months of her stay, had occasion to pay no less
-than 313 professional visits to zenanas, and to treat 158 patients at
-her dispensary, which was arranged with a view to affording them the
-utmost privacy. Subsequently her visits to zenanas averaged as many
-as seventeen a day, while nearly twice as many patients came to her
-dispensary. Efforts are also being made to train native Hindoo women
-for some branches, at least, of the medical profession. Dr Corbyn of
-Bareilly, in 1870, wrote as follows:--“I am educating a number of
-native girls, and three have already passed as native doctors. They
-are of all castes,--Christians, Mahommedans, and Hindoos. My school is
-divided into three classes. The first-class pupils can read and write
-English and Urdee with accuracy. They are taught medicine, surgery,
-midwifery, diseases of women and children (especially the latter
-two). The second-class learn anatomy, materia medica, and physiology,
-in English and Urdee. The pupils of the other (preparatory) class
-are taught English and Urdee. We have a female ward attached to the
-dispensary for women and children, and these girls entirely attend to
-them, under my and the sub-assistants’ supervision. It is wonderful how
-they can manipulate; they have plenty of nerve.”[46] Even more recently
-we learn that “the Mahommedan Nawab of Rampoor has presented to the
-Bareilly mission a large building for the purpose of a medical school
-for women. Several women are now going through a scientific course of
-instruction.”[47]
-
-About eight or ten years ago, “several of the wild tribes of Russian
-Asia petitioned the Government to send them out properly qualified
-women to act as midwives. Their petition was granted, the Government
-undertaking all the expense of the education and maintenance of a
-certain number of women for this purpose. After a time one of these
-tribes, the Kirgesen, petitioned further, that the women thus sent to
-them should also be taught some branches of the art of Medicine. One of
-the women, then being trained as a midwife, hearing of this petition,
-wrote to the Kirgesen, proposing that she should study Medicine
-thoroughly, and go out to them as a qualified doctor. She suggested at
-the same time that they should try to get permission for her to enter
-the Academy of St Petersburg as a regular medical student. The Kirgesen
-welcomed the proposal, and, through an influential Russian general,
-obtained an official document, empowering their future doctor to attend
-the Academy as a student. They have regularly sent money for her
-education and maintenance, and from the first have taken the greatest
-interest in her progress and welfare, requiring, among other things,
-periodical bulletins of her health. Hearing last summer that she was
-not well, they sent money for her to go abroad for her holiday, and
-asked for an extra bulletin.”[48]
-
-I cite the above facts to show that the demand for female physicians is
-no artificial or imaginary one, and that it does not spring out of any
-fanciful whim of an over-refined social state; but lest it should be
-supposed on the other hand to be confined to half-barbarous nations, I
-may quote the opinions expressed on this subject two years ago in one
-of the most thoughtful of our English journals: “We heartily admit
-that the only way to discriminate clearly what practical careers women
-are, and are not, fitted for, is to let them try. In many cases, as in
-the medical profession, we do not feel any doubt that they will find
-a special kind of work for which they are specially fitted, which has
-never been adequately done by men at all, and which never would be done
-but by women.... We have heard the opinion of one of the most eminent
-of our living physicians, that one of the new lady physicians is doing,
-in the most admirable manner, a work which medical men would never even
-have had the chance of doing.”[49]
-
-I am told by Catholic friends that a great many cases of special
-disease remain untreated in convents, because the nuns, with their
-extreme notions of feminine seclusion, think that it would be little
-short of profanation to submit to some kinds of medical treatment
-from a man.[50] Indeed, it is expressly laid down by a great Catholic
-authority, St Alphonsus,[51] that though monks and nuns are required
-to place themselves in the doctor’s care when commanded to do so by
-their superiors, a special exception is to be made in the case of
-nuns suffering from certain maladies, who can only be required to
-accept treatment from a skilled woman, if any such be available; as,
-under existing circumstances, is so rarely the case. I do not ask any
-reader to applaud or even justify these poor nuns, if they, esteeming
-themselves “the martyrs of holy purity,” sacrifice life to such
-scruples; but I do most emphatically ask, in the name of humanity,
-whether the state of things can be defended which may drive women,
-from the highest and most holy motives, to submit to the extremity of
-physical suffering and even death itself, because it is impossible for
-them to obtain the medical services of their own sex, and because they
-believe they can best fulfil the spirit of their vows by accepting no
-other?
-
-I am informed by a friend that Archbishop Manning, when expressing to
-her his strong interest in the question of the medical education of
-women, alluded to facts like those referred to above, as affording one
-of the strongest motives for such interest in the minds of Catholics.
-Nor, surely, need sympathy in such a case be limited within the bounds
-of any religious denomination.
-
-To pass to the consideration of other cases of a less exceptional
-kind, there can, I think, be little doubt that an enormous amount of
-preventible suffering arises from the unwillingness of very many girls
-on the verge of womanhood to consult a medical man on various points
-which are yet of vital importance, and to appeal to him in cases of
-apparently slight illness, which yet issue but too often in ultimately
-confirmed ill-health. I firmly believe that if a dozen competent women
-entered upon medical practice at this moment in different parts of
-England, they might, without withdrawing a single patient from her
-present medical attendant, find full and remunerative employment in
-attending simply to those cases which, in the present state of things,
-go without any adequate treatment whatever; for I believe that many
-suffering women would be willing to consult one of their own sex, if
-thoroughly qualified, when they refuse, except at some crisis of acute
-suffering, to call in a medical man.[52] Probably Queen Isabella of
-Castile[53] was neither the first nor the last woman whose life was
-sacrificed to her modesty. Even if such extreme instances are rare,
-I think it cannot be denied that very much needless pain, “and pain
-of a kind that ought not to be inflicted,” is caused, especially to
-young girls, by the necessity of consulting men on all occasions, and I
-believe that those who know most of the facts insist most strongly on
-this point.
-
-I do not know how far the Medical Profession would acknowledge the
-truth of the above statement; it is probable that they are really less
-competent to judge about it than women are themselves, for, as an
-eminent divine remarked that it was considered a point of politeness
-not to express theological doubts before a clergyman, it may probably
-be thought still more obligatory not to question the adequacy of the
-existing medical profession before one of its members. One can hardly
-imagine a lady sending for a doctor to tell him why she will _not_
-consult him; it is sufficient to know that many cases of disease among
-women go without treatment; it is surely open to any one at least to
-suggest the above as one of the possible reasons.
-
-And indeed, if no such special suffering were often involved in the
-idea of consulting a man on all points, it seems self-evident that a
-woman’s most natural adviser would be one of her own sex, who must
-surely be most able to understand and sympathise with her in times
-of sickness as well as of health, and who can often far more fully
-appreciate her state, both of mind and body, than any medical man would
-be likely to do.[54]
-
-Nor can I leave the subject without expressing a hope that, when women
-are once practising medicine in large numbers, great gain may accrue
-to medical science from the observations and discoveries which their
-sex will give them double facilities of making among other women. One
-of the most eminent of the so-called “ladies’ doctors” of the day
-writes:--“The principal reason why the knowledge of diseases of women
-has so little advanced, is the hitherto undisturbed belief that one sex
-only is qualified by education and powers of mind to investigate and to
-cure what the other sex alone has to suffer.” After alluding to women
-physicians of both ancient and modern times, Dr Tilt further remarks,
-that, “if well educated, they may greatly improve our knowledge of the
-diseases of women.”[55]
-
-Moreover, there is reason to hope that women doctors may do even more
-for the health of their own sex in the way of prevention than of cure,
-and surely this is the very noblest province of the true physician.
-Already it is being proved with what eagerness women will attend
-lectures on physiology and hygiene when delivered to them by a woman,
-though perhaps not one in ten would go to the same course of lectures
-if given by a medical man. I look forward to the day when a competent
-knowledge of these subjects shall be as general among women as it now
-is rare; and when that day arrives, I trust that the “poor health”
-which is now so sadly common in our sex, and which so frequently
-comes from sheer ignorance of sanitary laws, will become rather the
-exception than, as now too often, the rule. I hope that then we shall
-find far fewer instances of life-long illness entailed on herself by
-a girl’s thoughtless ignorance; I believe we shall see a generation
-of women far fitter in mind and body to take their share in the work
-of the world, and that the Registrar will have to record a much lower
-rate of infantile mortality when mothers themselves have learned to
-know something at least of the elementary laws of health. It has been
-well said that the noblest end of education is to make the educator no
-longer necessary; and I, at least, shall think it the highest proof
-of success if women doctors can in time succeed in so raising the
-standard of health among their sister women, that but half the present
-percentage of medical practitioners are required in comparison to the
-female population.
-
-Of course I do not expect that every reader will look at this
-question from my point of view, or will be able to arrive at the same
-conclusions respecting it. But I think that many who have never before
-seen the matter in the light in which I have tried to place it, will be
-ready to admit that there are at any rate _primâ facie_ grounds for my
-argument, and that allowing even for considerable over-statement on my
-part, there may still remain subject for serious consideration.
-
-Even if I am wholly mistaken, and if all that needs doing _can_ in
-England be effectually done by men, we have still, I think, no reason
-for the exclusion of women from the medical profession;--there is still
-no ground on which it can be right to refuse to every patient the
-power of election between a physician of her own sex and of the other,
-when women as well as men are desirous of qualifying themselves for
-this work, seeing that it will after all be always a matter of choice;
-for we cannot suppose that the time will ever come when women will be
-arbitrarily prevented from employing men, as they now are arbitrarily
-prevented from employing women, as their medical attendants.
-
-The assertion that women _are_ at present “arbitrarily prevented from
-employing women as their medical attendants” may sound startling, but
-it is at this moment practically true in England, in the most literal
-sense. Since medical practice has, for the protection of the public,
-been made a matter of legislation, it has been absolutely illegal for
-any physician or surgeon to practise as such in this country, unless
-registered by the appointed Medical Board, and that Board is not
-obliged to register any one who has not a British medical degree. It is
-evident, then, that to deny all British medical degrees to women,--not
-only to refuse them instruction, but to refuse to examine them if they
-have acquired knowledge elsewhere,--_is_ most arbitrarily to prohibit
-all women, whatever their qualification, from practising medicine in
-the United Kingdom, except under legal pains and penalties.
-
-Of course no such arbitrary action was even contemplated when the Act
-of 1858 was passed; and I think that when once the great practical
-injustice of the present state of things is fully understood by the
-public, a change is inevitable,--either British medical degrees will
-be thrown open to women, as is most desirable, or the legal conditions
-of practice will be modified to meet the case of those to whom such
-degrees are denied. It is perhaps hardly to be expected, though very
-much to be desired, that medical men as a body should themselves take
-the initiative in this matter, and throw open the doors to all women
-who desire worthily to join their fellowship, for it proverbially
-“needs _very_ good men to give up their own monopoly;” but the action
-of the general public in the matter can hardly be doubtful except as
-a question of time;--no English court could be expected to condemn to
-legal penalties a succession of highly-educated ladies who may have
-seized, often with great effort, every opportunity open to them to fit
-themselves thoroughly for a work which they believe to be especially
-their own.
-
-The recent action taken in the matter by the authorities at
-Apothecaries’ Hall is exactly of the kind to outrage an Englishman’s
-sense of fairness, and therefore is sure before long to bring its
-own redress. As the facts may not be thoroughly understood in the
-non-medical world, I will briefly recapitulate them. When Miss Garrett
-first began to study medicine in 1860, she tried to obtain admittance
-to one School and University after another, and finally found that
-Apothecaries’ Hall was the only body which, from its charter, had no
-power to refuse to examine any candidate complying with its conditions.
-She accordingly went through the required five years’ apprenticeship,
-and obtained her diploma in 1865, having gone to very great additional
-expense in obtaining privately the required lectures by recognised
-Professors,--sometimes paying fifty guineas for a course when the
-usual fee, in the classes from which she was debarred, was but three
-or four. Not content, however, with indirectly imposing this enormous
-pecuniary tax on women, the authorities now bethought them to pass a
-rule forbidding students to receive any part of their medical education
-privately,--this course being publicly advised by one of the leading
-medical journals as a safe way of evading the obligations of the
-charter, and yet effectually shutting out the one chance left to the
-women![56]
-
-Of course the efficacy of this measure ceases the moment that any
-regular medical school fairly opens its doors to women; but till that
-day comes, it presents a formidable, if not insuperable, difficulty.
-Commenting on this proceeding, the _Daily News_ remarks:--“We recommend
-these facts to the good people who think that coercion, restriction,
-and the tyranny of combination, are peculiar to any one class of
-society. It will be a great day in England when the right of every
-individual to make the most of the ability which God has given him,
-free from interested interference, is recognised, and to that goal we
-are surely advancing; but our progress is slow, and it is very clear
-that it is not only in the lower ranks of the community that the
-obstructive trades-union spirit is energetically operating.”
-
-While such is the state of affairs in England, other European nations
-have taken a very different position. We have already seen that the
-Italian Universities were, in fact, never closed to women, and that at
-Bologna no less than three women held Professors’ chairs in the Medical
-Faculty.[57] We have several instances of degrees granted to women in
-the Middle Ages by the Universities of Bologna, Padua, Milan, Pavia,
-and others; the earliest instance that I have found being that of
-Betisia Gozzadini,[58] who was made Doctor of Laws by the University of
-Bologna in 1209. In Germany also several such instances have occurred.
-At Paris no less than seven degrees in Arts and Sciences have been
-granted to women by the University of France within the last ten years,
-and a number of women are now studying in the Medical School there. In
-answer to my enquiries in 1868, the Secretary to the Minister of Public
-Instruction made the following communication:--
-
-  “_Paris, le 18 Août 1868,
-  “Ministère de l’Instruction Publique._
-
- “MADEMOISELLE,--En réponse à la lettre que vous me faites
- l’honneur de m’adresser, en vous recommendant du nom de Lord Lyons,
- qui a écrit pour vous à Mons. le Ministre, je m’empresse de vous faire
- savoir que le Ministre est disposé à vous autoriser, aussi que les
- autres dames Anglaises qui se destineraient à la médecine, à faire vos
- études à la Faculté de Paris, et a y subir des examens.
-
- “Il est bien entendu que vous devez être munie, par voie d’équivalence
- on autrement, des diplômes exigés pour l’inscription à la faculté de
- médecine.
-
- “Agreez, Mademoiselle l’assurance de mon respect,
-
-  (Signed) “DANTON.”
-
-Since this Essay was first published, two women have obtained the
-degree of M.D. in Paris, after passing brilliant examinations in each
-case. The first graduate was our distinguished countrywoman, Miss
-Garrett, who, after passing the five examinations required, received
-her degree in June 1870. The _Lancet_ records that “her friends must
-have been highly gratified to hear how her judges congratulated her on
-her success, and to see what sympathy and respect was shown to her by
-all present.”[59]
-
-The next lady who graduated was Miss Mary C. Putnam of New York,
-who, after quietly pursuing her studies (combined with original
-researches), like a second Archimedes, during both the sieges of
-Paris in 1870–71, took her degree with great honour in August 1871.
-The _Lancet_[60] remarked--“Miss Putnam has just been undergoing the
-very strict examinations for the doctor’s degree in Paris, and has
-passed very creditably. This is the second case in the Paris faculty,
-the innovation being made quietly, whilst elsewhere angry discussions
-intervene.”
-
-At Lyons, also, two women have obtained degrees in Arts, in 1861 and
-1869 respectively. At Montpellier a degree in Arts was also conferred
-on a woman in 1865, and another lady has passed the first two
-examinations in the _Ecole de Pharmacie Supérieure_ in that city.
-
-For several years past the University of Zurich has been thrown open
-to women as freely as to men; a Russian woman, named Nadejda Suslowa,
-being the first to obtain a degree in Medicine, in 1867. Several more
-have since then graduated, and others are at present pursuing their
-studies there in the ordinary classes.[61]
-
-In March 1870 it was announced, on the authority of the _Lancet_,
-that the University of Vienna had formally decided to admit women as
-students, and to confer on them the ordinary medical degrees.[62]
-
-A month or two later the Swedish newspapers published in their official
-columns a royal decree, granting to Swedish women the right to study
-and practise medicine, and ordaining that the professors of the
-Universities should make arrangements for teaching and examining them
-in the usual way.[63]
-
-Even Russia seems in advance of England in this matter. In 1869, “the
-Medico-Chirurgical Academy of St Petersburg conferred the degree of
-M.D. upon Madame Kaschewarow, the first female candidate for this
-honour. When her name was mentioned by the Dean, it was received with
-an immense storm of applause, which lasted for several minutes. The
-ceremony of investing her with the insignia of her dignity being over,
-her fellow-students and colleagues lifted her upon a chair, and carried
-her with triumphant shouts through the hall.”[64]
-
-At Moscow, also, “the Faculty of Medicine, with the full concurrence of
-the Council of the University of Moscow, have decided to grant to women
-the right of being present at the educational courses and lectures of
-the Faculty, and to follow all the labours of the Medico-Chirurgical
-Academy. The tests of capacity will be precisely the same as for male
-students.”[65] Still more recently we hear from St Petersburg that “the
-success of the lady physicians is encouraging other ladies to devote
-themselves to medicine, and a considerable step has been made in this
-direction. ... A person who interests herself in the higher education
-of women has requested the Minister of State to accept the sum of
-£8000, and to devote it to the establishment of medical classes for
-women at the Imperial Academy of Medicine.”[66]
-
-Nor is the progress of liberality less marked on the other side of
-the Atlantic. It is well known that several of the smaller medical
-schools in the United States admitted women as soon as they applied
-for instruction, but until 1869 no American University threw open
-its doors. About the end of that year, however, the State University
-of Michigan took the initiative in this matter, and the following
-statement was inserted in last year’s official Calendar:--“Recognising
-the equality of rights of both sexes to the highest educational
-advantages, the Board of Regents have made provision for the medical
-education of women, by authorising a course of education for them,
-separate, but in all respects equal to that heretofore given to men
-only. The conditions of admission, as well as graduation, are the same
-for all.” During the first year fourteen women appeared as students in
-the Faculty of Arts, three in that of Law, and thirteen were studying
-Medicine and Surgery. In the spring of 1871 Miss Sanford received the
-first medical degree granted to a woman by an American University; and
-it is worth notice that this lady (herself a pupil of Dr Lucy Sewall
-of Boston,) took her place among the most distinguished graduates of
-the year;--her thesis on “Puerperal Eclampsia” being the one selected
-by the Medical Faculty for publication. The number of women studying
-at Michigan University during the session 1871–72 was sixty-eight, as
-compared with the thirty of the previous year; such rapid increase
-being tolerably significant of the avidity with which women embrace
-the long-denied opportunities of instruction, and offering sufficient
-encouragement to any British University that may resolve to try the
-same experiment.
-
-It will thus be seen that many nations have, from the earliest period,
-recognised and acted upon the truth that “Mind is of no sex,” and
-that, where this has not been the case in former times, the barriers
-are being rapidly and readily thrown down as civilization advances,
-till, in truth, Great Britain now stands almost alone in refusing to
-admit her daughters to the national universities, and in denying them
-the opportunity of proving experimentally whether “the male mind of
-the Caucasian race[67]” is indeed so immeasurably superior to its
-feminine counterpart. It may be remarked, by the bye, that it is
-very curious to notice how the very people who loudly maintain the
-existence of this vast mental disparity are just those who strenuously
-resist every endeavour to submit their theory to the touchstone of
-experience, instead of welcoming the application of those tests that
-might be expected so triumphantly to prove their point! But, jesting
-apart, the present state of things can hardly be agreeable to English
-self-respect; and it is to be hoped that our country will soon descend
-from her bad eminence, and no longer be marked out as the one land
-where men only can reap benefit from the educational advantages
-provided at the expense of the nation at large. It can hardly be an
-object of ambition to the learned men of any people to deserve the
-woe pronounced of old against those who “have taken away the key of
-knowledge, and them that were entering in, they hindered.”
-
-There seems to be practically no doubt now that women are and will be
-doctors. The only question really remaining is, how thoroughly they are
-to be educated and fitted to take their share of responsibility in the
-care of the life and health of the nation; how far their difficulties
-are to be lightened or increased; and whether the state of things shall
-continue by which they are driven into unwilling quackery on the one
-hand, or made to suffer real oppression from irresponsible authority on
-the other.
-
-Men who, after an irregular education and incomplete training, claim
-the name of physicians, are justly stigmatised as quacks, and excluded
-from honourable fellowship, for they have refused the straight and
-direct path as too laborious, and have sought admittance by crooked
-ways. It is right enough to impose heavy penalties on them for
-practising without a diploma which it needs only industry on their
-part to obtain; but what shall we say when women are refused admission
-to every regular Medical School, and then, when they have perhaps
-painfully and laboriously gathered their own education, either in
-England or abroad, are excluded from the fellowship of the profession,
-for the sin of having been unjustly treated! That some women have
-succeeded in acquiring most competent medical knowledge and skill can
-hardly be denied, except by those who really know nothing of the facts,
-or are wilfully blind to them; but in almost every case they have done
-so at a cost of money, effort, and personal sacrifice, that can be
-expected only from the few. Imagine all medical students met by the
-difficulties which female students must encounter;--how many properly
-educated doctors should we have?
-
-Many persons, however, who would gladly see women engage in the
-practice of Medicine, yet think it undesirable that they should
-obtain their education in the same schools as men; and here another
-practical point arises for consideration. If it is indeed true that no
-one is fit for the profession of Medicine unless able to banish from
-its practice the personal idea of sex, it certainly seems as if all
-earnest students seeking the same knowledge for the same ends, ought
-to be able to pursue their studies together. We are constantly told
-(and I think rightly) that no woman _need_ object, when necessary,
-to consult a medical man on any point, because the physician will
-see in it simply an impersonal “case,” and will, from his scientific
-standpoint, practically ignore all that would be embarrassing as
-between persons of opposite sexes. If this is and ought to be true, it
-does not seem too much to demand equal delicacy of feeling among those
-who will in a year or two be themselves physicians; and, from personal
-experience when studying in large American hospitals with students
-of both sexes, I believe that no serious difficulty need ever occur,
-except in cases of really exceptional coarseness of character on one
-side or the other. That such joint study will be for the first few
-days novel and embarrassing is of course natural; but I believe that,
-as the first novelty wears off, the embarrassment too will disappear
-in the interest of a common study, and that no thoroughly pure-minded
-woman, with an ordinary amount of tact, need ever fear such association
-with students of whom the majority will always be gentlemen. It is of
-course a radically different thing to study any or all subjects with
-earnest scientific interest, and to discuss them lightly in common
-conversation.[68]
-
-Not only in America has the system of joint education been tried, but
-at Paris and at Zurich ladies are at the present moment studying in
-the regular Medical Schools, and friends at each place assure me of the
-complete success of the experiment, if such it is considered. Dr Mary
-Putnam (the first lady ever admitted to the Parisian Medical School) in
-1869 wrote thus: “There is not the slightest restriction on my studies
-or my presence at the Classes.... I have never found the slightest
-difficulty in studying with the young men with whom I am associated,
-not only at lectures, but in the hospitals, reading-room, laboratory,
-&c. I have always been treated with a courtesy at once frank and
-respectful.” A lady studying Medicine at the University of Michigan
-in 1870, wrote--“We are very much pleased with the way in which we
-have been received here, both by professors and students; they have
-treated us in every respect with great courtesy.” Another lady, when
-studying at Zurich, reported that “in the Medical School of Zurich,
-no advantage which is afforded to the male students is denied to the
-women. Every class is open to them, and they work side by side with the
-men. The students have invariably been to me most friendly, helpful,
-and courteous.” In answer to an official letter of enquiry, the Dean
-of the Medical Faculty at Zurich wrote: “Since 1867, ladies have been
-regularly admitted as matriculated students, and have been allowed all
-the privileges of _cives academici_. As far as our experience has gone,
-the new practice has not in any way been found to damage the interests
-of the University. The lady students we have hitherto had have all been
-found to behave with great good taste, and to be diligent students.”
-Such evidence must surely carry more weight than the opinions of those
-who merely theorize about probabilities, especially when such theorists
-start, as is often the case, with a predisposition to find “lions in
-the way.”
-
-If the admission of women to the regular Medical Schools has been
-proved to bring no evil consequences, wherever teachers and professors
-have shown good will, it needs strong arguments to justify their
-exclusion from advantages which they can hardly obtain elsewhere; for
-it has been well remarked, that nothing can be more false than to
-confound a “small injustice” with “injustice to a small number.”
-
-It is simply a mockery, and one calculated to mislead the public, when
-a medical journal[69] announces that “We would offer no obstacle
-to any steps which women may think would be conducive to their own
-benefit. But if it be indispensable that they should study Anatomy
-and Medicine, let them, in the interests of common decency, have an
-educational institution and licensing body of their own.” And again,
-“If women are determined to become Medical Practitioners, they are at
-perfect liberty to do so; but it is only consistent with decency that
-they should have their own special Schools and examining bodies.” Such
-writers know perfectly well that it is utterly impossible for two or
-three struggling women students to found “their own special Schools,”
-(though, when a sufficient number of women are educated, they may
-gladly make such provision for those who will succeed them,) and that,
-if in truth women as well as men have a right to claim opportunities of
-education, the duty of providing separate instruction for them clearly
-falls on the existing Schools, if the authorities refuse to admit them
-to share in the general advantages offered.
-
-For myself, I cannot see why difficulties that have in France and
-Switzerland been proved chimerical, should in England be supposed
-(without any fair trial) to be insurmountable; as I, for one, cannot
-believe that less good and gentlemanly feeling should be expected from
-English and Scotch students, wherever their Professors set them an
-example of courtesy, than is found among the undergraduates of foreign
-Universities.
-
-But this is a point which I do not greatly care to urge; although
-Medical Science can undoubtedly be most favourably studied under those
-conditions which only large institutions can command, and which
-could for many years be but imperfectly attained in a Medical College
-designed for women only. Still there is no doubt that women, thoroughly
-in earnest, and with a certain amount of means at their command,
-_can_ obtain adequate medical instruction without entering any of the
-existing Schools for men, and no doubt arrangements could be made to
-secure all that is necessary with much less effort and expense than at
-present. We should be very thankful to have the Medical Schools thrown
-open to us, to be allowed some share in the noble provision made,
-chiefly with public money, for the instruction of medical students; but
-this is not absolutely indispensable; we may be refused this, and yet
-gain our end, though with greater toil and at greater expense. As time
-goes on, and as the number of women attracted by the study of Medicine
-increases, it will probably, apart from all extrinsic considerations,
-be both natural and convenient that they should have a Medical School
-of their own, in which every means of study should be specially
-provided for, and adapted to, their needs. It is not, however, I think,
-desirable that this should be done until the number of students is
-sufficient to guarantee funds for the liberal payment of first-rate
-teachers, and the ample provision of all needful facilities. If no
-women are to be made competent physicians till they have a school of
-their own, there never will be any at all; for those who broadly oppose
-the movement will always be able to say, “Women have never proved
-that they can use such advantages as will be thus furnished; do not
-establish a College for them till they have.”
-
-So the double argument would run thus: “Do not found a Female Medical
-School till we are sure that women can successfully study Medicine; do
-not let any woman study Medicine except in a Medical School of their
-own.” Between such a Scylla and Charybdis who can steer clear?
-
-Supposing, however, that this dilemma were escaped, and that adequate
-means of instruction were provided, (with men, or apart from them,
-I care not,) it would still, I think, be essential, not only to the
-interests of women doctors, but to those of the public at large,
-that the standard for medical practitioners of both sexes should be
-identical; that women should be admitted to the examinations already
-established for men, and should receive their medical degree on exactly
-the same terms. I do not for a moment desire to see degrees granted
-to women by a College of their own, or to see a special examination
-instituted for them; for there would be extreme difficulty in measuring
-the exact value of any such diplomas, and danger would arise, on the
-one hand, of injustice being done to those thoroughly competent, but
-possessing “only a woman’s degree,” and, on the other, of the standard
-being really lowered, and the medical degree coming to possess an
-uncertain and inferior value.
-
-Of this latter danger we have abundant warning in America, where every
-fresh College is allowed the right of “graduating” its own students
-on whatever terms it pleases, and where, indeed, one is confounded
-by the innumerable diplomas granted by all sorts of Colleges to all
-sorts of people, so that one has need to inquire whether the M.D.
-attached to a name represents a degree granted by some “Eclectic” or
-“Hygeio-therapeutic” College of mushroom growth, or by the Universities
-of Harvard and Yale.
-
-We cannot wish for such a state of things in England. Let British
-degrees continue to be of perfectly definite value; make the conditions
-as stringent as you please, but let them be such as are attainable by
-all students, and are clearly understood by the general public; and
-then, for all that would worthily win and wear the desired honours, “a
-fair field and no favour.”
-
-Is there not one of the English, Scotch, or Irish Universities that
-will win future laurels by now taking the lead generously, and
-announcing its willingness to cease, at least, its policy of arbitrary
-exclusion? Let the authorities, if they please, admit women to study in
-the ordinary classes with or without any special restrictions (and it
-is hard to believe that at least the greater part of the lectures could
-not be attended in common); or let them, if they think needful, bid the
-women make their own arrangements, and gather their knowledge as they
-can;[70] with this promise only, that, when acquired, such knowledge
-shall be duly tested, and, if found worthy, shall receive the Hall-mark
-of the regular Medical Degree.
-
-Surely this is not too much to ask, and no more is absolutely
-essential. If, indeed, the assertions so often made about the
-incapacity of women are true, the result of such examinations (which
-may be both theoretical and practical, scientific and clinical,) will
-triumphantly prove the point. If the examinations are left in the hands
-of competent men, we may be very sure that all unqualified women will
-be summarily rejected, as indeed it is to be desired that they should
-be.
-
-If, on the contrary, some women, however few, can, under all existing
-disadvantages, successfully pass the ordeal, and go forth with the full
-authority of the degree of Doctor of Medicine, surely all will be glad
-to welcome their perhaps unexpected success, and bid every such woman,
-as she sets forth on her mission of healing, a hearty God-speed!
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[1] See _Note A_.
-
-[2] _Athenæum_, Sept. 28, 1867.
-
-[3] In his “Essai sur les Femmes,” Thomas points out that “Chez la
-plupart des sauvages ... la médecine et la magie sont entre les mains
-des femmes.”
-
-[4] The passage is thus rendered by Professor Blackie:--
-
-    “His eldest born, hight Agamede, with golden hair,
-    A leech was she, and well she knew all herbs on ground that grew.”
-
-    (Iliad, xi. 739).
-
-In his Notes the translator remarks that “it seems undeniable that
-women have a natural vocation for exercising certain branches of
-the medical profession with dexterity and tact.... It is gratifying
-therefore to find that a field of activity which has been recently
-claimed for the sex ... finds a precedent in the venerable pages of
-the Iliad.... In fact, nothing was more common in ancient times than
-medical skill possessed by females,” in proof of which assertion he
-mentions Œnone and others. (Professor Blackie’s “Homer and the Iliad.”
-Edmonston & Douglas.)
-
-[5] Odyssey, iv. 227.
-
-[6] Hippolytus, 293–7.
-
-[7] Finauer’s “Allgemeines Verzeichniss gelehrten Frauenzimmer.”
-
-[8] I subjoin as a curiosity the quaint version of this story that is
-given in a letter from Mrs Celleor (a fashionable midwife of the reign
-of James II.), published in 1687, and now to be found in the British
-Museum. After saying that “Among the subtile Athenians a law at one
-time forbade women to study or practise medicine or physick on pain of
-death, which law continued some time, during which many women perished,
-both in child-bearing and by private diseases, their modesty not
-permitting them to admit of men either to deliver or cure them,” she
-continues, “Till God stirred up the spirit of Agnodice, a noble maid,
-to pity the miserable condition of her own sex, and hazard her life to
-help them; which to enable herself to do, she apparelled her like a
-man, and became the scholar of Hierophilos, the most learned physician
-of the time; and having learned the art, she found out a woman that had
-long languished under private diseases, and made proffer of her service
-to cure her, which the sick person refused, thinking her to be a man;
-but, when Agnodice discovered that she was a maid, the woman committed
-herself into her hands, who cured her perfectly; and after her many
-others, with the like skill and industry, so that in a short time she
-became the successful and beloved physician of the whole sex.” When her
-sex became known to the public, “she was like to be condemned to death
-for transgressing the law ... which, coming to the ears of the noble
-women, they ran before the Areopagites, and the house being encompassed
-by most women of the city, the ladies entered before the judges, and
-told them they would no longer account them for husbands and friends,
-but for cruel enemies that condemned her to death who restored to them
-their health, protesting they would all die with her if she were put
-to death.... This caused the magistrates to disannul the law, and make
-another, which gave gentlewomen leave to study and practise all parts
-of physick to their own sex, giving large stipends to those that did it
-well and carefully. And there were many noble women who studied that
-practice, and taught it publicly in their schools as long as Athens
-flourished in learning.”
-
-[9] “Thornton Romances,” Camden Society.
-
-[10] “Ivanhoe,” chap. xxviii.
-
-[11] “Nuovo Dizionario Istorico;” Bassano, 1796.
-
-[12] Fachini’s “Prospetto Biografico delle Donne Italiane,” Venezia,
-1824.
-
-[13] Medici’s “Scuola Anatomica di Bologna.”
-
-[14] Finauer.
-
-[15] _New York Medical Gazette_, April 24, 1869.
-
-[16] 34 Henry VIII. 8.
-
-[17] Maitland, in giving an account of the foundation of the
-Edinburgh College of Physicians in 1681, begins by saying that “the
-Practice of Physick had been greatly abused in Edinburgh by foreign
-Impostors, Quacks, Empirics, and illiterate Persons, _both men and
-women_.”--Maitland’s History of Edinburgh, 1753.
-
-[18] The statutes of 1268 ordained that “les matrones ou sages
-femmes sont aussi, de la dite confrairie et subjects ausdits deux
-chirurgiens jurez du Roy au Chastelet, qui ont dressé certains statuts
-et ordonnances tant pour les droicts de la confrairie que pour leur
-estat de sage femme, qu’elles doivent observer et garder.”--Du Breul’s
-“Antiquités de Paris,” pub. 1639.
-
-[19] “The Midwive’s Deputie ... composed for the use of my wife (a
-sworne Midwife), by Edward Poeton, Petworth, Licentiate in Physick and
-Chyrurgery.”
-
-[20] “Letter to Dr----” written by Elizabeth Celleor, “from my house in
-Arundel Street, Strand, Jan. 16, 1687–8.”
-
-[21] “A Short Account of the State of Midwifery in London. By John
-Douglas, Surgeon. Dedicated to the Right Hon. Lady Walpole.”
-
-[22] It may be interesting to give the following quotation on this
-subject from a popular magazine of thirty years ago:--“The accoucheur’s
-is a profession nearly altogether wrested out of the hands of women,
-for which Nature has surely fitted them, if opinion permitted education
-to finish Nature’s work. But women are held in the bonds of ignorance,
-and then pronounced of deficient capacity, or blamed for wanting
-the knowledge they are sternly prevented from acquiring.”--_Tait’s
-Magazine_, June, 1841.
-
-[23] _Lancet_, April 13th and 20th; May 4th; June 1st; 1872.
-
-[24] It will be remembered that an attempt was made to throw doubt on
-the birth of this prince, but Dr Aveling remarks that “Dr Chamberlen,
-in his letter to the Princess Sophia, showed the absurdity of this
-hypothesis”--(_i.e._, of the charge of conspiracy).
-
-[25] “Delicacy had in those days so far the ascendancy, that the
-obstetrical art was principally practised by females, and on this
-occasion the Queen was delivered by Mrs Stephen, Dr Hunter being
-in attendance among the ladies of the bedchamber, in case of his
-professional assistance being required.”--HUISH’S “_Life of
-George IV._”
-
-[26] “It is a curious coincidence, considering the future connection of
-the children, that Madame Siebold, the accoucheuse spoken of above as
-attending the Duchess of Coburg at the birth of Prince Albert (August
-1819), had only three months before attended the Duchess of Kent at the
-birth of the Princess Victoria.”--_Early Years of the Prince Consort._
-
-[27] “Rites and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church,” by Madame
-Romanoff. Rivingtons, 1868.
-
-[28] Ballard’s “Memoirs of several Ladies of Great Britain.” Oxford,
-1752.
-
-[29] “An Account of the Life and Death of Mrs Elizabeth Bury.” Bristol,
-1721.
-
-[30] “Scuola Anatomica di Bologna,” by Medici.
-
-[31] Fachini.
-
-[32] Ibid.
-
-[33] Ibid.
-
-[34] Fachini.
-
-[35] “Gazette Medicale,” du 10 Janvier 1846.
-
-[36] Klemm, “Die Frauen.”
-
-[37] _Athenæum_, July 1859.
-
-[38] Arnault’s “Biographie nouvelle des contemporains.”
-
-[39] Quérard’s “Littérature Française.”
-
-[40] “The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes,” by Christine Du Castel, 1521.
-
-[41] See _Note B_.
-
-[42] “There is one subject in which I have long felt a deep, and
-deepening concern. I refer to _man-midwifery_.... Nature tells us
-with her own voice what is fitting in these cases; and nothing but
-the omnipotence of custom, or the urgent cry of peril, terror, and
-agony--what Luther calls _miserrima miseria_--would make her ask for
-the presence of a man on such an occasion, when she hides herself
-and is in travail. And, as in all such cases, the evil reacts on the
-men as a special class, and on the profession itself.”--“_Locke and
-Sydenham_,” by Dr JOHN BROWN.
-
-“Nothing probably but the deadening force of habit, combined with the
-apparent necessity of the case, has induced us to endure that anomalous
-person against whose existence our language itself bears a perpetual
-protest--the man-midwife. And this single instance suggests a whole
-class of others in which the intervention of a man is scarcely less
-inappropriate.”--_Guardian_, Nov. 3, 1869.
-
-[43] _Delhi Gazette_, 1866.
-
-[44] “In many parts of India--I think I may say most parts--native
-ladies are entirely shut out from any medical assistance, however
-great may be their need, because no man who is not one of the family
-can enter their apartments or see them; and though thousands thus
-die from neglect and want of timely help, yet nothing can be done to
-assist them until we have ladies willing and able to act in a medical
-capacity.”--_The Queen_, June 8, 1872.
-
-[45] _Treasurer_, T. B. WINTER, Esq., 28 Montpelier Road,
-Brighton.
-
-[46] _Scotsman_, Oct. 26, 1870.
-
-[47] _Brit. Med. Journal_, May 25, 1872.
-
-[48] _Macmillan’s Magazine_, September 1868.
-
-[49] _Spectator_, April 13, 1867.
-
-[50] See _Note C_.
-
-[51] “_Theologia Moralis_,” by St Alphonsus.
-
-[52] A curious coincidence recently occurred which may illustrate
-this feeling. Not long ago I was attacked in the newspapers for
-having alluded to this subject, and a certain doctor published three
-letters in one week to prove that “ninety-nine out of every hundred
-Englishwomen suffering from female diseases freely consulted medical
-men.” During that very week no less than three women, in different
-classes of society, appealed to me for advice and treatment for
-sufferings about which they “did not like to ask a gentleman.” In each
-case I advised them to consult a medical man, as I was not yet myself
-in practice, and there were no women doctors in Edinburgh; but in each
-case I found that their feeling in the matter was too strong to allow
-them to do so.
-
-[53] “Concerning her death, it was magnanimous and answerable to the
-courage of heroes,” &c.--_Gallerie of Heroick Women_, written in French
-by Pierre le Moyne, and translated by the Marquess of Winchester, 1652.
-
-[54] See _Note D_.
-
-[55] “_Handbook of Uterine Therapeutics_,” by Edward John Tilt, M.D.
-
-[56] See _Note E_.
-
-[57] Besides these we have, at Bologna,--Maddalena Buonsignori,
-Professor of Laws, 1380; Laura Bassi, Professor of Philosophy, 1733;
-Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Professor of Mathematics, 1750; Clothilde
-Tambroni, Professor of Greek, 1794; and also other instances in various
-Italian Universities.
-
-[58] Ghirardacci, “Historia Bologna,” Bologna, 1605.
-
-[59] _Lancet_, June 18, 1870.
-
-[60] _Lancet_, August 26, 1871.
-
-[61] See _Note F_.
-
-[62] _Scotsman_, March 22, 1870.
-
-[63] _Pall Mall Gazette_, August 1870.
-
-[64] _Medical Gazette_, New York, February 27, 1869.
-
-[65] _British Medical Journal_, October 1871.
-
-[66] _British Medical Journal_, May 18, 1872.
-
-[67] For a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the whole question, let me refer
-to Dr Henry Bennet’s letter, containing the above words, in the
-_Lancet_ of June 18, 1870. An answer to it occurs in the _Lancet_ of
-July 9, 1870, and is referred to in _Note B_.
-
-[68] See _Note G_.
-
-[69] _Medical Times and Gazette_, Feb. 23, 1867, and April 24, 1869.
-
-[70] It would have been perfectly easy in Edinburgh, during 1871–72, to
-make complete arrangements for instruction, partly inside and partly
-outside the walls of the University, if only the authorities would have
-authorised the lady students to organize the necessary classes for
-themselves at their own expense. But the obstructive party took refuge
-behind the traditional non-possumus, and could not be driven from their
-position, though the Lord Advocate of Scotland gave a distinct opinion
-to the effect that any needful arrangements might legally be made, and
-though the more far-sighted Professors strongly deprecated such an
-abnegation of University power for the purpose of subserving a merely
-temporary object. In point of fact, the whole history of this struggle
-is one long illustration of the good old proverb,--“Where there’s a
-will, there’s a way.”
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-Medical Education of Women,
-
-THE SUBSTANCE OF A LECTURE
-
-DELIVERED ON APRIL 26TH, 1872, IN ST GEORGE’S HALL, LONDON,
-
-THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY IN THE CHAIR.
-
-
-    “You misconceive the question like a man,
-    Who sees a woman as the complement
-    Of his sex merely. You forget too much
-    That every creature, female as the male,
-    Stands single in responsible act and thought,
-    As also in birth and death.
-
-         .        .        .        .        .
-
-    ----I would rather take my part
-    With God’s Dead, who afford to walk in white,
-    Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet here
-    And gather up my feet from even a step
-    For fear to soil my gown in so much dust.
-    I choose to walk at all risks.”
-
-    “_Aurora Leigh._”
-
-
-
-
-MEDICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
-
-    “When free thoughts, like lightnings, are alive,
-    And in each bosom of the multitude,
-    Justice and Truth, with Custom’s hydra brood,
-    Wage silent war.”
-
-
-Starting, then, with the assumption that women may, with profit to
-themselves and to the community, become practitioners of medicine, it
-is clear that they must, in the first place, secure such an education
-as shall make them thoroughly competent to take their share of
-responsibility in the care of the national health; and, secondly, that
-they must obtain this education in accordance with the regulations
-prescribed by authority, so that they may be recognised by the State
-as having conformed to all its legal requirements, and may practise on
-terms of perfect equality with other qualified practitioners.
-
-It is essential to the thorough comprehension of this last point
-that the laws regulating medical practice in this country should be
-clearly understood, as these can never be lost sight of by those who
-are engaged in the battle which we are now waging, and I will, before
-proceeding further, endeavour to state clearly the provisions of the
-Medical Act of 1858. For the protection of the public against ignorant
-and mischievous quacks, the Act provided that no person should be
-recognised as a legally-qualified practitioner of medicine in the
-United Kingdom unless registered in a Register appointed to be kept for
-that purpose. The Act provided that all persons possessing the degree
-of M.D. from any foreign or colonial University, and already practising
-in this country at the date of the passing of the Act, should be
-entitled to be so registered; but that, with this exception, (and a
-curious one in favour of those on whom the doctorate had been conferred
-by the Archbishop of Canterbury,) no medical practitioners could demand
-registration unless holding a licence, diploma, or degree, granted by
-one of the British Examining Boards specified in the schedule attached
-to the Act. It is, of course, self-evident that these provisions were
-intended solely to defend the public against incompetent practitioners,
-and, though it is perhaps to be regretted that the Act did not
-expressly require the Medical Council to examine, and, on proof of
-competency, to register the holders of foreign diplomas, and all others
-who had pursued a regular course of medical study, it could not be
-anticipated that any great injustice would be done by the omission
-of any such a clause; and still less, assuredly, was it intended by
-this Act to secure to one sex a monopoly of all medical practice. But,
-at the present moment, it is certain that great danger exists that
-the Act may be wrested from its original purpose and made an almost
-insurmountable barrier to the admission of women to the authorised
-practice of medicine; and this because the Act, as it at present
-stands, makes it obligatory on all candidates to comply with certain
-conditions, and yet leaves it in the power of the Medical Schools,
-collectively, arbitrarily to preclude women from such compliance.
-
-The following clauses of the Act of 1858 will show the absolute
-necessity that now exists for the registration of all practitioners of
-respectability:--
-
- ... “After January 1, 1859, the words ‘legally qualified Medical
- Practitioner,’ or ‘duly qualified Medical Practitioner,’ or any words
- importing a Person recognised by Law as a Medical Practitioner or
- Member of the Medical Profession, when used in any Act of Parliament,
- shall be construed to mean a Person registered under this Act....
-
- “After January 1, 1859, no Person shall be entitled to recover any
- Charge in any Court of Law for any Medical or Surgical Advice,
- Attendance, or for the Performance of any Operation, or for any
- Medicine which he shall have both prescribed and supplied, unless he
- shall prove upon the Trial that he is registered under this Act....
-
- “After January 1, 1859, no Certificate required by any Act now in
- force, or that may hereafter be passed, from any Physician, Surgeon,
- Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery, or other Medical Practitioner,
- shall be valid unless the Person signing the same be registered under
- this Act.
-
- “Any Person who shall wilfully and falsely pretend to be, or take or
- use the Name or Title of a Physician, Doctor of Medicine, Licentiate
- in Medicine and Surgery, ... or any Name, Title, Addition, or
- Description implying that he is registered under this Act, or that
- he is recognised by Law as a Physician, or Surgeon, ... shall, upon
- a summary Conviction for any such offence, pay a sum not exceeding
- Twenty Pounds.”
-
-It is, then, sufficiently plain that any doctor practising in this
-country without the required registration, not only places himself in
-the position of a quack and a charlatan, but actually incurs legal
-penalties for assuming medical titles, however fairly they may have
-been won in the most eminent of foreign universities. It is therefore
-clear that it becomes a _sine quâ non_ that any women, desiring to
-practise medicine in this country, should obtain their education in
-such a way as will entitle them to demand registration.
-
-There are at this moment two Englishwomen whose names appear on the
-Register as legally qualified medical practitioners; and it may be
-necessary for me now to explain how they came respectively to attain
-this position, and how it happens that no more women are able to avail
-themselves of the means that were open to them.
-
-Though several English ladies are recorded in history as having
-studied medical science, I am not aware that any of our country-women
-ever graduated in medicine before the year 1849, when Miss Elizabeth
-Blackwell, after surmounting many difficulties, obtained the degree of
-M.D. from a college in the State of New York. Returning subsequently to
-England, she took advantage of the clause in the Act of 1858, which I
-have already mentioned, and demanded and obtained registration in the
-British Register. But the clause referred to was, as I have explained,
-retrospective only, and no one can now obtain an American degree, and
-in virtue of it claim registration in this country.
-
-This being the case, when, in the year 1860, Miss Garrett resolved to
-begin the study of medicine, with a view to practising in England, it
-was necessary that she should obtain her education under the auspices
-of some one of the medical corporations empowered to give registrable
-qualifications. After trying in vain to obtain admission to one School
-and College after another, she finally found entrance at Apothecaries’
-Hall, which was, from its charter, taken, as I suppose, in conjunction
-with the provisions of the Apothecaries’ Act of 1815,[71] incapable of
-refusing to examine any candidate who complied with its conditions of
-study.
-
-In order to observe the regulations of Apothecaries’ Hall, she was
-obliged to attend the lectures of certain specified teachers; and
-though she was, in some cases, admitted to the ordinary classes,[72]
-in others she was compelled to pay very heavy fees for separate and
-private tuition by the recognised lecturers. She had also considerable
-difficulty in obtaining adequate hospital teaching, though there was,
-in truth, hardly the slightest difference between the advantages
-she needed and those now habitually accorded to lady probationers
-and trained nurses, who are constantly present with the ordinary
-students at the bedside and in the operating theatre.[73] She
-obtained admission, however, to the Middlesex Hospital, and might,
-I suppose, have studied there as long as she pleased, had she not
-been unfortunate enough to acquit herself too well in some of the
-_vivâ-voce_ examinations in which she took part with the male students,
-thus arousing their manly wrath, which showed itself in a request that
-she should be required to leave the Hospital,[74] and this noble and
-magnanimous application was actually granted! She, however, completed
-her studies elsewhere, and especially at the London Hospital; being,
-it is to be presumed, too discreet to enter again on the field of
-competition. Thus, at length, she obtained her education, and, in 1865,
-received the licence to practise from Apothecaries’ Hall, which enabled
-her to place her name upon the British Register. But no sooner had she
-thus demonstrated the existence of at least a postern gate by which
-women might enter the profession, than the authorities took alarm, and,
-with the express object of preventing other women from following so
-terrible a precedent, a rule was passed, forbidding students henceforth
-to receive any part of their education privately, it being well known
-that women would be rigorously excluded from some at least of the
-public classes!
-
-As, then, the different doors by which the two ladies above-mentioned
-entered the profession of medicine were both closed after them, it is
-evident that, when, three years ago, I looked round for the means of
-obtaining medical education in this country, it was necessary that some
-new way should be devised. It is true that in several of the European
-Universities women were at that moment studying medicine;--indeed, I am
-not aware that any of the Italian,[75] French, or German Universities
-have ever been closed against women who applied for admission. I might,
-no doubt, have obtained, at the world-renowned _Ecole de Médicine_
-in Paris, a medical education at least equal, and, in some respects,
-probably superior, to anything that this country affords; and at the
-University of Zurich, also, a considerable number of women have,
-for some years, been receiving an excellent medical education. But
-it seemed to me radically unjust, and most discreditable to Great
-Britain, that all her daughters who desired a University education
-should be driven abroad to seek it; only a small number of women could
-be expected thus to expatriate themselves, and those who did so would
-have to incur the great additional difficulty and disadvantage of
-studying all the departments of medical science in a foreign language,
-and under teachers whose experience had been acquired in a different
-climate and under different social conditions from our own. And even if
-these difficulties could be overcome, another objection appeared to me
-absolutely insuperable. The Act of 1858 distinctly declares that only
-British licenses, diplomas, and degrees can now claim registration, and
-that without registration no practitioner can be considered as legally
-qualified. It is well known with what distinguished honour Miss Garrett
-lately passed her examinations in Paris, and with what brilliant
-success she gained one of the most valuable medical degrees in Europe,
-and yet in the official British Register her name appears only and
-solely as that of a licentiate of Apothecaries’ Hall. As no such
-license was now open to me and to other women, it was clear that those
-of us who went abroad for education might expect, after years of severe
-labour, to return to England to be refused official recognition on
-the Register, and, in fact, in the eye of the law, to hold a position
-exactly analogous to that of the most ignorant quack or herbalist who
-might open a penny stall for the sale of worthless nostrums. As such a
-position was hardly to my taste, it became necessary to try other means.
-
-It seemed to me highly desirable that, if women studied medicine at
-all, they should at once aim at what is supposed to be a high standard
-of education, and that, to avoid the possibility of cavil at their
-attainments, they should forthwith aspire to the medical degree of a
-British University.
-
-I first applied to the University of London, of whose liberality one
-hears so much, and was told by the Registrar that the present Charter
-had been purposely so worded as to exclude the possibility of examining
-women for medical degrees, and that under that Charter nothing whatever
-could be done in their favour. Knowing that at Oxford and Cambridge the
-whole question was complicated with regulations respecting residence,
-while, indeed, neither of these Universities furnished a complete
-medical education, my thoughts naturally turned to Scotland, to which
-so much credit is always given for its enlightened views respecting
-education, and where the Universities boast of their freedom from
-ecclesiastical and other trammels. In March 1869, therefore, I made
-my first application to the University of Edinburgh, and I hope in
-the following pages to give a rapid sketch of the chief events of the
-subsequent three years in connexion with that University, though time
-and space oblige me to make the sketch so brief that I must ask the
-reader’s indulgence if, in some points, it is less plain and distinct
-than it might be if I could enter more fully into details.
-
-For the sake of clearness, let me first explain, in few words, who
-constitute the different bodies that take a share in the government
-of Edinburgh University, taken in the order in which my application
-was considered by them. The Medical Faculty of course consists of
-Medical Professors only; the Senatus comprises all the Professors
-of every Faculty, and also the Principal; the University Court is
-composed of eight members only;[76] and lastly, the General Council
-of the University consists of all those graduates of Edinburgh who
-have registered their names as members. Each of these bodies had to be
-consulted, as also the Chancellor, before any important change could be
-made.
-
-When I first went to Edinburgh, I found many most kind and liberal
-friends among the Professors. In the Medical Faculty itself, Sir James
-Simpson, Professor Hughes Bennett, and Professor Balfour, Dean of the
-Medical Faculty, at once espoused my cause; and I need not say that
-Professor Masson and other members of the non-medical Faculties were
-not a whit behind in kindness and help. I found, on the other hand,
-a few determined enemies who would listen to nothing I could urge on
-the ground of either justice or mercy, and one or two who seemed to
-think that the fact of a woman’s wishing to study medicine at all
-quite exempted them from the necessity of treating her even with
-ordinary courtesy. The majority, however, occupied a somewhat neutral
-position;--they did not wish arbitrarily to stretch their power to
-exclude women from education, and yet they were alarmed at what seemed
-to them the magnitude and novelty of the change proposed.
-
-Several Professors were especially timid about the question of
-matriculation, and argued that, till they had some evidence of
-probable success, it would be premature to let women matriculate,
-since, by so doing, they would acquire rights and privileges of the
-most extensive kind. To meet this difficulty I gladly accepted a
-suggestion made to me privately by the Dean of the Medical Faculty,
-that I should, for the present, waive the question of matriculation,
-and should, during the summer months, attend his class in Botany and
-that of Professor Allman in Natural History, to see whether, as the
-_Spectator_ expressed it, “Scotch and English students were really
-so much more brutal than Frenchmen and Germans,” or whether a lady
-could, without discomfort, attend the ordinary classes. This plan met
-with much approval, and some of the Professors’ wives most kindly
-offered to accompany me to the classes when the time should come. The
-Medical Faculty and Senatus successively sanctioned this tentative
-plan, and, after a short stay in Edinburgh, I left for England to make
-preparations for returning to spend the summer session as arranged.
-
-But two or three hostile Professors appealed to the University Court;
-some of the students also sent up a memorial against the arrangement
-proposed, and the question was reconsidered.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I am anxious, as far as possible, to avoid personalities in this
-matter, and yet, I think, I cannot properly tell my story without
-explaining at the outset that, in my opinion at least, the whole
-opposition to the medical education of women has in Edinburgh, been
-dictated by one man and his immediate followers. It is hardly necessary
-to say that that man is Sir Robert Christison,[77] whose great age and
-long tenure of office naturally give him unusual weight, both in the
-University and among the medical men of Edinburgh. Having said this, I
-need only remark further that Professor Christison has, ever since I
-came to Edinburgh, been the only professor and the only medical man who
-has had a seat in the University Court, and also the only person who
-has all along been a member of every body, without exception, by whom
-our interests have had to be decided, viz., of the Medical Faculty,
-the Senatus, the University Court, the University Council, and the
-Infirmary Board.
-
-The question then was brought before the University Court in April
-1869. The meetings of the Court are held in strict privacy, (against
-which the public and the members of the University Council have often
-protested,) and I can only state the result of their deliberation.
-On April 19th the following resolution was passed:--“The Court,
-considering the difficulties at present standing in the way of carrying
-out the resolution of the Senatus, as a temporary arrangement in the
-interest of one lady, and not being prepared to adjudicate finally on
-the question whether women should be educated, in the medical classes
-of the University, sustain the appeals, and recall the resolution of
-the Senatus.”
-
-The very palpable invitation to other ladies to come forward, which
-appeared on the face of this resolution, bore fruit; for, in the course
-of the next month, or two, four more ladies expressed their wish to
-be admitted as students, and certain of the University authorities
-held out hopes that an application for _separate_ classes would be
-successful. Accordingly, in June 1869, I addressed a letter to the
-Rector of the University, who is also President of the University
-Court, enquiring whether the Court would “remove their present veto
-in case arrangements can be made for the instruction of women in
-separate classes; and whether, in that case, women will be allowed to
-matriculate in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary Examination,
-with a view to obtain medical degrees in due course?”
-
-I also wrote to the Senatus asking them to recommend the matriculation
-of women as medical students, on the understanding that separate
-classes should be formed; and, moreover, addressed a letter to the
-Dean of the Medical Faculty, offering, on behalf of my fellow-students
-and myself, to guarantee whatever minimum fee the Faculty might fix as
-remuneration for these separate classes.
-
-On July 1st, 1869, at a meeting of the Medical Faculty of the
-University, it was resolved to recommend to the Senatus:--
-
- (1.) That ladies be allowed to matriculate as medical students, and
- to pass the usual preliminary examination for registration; (2.)
- That ladies be allowed to attend medical classes, and to receive
- certificates of attendance qualifying for examination, provided
- the classes are confined entirely to ladies; (3.) That the medical
- professors be allowed to have classes for ladies, but no professor
- shall be compelled to give such course of lectures; (4.) That, in
- conformity with the request of Miss Jex-Blake’s letter to the Dean,
- ladies be permitted to arrange with the Medical Faculty, or with the
- individual professors as to minimum fee for the classes.
-
-At a meeting of the Senatus Academicus, July 2, 1869, the Report of
-the Medical Faculty was read, agreed to, and ordered to be transmitted
-to the University Court. At a meeting of the University Court, on 23d
-July 1869, “Mr Gordon, on behalf of the Committee appointed at last
-meeting to consider what course should be followed in order to give
-effect to the resolution of the Senatus, reported that the Committee
-were of opinion that the matter should be proceeded with under section
-xii. 2, of the Universities Act, as an improvement in the internal
-arrangements of the University. Mr Gordon then moved the following
-resolution, which was adopted:--
-
- “The Court entertain an opinion favourable to the resolutions of the
- Medical Faculty in regard to the matriculation of ladies as medical
- students, and direct these resolutions to be laid before the General
- Council of the University for their consideration at next meeting.”
-
-This resolution was approved by the General Council on October 29th,
-1869, and was sanctioned by the Chancellor on November 12th, 1869. The
-following regulations were officially issued at the same date, and
-inserted in the Calendar of the University:--
-
- (1.) Women shall be admitted to the study of medicine in the
- University; (2.) The instruction of women for the profession of
- medicine shall be conducted in separate classes, confined entirely
- to women; (3.) The Professors of the Faculty of Medicine shall,
- for this purpose, be permitted to have separate classes for women;
- (4.) Women, not intending to study medicine professionally, may be
- admitted to such of these classes, or to such part of the course of
- instruction given in such classes, as the University Court may from
- time to time think fit and approve; (5.) The fee for the full course
- of instruction in such classes shall be four guineas; but in the event
- of the number of students proposing to attend any such class being too
- small to provide a reasonable remuneration at that rate, it shall be
- in the power of the professor to make arrangements for a higher fee,
- subject to the usual sanction of the University Court; (6.) All women
- attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations now or
- at any future time in force in the University as to the matriculation
- of students, their attendance on classes, Examination, or otherwise;
- (7.) The above regulations shall take effect as from the commencement
- of session 1869–70.[78]
-
-In accordance with, the above resolutions, four other ladies and myself
-were, in October 1869, admitted provisionally to the usual preliminary
-examination in Arts, prescribed for medical students entering the
-University. Having duly passed, and received certificates to that
-effect from the Dean of the Medical Faculty, we, after the issue of
-the regulations above cited, all matriculated in the ordinary manner
-at the office of the Secretary of the University. We paid the usual
-fee, inscribed our names in the University album, with the usual
-particulars, including the Faculty in which we proposed to study, and
-received the ordinary matriculation tickets, which bore our names, and
-declared us to be “_Cives Academiæ Edinensis_.” We were at the same
-time registered in due course as students of medicine, by the Registrar
-of the Branch Council for Scotland, in the Government register kept by
-order of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of
-the United Kingdom, such registration being obligatory on all medical
-students, and affording the sole legal record of the date at which they
-have commenced their studies.
-
-It seemed now as if smooth water had at length been reached, after
-seven months of almost incessant struggle. The temporary scheme
-first suggested had been set aside, but its place had been taken by
-one much more comprehensive, which had resulted from five months of
-consideration and consultation, and which had ultimately received the
-sanction of every one of the University authorities in succession. Not
-only were women allowed the privilege of matriculation which we had
-been told involved so much; but formal regulations, entitled “For the
-Education of Women in Medicine in the University,” had been framed,
-and have now for three years formed an integral part of the University
-Calendar.
-
-For six months our hopes seemed realised. We pursued most interesting
-courses of study in the University, and found nothing but kindness
-at the hands of our teachers, and courtesy from the male students,
-whenever we happened to meet them in the quadrangle or on the
-staircases. Even Dr Christison was reported to have said in Senatus
-that, as the experiment was to be tried, he for one would co-operate to
-give it a fair trial.
-
-Though the lectures were delivered at different hours, the instruction
-given to us and to the male students was identical, and, when the class
-examinations took place, we received and answered the same papers at
-the same hour and on identical conditions, having been told that marks
-would be awarded indifferently to “both sections of the class,”--this
-latter expression being, by the bye, repeatedly used during the course
-of the term by both the Professors who instructed us.
-
-I am obliged now to mention the results which appeared in the
-prize-lists, not with a view to claim any special credit for the
-ladies,[79] (whose efforts to obtain education might well make them
-more zealous than most of the ordinary students,) but because I believe
-that the facts I am about to mention had a real and immediate connexion
-with subsequent events.[80]
-
-In the class of Physiology there had been 127 male students, of whom
-25 appeared in the honours list; in the Chemistry class there were 226
-male students, of whom 31 obtained honours; of the 5 women, 4 were in
-honours in both classes. One of the ladies obtained the third place
-in the Chemistry prize-list; and, as the two gentlemen above her had
-already gone through a course of lectures on the same subject, Miss
-Pechey was actually first of her year. In the College calendar it was
-stated that “the four students who have received the highest marks _are
-entitled_ to have the Hope Scholarships,”--such scholarships giving
-free admission to the College laboratory, and having been founded by
-the late Professor Hope from the proceeds of lectures given to ladies
-some fifty years previously.[81]
-
-It had occurred to us that if any lady won this scholarship she might
-be debarred from making full use of it as regards the laboratory,
-in consequence of the prohibition against mixed classes, but as it
-had been distinctly ordained that we were to be subject to “all the
-regulations in force in the University as to examinations,” it had
-_not_ occurred to us as possible that the very name of Hope Scholar
-could be wrested from the successful candidate and given over her head
-to the fifth student on the list, who had the good fortune to be a
-man.[82]
-
-But this was actually done.
-
-At the same time that the Professor announced to us his intention of
-withholding the Hope Scholarship from the student who had won it, on
-the ground that, having studied at a different hour, she was not a
-member of _The Chemistry Class_, though he, at the same time, gave her
-a bronze medal of the University, (to which I should think her claim
-must have been neither greater nor less, since these medals were given
-to the five students highest on the list,) he offered us written
-certificates of having attended a “ladies’ class in the University,” as
-of course he saw that to give the ordinary certificates of attendance
-on “_The_ Chemistry Class of the University” would be to destroy his
-own argument with reference to the Scholarship. As, however, such
-certificates were absolutely worthless to us as students of medicine,
-we declined them, and appealed to the Senatus to ordain that the
-ordinary certificates should be granted to us, as they alone would
-qualify for professional examination. At the same time Miss Pechey made
-an appeal to have the Hope Scholarship awarded to her in due course. It
-is hardly credible that (by very narrow majorities in each case) the
-Senatus decided that we were to have exactly the ordinary certificates,
-which declared us to have attended _the Chemistry Class_ of the
-University of Edinburgh, and yet acquiesced in Miss Pechey’s being
-deprived of her Scholarship on the ground that she was not a member of
-that class!
-
-I do not wish to dwell longer on these incidents, but I have narrated
-them here because I believe that the above mentioned results of the
-class examinations aroused in our opponents a conviction that the
-so-called experiment was not going to fail of itself, as they had
-confidently hoped, but that if it was to be suppressed at all, vigorous
-measures must be taken for that purpose.
-
-At the previous meeting of the University Council, no Professor had
-stood up to oppose the admission of women, though Dr Andrew Wood had
-covered himself with glory by protesting that he had too many sons to
-provide for, to acquiesce in the education of women for the Medical
-Profession![83] At the next meeting, however, of the Council, in
-April 1870, Professor Masson moved that, in view of the success that
-had hitherto attended the ladies’ studies, the existing regulations
-should be so far relaxed as to allow of the attendance of women in the
-ordinary classes, where no special reasons existed to the contrary,
-that they might be spared the additional expense, inconvenience, and
-difficulty, attendant on the formation of separate classes in every
-subject. Professor Balfour, Dean of the Medical Faculty, seconded
-this motion, and expressed his opinion that arrangements might easily
-be made to carry it out. Professors Laycock and Christison, however,
-opposed it vigorously, and that in speeches of such a character that
-the _Times_[84] remarked in a leading article:--“We cannot sufficiently
-express the indignation with which we read such language, and we must
-say that it is the strongest argument against the admission of young
-ladies to the Edinburgh medical classes that they would attend the
-lectures of Professors capable of talking in this strain.”[85] When the
-vote was taken, the motion in our favour was lost by forty-seven votes
-to fifty-eight, and no change was therefore made in the University
-regulations.
-
-The Professor of Botany kindly made arrangements for giving to us and
-other ladies a separate course of lectures, though he much regretted
-to be forced to this double, and needless, expenditure of time and
-trouble. Dr Allman, the Professor of Natural History, who had in
-the previous summer consented to my entering his ordinary class,
-stated that his health would not allow him to undertake the labour
-of two classes, and, therefore, he could not teach us. We then made
-application for instruction to Dr Alleyne Nicholson, the extra-mural
-teacher of the same subject, and he at once agreed to our request.
-Before making any arrangements, he spoke to the members of his class
-at their first meeting, and, mentioning our application, he enquired
-whether they would unite with him in inviting us to join their class.
-This they unanimously did; and, as we had no objection to offer, the
-first “mixed class” was inaugurated, and continued throughout the
-summer without the slightest inconvenience.[86]
-
-In the meantime, we were anxious to make arrangements for the next
-winter session, and it was especially necessary that a course of
-instruction in Anatomy should be provided, as the subject was one of
-the greatest importance, and the University professor flatly refused
-either to instruct us himself or allow his assistant to do so in any
-way whatever. Under these circumstances we endeavoured to obtain a
-competent extra-mural teacher who should form a special class for
-our instruction; but I was repeatedly warned that, by this time, the
-medical prejudice had been so strongly aroused against us, and the
-medical influence was so strongly at work, that we should fail in
-our endeavours, as no young medical man dare run the risk of being
-ostracised for giving us help. The only extra-mural teacher of Anatomy
-who was already recognised by the University was Dr Handyside, who
-was one of a band of nine associated lecturers who conjointly rented
-a building, called Surgeons’ Hall, for their lectures. Some of these
-lecturers were indignant at the way in which we were treated in
-the University, and, in July 1870, they, by a majority, passed the
-following resolutions:--
-
- 1. That it is expedient that lecturers in this Medical School should
- be free to lecture to female as well as to male students.
-
- 2. That no restrictions be imposed on the lecturers as to the manner
- in which instruction is to be imparted to women.[87]
-
-After the passing of this regulation, we applied to Dr Handyside to
-know if he could make arrangements for giving us a separate class. He
-replied that it would be quite impossible for him to do so consistently
-with his duty to his other students, but that if we liked to attend his
-course of Anatomy in the ordinary way, he should be happy to receive
-us. Dr Heron Watson similarly consented to admit us, to his ordinary
-course of Lectures on Surgery, and so our arrangements for winter
-lectures were complete.
-
-The class of Practical Anatomy always meets at the beginning of
-October, although the lectures do not commence till the following
-month. The more studious and industrious students usually come up at
-the earlier date, but those who care less about their work seldom
-appear till November, as that is the beginning of the compulsory
-session. All through October we studied under Dr Handyside with great
-comfort; the students who worked with us, though in another part of
-the room, were never uncivil, and in fact we hardly exchanged a dozen
-sentences with any of them during the month. Dr Handyside and his
-demonstrator both told us that they had never seen so much steady,
-earnest work as since we joined the class, and expressed their opinion
-that the results were quite as valuable for the male students as for
-our ourselves. With November 1st the lectures began, and everything
-went on satisfactorily for another ten days.
-
-About this time, acting on the advice of a medical friend, we made
-an application for permission to study in the wards of the Royal
-Infirmary, and, somewhat to our surprise, were met by a curt refusal.
-As we knew that several of the managers were liberal-minded and just
-men, we felt sure that they could not have fully understood the
-importance to us of the concession we desired, and, on enquiry, I found
-this was the case. One of those who had voted against our admission
-confessed to me that he had, in so doing, been guided simply by the
-medical members of the Board, and that he was not even aware that we
-were matriculated students of the University, and that we could not
-complete our education without attending the Infirmary, as there was
-no other hospital in Edinburgh of the size prescribed for “qualifying
-instruction.” We, therefore, drew up a memorial stating our grounds
-of application, and another was also sent in by our two teachers, Dr
-Watson and Dr Handyside, urging on the Board the great injustice that
-would be done by our exclusion. We also obtained and sent in a written
-paper from three of the medical officers of the Infirmary, promising
-to give us all needful instruction if we were admitted.[88] When
-these documents were presented to the managers, a majority of those
-present were in favour of our immediate admission, but, on the ground
-of want of notice, our opponents got the matter deferred for a week.
-From that time the behaviour of the students changed. It is not for me
-to say what means were used, or what strings were pulled; but I know
-that the result was, that instead of being, as heretofore, silent and
-inoffensive, a certain proportion of the students with whom we worked
-became markedly offensive and insolent, and took every opportunity
-of practising the petty annoyances that occur to thoroughly ill-bred
-lads,--such as shutting doors in our faces, ostentatiously crowding
-into the seats we usually occupied, bursting into horse-laughs and
-howls when we approached, as if a coalition had been formed to make
-our position as uncomfortable as might be. At the same time a students’
-petition against our admission to the Infirmary was handed about, and
-500 signatures were obtained, though, if some of the reports I heard
-were true, but a very small number out of the 500 had even read the
-petition before signing it. Be this as it may, the petition was got
-ready for the adjourned meeting, and when that came, every opponent
-we had among the managers was at his place, while some of our friends
-were unavoidably absent, and the Lord Provost, being in the chair,
-was precluded from voting, so that the medical party gained an easy
-victory. But when I say the medical party, I ought to explain that
-three medical men voted on our side,--a point on which I shall have to
-say something subsequently.
-
-The students were naturally elated at finding so much attention paid
-to their petition,[89] especially as I was told that some of the
-medical Professors had warmly applauded them for their exertions, and
-I suppose the lowest section among them began to wonder whether, if
-they had succeeded in keeping us out of the Infirmary, they might not,
-by a little extra brutality, drive us away from the lecture-room. Two
-days later, came the second competitive examination of the term, and
-on this day occurred the riot, when the gates were shut in our faces
-by a mob,[90] who stood within, smoking and passing about bottles of
-whiskey, while they abused us in the foulest possible language. It
-would be difficult to speak in too strong terms of the conduct of those
-engaged in this outrage, or of those who were morally responsible for
-it; but I am glad to say a word to-day about a part of the story which
-has not been made sufficiently public,--viz., the conduct of those of
-the students whose indignation against the rioters was even deeper than
-our own.[91] One gentleman rushed down from Surgeons’ Hall, and, at
-great risk to himself, forced open the gates for our admission, and a
-number of others made their way in after us to see that we came to no
-harm. When the class, which was interrupted throughout by the clamour
-outside, was over, Dr Handyside asked me if we would withdraw through a
-back door, but I said that I thought there were quite enough gentlemen
-in the class to protect us; and so it proved. As I spoke, a number
-came around us and formed a regular body-guard in front, behind, and
-on each side, and, encompassed by them, we passed through the still
-howling crowd at the gate, and reached home with no other injuries
-than those inflicted on our dresses by the mud hurled at us by our
-chivalrous foes. Nor was this all. When we arrived at the College next
-day, at the same hour, we found quite a formidable array of gentlemen
-with big sticks in their hands, who were keeping back a rabble that
-looked greatly disgusted, but merely vented their spite in remarkably
-bad language as the gentlemen referred to raised their hats as we
-approached, and instantly followed us in and took their seats on the
-back rows. After the lecture was over they formed round us, as on the
-evening before, escorted us home, gave us three deafening cheers, and
-dispersed. The explanation of all which was, that, hearing rumours of
-renewed rioting, a certain number of manly men among the students had
-resolved that the thing should not be, and for the next two or three
-days this same stalwart body-guard awaited and attended us daily, till
-the rowdies tacitly agreed to lay aside hostilities. Then I myself
-asked our volunteer guard to discontinue their most chivalrous escort,
-and quiet was restored.
-
-No further event of importance occurred during the winter, except the
-meetings of Infirmary contributors, at the first of which a close
-contest took place between managers known to be favourable to us and
-those known to be unfriendly. A new Act came into operation at this
-date, and all the managers had to vacate their seats unless re-elected.
-I can give no more significant proof of the immense amount of pressure
-brought to bear by the medical clique than by stating that, of the
-three medical men who had voted for us six weeks before, it was found
-when the day of election came that two had turned their coats, while
-the one who refused to do so was unseated by the medical body that he
-had represented!
-
-At the Contributors’ Meeting on Jan. 2, 1871, at which six managers
-were to be elected, the Lord Provost himself proposed the election
-of six gentlemen known to be friendly to the admission of ladies to
-the Infirmary; but by the very narrow majority of 94 votes to 88, the
-managers previously on the Board were returned. No other question was
-raised, and those who voted with the Lord Provost did so simply in
-consequence of the importance they attached to the exclusion of the
-ladies by those managers who now desired re-election.[92]
-
-At a subsequent meeting, the Rev. Professor Charteris brought forward
-a motion expressive of the desire of the contributors that immediate
-arrangements should be made for the admission of the ladies, and
-this motion was seconded by Sir James Coxe, M. D., but was lost by
-a similarly small majority. On this latter occasion, two incidents
-occurred that deserve notice. Firstly, a petition in favour of the
-ladies’ admission was presented, signed by 956 women of Edinburgh.[93]
-Secondly, Mrs Nichol, an elderly lady whose name is venerated
-throughout Edinburgh, made, in spite of ill health, the great exertion
-of coming forward at that public meeting, to ask one question,--“not,”
-as she distinctly said, “in the interests of the lady students, but
-on behalf of those women who looked forward to see what kind of men
-were they who were to be the sole medical attendants of the next
-generation of women, if women doctors are not allowed.” The question
-which she said she had been commissioned to ask by more than 1300
-women, belonging to all classes and all parts of the country, was as
-follows:--
-
- “If the students studying at present in the Infirmary cannot
- contemplate with equanimity the presence of ladies as fellow-students,
- how is it possible that they can possess either the scientific spirit
- or the personal purity of mind which alone would justify their
- presence in the female wards during the most delicate operations on,
- and examinations of, female patients?”
-
-This question was received, according to the newspaper report, with
-“_Laughter, hisses, and applause_,” but no one opened his mouth to
-reply. Perhaps in truth no reply could have been more significant than
-the burst of yells and howls which greeted the question from a gallery
-filled by students, who indeed so conducted themselves generally as to
-elicit a remark to me from a learned Professor, famous for his quaint
-sayings: “Well! ye can say now ye’ve fought with beasts at Ephesus!”
-
-About the same time a petition, signed by twenty-three male
-students,[94] was presented to the Infirmary managers, praying that
-the lady students should no longer be excluded, but no attention was
-paid to the request; and when subsequently a similar application was
-made to the Managers by a deputation of very influential citizens,[95]
-they again refused, by a majority, to do anything in our behalf.
-Professor Balfour moved the appointment of a Committee to enquire into
-a scheme for the instruction of ladies proposed by certain of the
-medical officers of the Infirmary, but Professor Christison carried
-an amendment negativing even this measure; and thus another year of
-Hospital instruction was lost.
-
-With each succeeding Session new students joined our small class,
-partly in consequence of the very kind encouragement held out by
-Lady Amberley, Dr Garrett Anderson, and other friends, in the way of
-Scholarships; for, since public indignation was excited by the refusal
-of the Hope Scholarship to Miss Pechey, hardly a term has passed
-without some generous offer of valuable prizes for those ladies who
-needed such assistance to pursue their studies, and who, by their
-success in competitive examinations, showed themselves worthy of them.
-Such kindness is the more valuable at a time when, by incessant delays
-and constantly-recurring difficulties, every effort is evidently being
-made to exhaust alike the patience and the purses of the troublesome
-women who desire to complete the work they have begun.
-
-It is not necessary for me to enter into details respecting the
-ladies’ progress in their studies, further than to state that in every
-course in which they have competed for prizes, more than half of the
-whole class have been in the honours list, and in some cases every lady
-student has so appeared;[96] so that any refusal to grant them further
-instruction can hardly be based on the plea that they have not done
-their best to avail themselves of what was already afforded.
-
-During the two years, 1869–70 and 1870–71, the five original students
-who entered in 1869 had completed the first half of their University
-course, partly by attendance on separate classes in the University, and
-partly by means of extra-mural lectures. But at the end of these two
-years a dead-lock appeared imminent. The rules of the University forbid
-any student to take more than four classes outside the walls, and those
-four classes we had already taken. Professor Christison and others,
-whose classes came next in term, gave a curt refusal to our request
-for instruction, although we again offered to guarantee any fee that
-might be required. In this dilemma we applied for help to the Senatus,
-and suggested that, if no other means could be devised, the difficulty
-might be solved in either of two ways--(1) by appointment of special
-University lecturers, whose payment we would guarantee; or (2) by the
-relaxation in our case of the ordinary regulations, so that we might
-take an increased number of extra-mural classes. When these proposals
-came before the Senatus, it was decided to take a legal opinion as to
-the rights and powers of the University; and an opinion adverse to our
-interests having been given, the Senatus decided, on July 28, 1871, by
-a majority of one, that they would take no action in the matter.
-
-In these circumstances, a Committee[97] of friends which had been
-formed for our assistance, caused a statement of the facts to be drawn
-up and submitted to other Counsel, and obtained from the Lord Advocate
-and Sheriff Fraser an Opinion to the following effect:[98]--That it was
-quite competent to the University authorities to make any necessary
-provision for the completion of the ladies’ education; and that
-the Medical Faculty were bound to admit the ladies to professional
-examination on the subjects in which they were already qualified to
-pass.
-
-I must explain that the advice of counsel had been asked on this last
-point in consequence of a rumour that difficulties might be made
-respecting the examination that was now due at the end of two years of
-professional study. The first official notice on this subject was,
-however, received by us on Saturday, October 14, after the fees for
-such examination had been paid, and tickets of admission obtained; the
-examination itself being due on the 24th of the same month, and the
-ladies concerned having studied for two years with the view of passing
-this examination, for which they had more especially been preparing
-assiduously for the last six months.
-
-On the following Monday, October 16, I, moreover, received an official
-notice that the Dean of the Medical Faculty had been interdicted by
-the Faculty from giving to ladies any papers for the Preliminary
-Examination in Arts, which was to take place _on the following day_,
-October 17! Three ladies had come up to Edinburgh from different parts
-of the country with the express object of passing these examinations,
-and, if prevented from doing so, they would be retarded in their
-studies to the extent of one year. The excessive shortness of the
-notice given made it impossible even to appeal to the Senatus, and
-the only course open to me was to submit the facts for the opinion
-of counsel. This was done, and we were informed that the course
-taken by the Medical Faculty was quite illegal,[99] while an express
-invitation to lady students formed part of the official calendar of the
-University. This opinion was forwarded to the Dean, whose kindness
-to us had been invariable; and, I am sure that he was glad by it to
-be released from the painful necessity of obeying the Medical Faculty
-in this matter. The ladies were accordingly examined in the ordinary
-course.
-
-But the excitements of the month were not yet at an end. On applying
-for matriculation tickets the ladies were informed by the Clerk that
-the Principal, Sir Alexander Grant, had written him word that, in
-consequence of representations made to him by Professor Christison, he
-desired that no ladies should at present be allowed to matriculate. On
-this point, and that regarding the Professional Examination, we, of
-course, appealed at once to the Senatus. At the meeting at which our
-appeal was considered, “the Committee for securing complete Medical
-Education for Women in Edinburgh” also presented the opinion obtained
-by them from counsel, together with a letter urging that complete
-provision should be made for our instruction. At their meeting on
-October 21, the Senatus at once decided both points of appeal in our
-favour. The Principal’s prohibition, which had never had any legal
-weight, was overruled, and the permission to women to matriculate
-and pass the Arts Examinations was renewed, and declared to be in
-force so long as the present regulations stood in the calendar. The
-Medical Faculty also were instructed at once to admit the ladies who
-were prepared for it to the Professional Examination on the following
-day; and I am happy to say that, in spite of the incessant worry to
-which they had been subjected for the past ten days, they all passed
-successfully. I am sure that all those who have had to prepare for
-severe University examinations will appreciate the difficulties under
-which they did so.[100]
-
-A few days later came a meeting of the University Council, when Dr
-Alexander Wood made a gallant attempt to get a vote passed to the
-effect that “the University is bound, in honour and justice, to
-render it possible for those women who have already commenced their
-studies, to complete them.”[101] The _Lancet_ remarked, respecting
-this motion:--“This is precisely the ground we have always taken
-up about the matter; and we hope that the General Council of the
-University will, by the adoption of Dr Alexander Wood’s motion, put
-an end to the controversy which had redounded so little to the credit
-of that school.”[102] A memorial in favour of the resolution was
-also presented, signed by more than nine thousand women, residing
-in all parts of the country, and representing almost every rank in
-society.[103] Very vigorous opposition to it was, however, made by
-Professors Turner, Thomson, and Christison, all of whom were members
-of the Medical Faculty, and ultimately an amendment, which proposed to
-leave the question to be settled by the Senatus and University Court,
-was carried by 107 votes to 97.[104]
-
-At a meeting of the Senatus held on Oct. 30th, the question of making
-further provision for the instruction of women was brought forward,
-and a letter was received from the Committee of our friends stating
-that, “in the event of special lecturers being appointed by the
-University to give qualifying instruction to women, the Committee are
-willing to guarantee the payment to them of any sum that may be fixed
-by the Senatus for their remuneration, in case the fees of the ladies
-are insufficient for that purpose; and that, if necessary, they are
-willing further to undertake to provide such rooms and accommodation
-as may be required for the delivery of the said lectures, if it should
-be found absolutely impossible for the University to provide space
-for that purpose.” After a long debate the Senatus decided, by a
-majority, that they would not take any steps to enable us to complete
-our education. At a meeting a few days later the Senatus further
-decided, by fourteen votes to thirteen, to recommend to the University
-Court that the existing regulations in favour of female students be
-rescinded, without prejudice, however, to the rights of those already
-studying. This resolution was, as I said, passed by fourteen votes to
-thirteen, and it may be worth while to mention that two of the fourteen
-votes were those of Dr Christison and Sir Alexander Grant, who were
-themselves members of the University Court to which the recommendation
-was to be made. That the proposed measure was not the wish of a real
-majority of the Professors was soon made abundantly clear, for a
-protest against it was sent up to the Court, signed by eighteen out
-of the thirty-five Professors of the University, while two out of the
-remaining seventeen were persistently neutral, never indeed having
-voted on the question from first to last. In the teeth of this protest
-it was, of course, almost impossible that the Regulations could be
-rescinded, and so they were once more confirmed by the University Court
-on January 3, 1872.
-
-The next event of importance was the annual re-election of Infirmary
-managers, six of whom were to be chosen at the contributors’ meeting at
-the beginning of January 1872. As on a former occasion, the election
-evidently turned wholly on our admission to, or exclusion from, the
-Infirmary wards. The medical party moved the re-election of the former
-managers, and they were sure of the support of everybody who did not
-consider our admission a vital question. Our friends, on the contrary,
-brought forward a list of gentlemen, all of whom were known to be
-friendly to our cause. After a very warm debate the list of our friends
-proved to be successful, being supported by 177 votes, while 168 were
-recorded on the other side. Professor Masson then moved that a Statute
-be enacted by the Court of Contributors, giving the same educational
-advantages in the Infirmary to female as well as to male students.
-The hostile party, finding themselves in a minority, endeavoured to
-prevent this being put to the vote on technical grounds which were
-subsequently found to be of no legal importance. Failing in this, they
-then adopted the remarkably dignified course of decamping in a body,
-accompanied, I must confess, by some ironical cheers from those left
-behind. In the lull that succeeded Professor Masson brought forward his
-motion, which was seconded by the Rev. Dr Guthrie, and passed without a
-dissentient voice. This Statute is, therefore, now actually law in the
-Infirmary, and considering that managers friendly to us had also been
-elected, it might have been thought that our difficulties there were
-at end. But now comes the most extraordinary part of the whole story.
-On a scrutiny of the votes it was found that with the majority had
-voted twenty-eight firms, thirty-one ladies, and seven doctors. On the
-other side were fourteen firms, two ladies, thirty-seven doctors, and
-three druggists. These figures may seem, indeed, to have a tolerable
-moral significance, but it is not with that that I am at this moment
-concerned. It occurred to the defeated party that here might be found a
-straw for them, drowning, to catch at,--that possibly a legal objection
-might be sustained against the votes of firms which were so largely in
-our favour, and that, if so, the victory might yet be secured![105]
-The result was, that, when the Contributors assembled at the adjourned
-meeting,[106] for the purpose of hearing the result of the scrutiny
-and the final declaration of the election, the Lord Provost found
-himself served with an Interdict forbidding him to declare the new
-managers duly elected, on the ground that the votes of firms were
-incompetent, and that by means of these the majority had been obtained!
-
-Instances have occurred before now where personal feelings have
-triumphed over public interests, but I do not think that I ever heard
-of quite so reckless a course as this, by which the medical clique has
-plunged the great Edinburgh Hospital into litigation, and that with
-some of its own most generous supporters, rather than allow a dozen
-women to obtain in its wards the instruction that the Contributors had
-decreed they should receive![107]
-
-The litigation thus begun is still pending, and the incomplete Board
-of Managers have for all these months carried on the business of
-the Infirmary without any representatives at all from the Court of
-Contributors; and it is probable that they make the very fact of their
-deficient numbers the excuse for having up to this moment given no
-effect whatever to the Statute unanimously passed in our favour last
-January by the Court of Contributors. We applied immediately after
-the meeting for tickets of admission, but were told that the managers
-must first be consulted, and from that day to this no tickets have
-been issued to us, though the statute referred to legally secured that
-“henceforth all registered students of medicine shall be admitted to
-the educational advantages of the Infirmary, without distinction of
-sex.” The matter, however, can now be only one of time; and, since
-the law of the Infirmary is at length on our side, our opponents may,
-I think, rest assured that our patience in awaiting the end will be
-at least equal to theirs. In all such struggles a present triumph
-may be snatched by those in brief authority, but the future belongs
-inalienably to the cause of justice and liberality.
-
-In the meantime, I had, on behalf of my fellow-students and myself,
-appealed to the University Court to provide us with the means of
-completing our education, and our friends of the Committee also
-forwarded to the Court a further legal Opinion from the Lord Advocate
-and Sheriff Fraser, to the effect,--that the University authorities
-had full powers to permit the matriculation of women in 1869; that the
-Resolutions then passed amounted to a permission to women to “_study
-medicine_” in the University, and that therefore the women concerned
-were entitled to demand the means of doing so; and finally, that if
-such means were persistently refused, the legal mode of redress lay in
-an Action of Declarator.[108]
-
-On January 8th, 1872, the University Court declared that they could not
-make any arrangements to enable us to pursue our studies with a view
-to a degree, but that, _if we would altogether give up the question of
-graduation_,[109] and be content with Certificates of Proficiency, they
-would try to meet our views!
-
-In reply, I represented to the Court that no “Certificates” were
-recognised by the Medical Act, and that any such documents would
-therefore be perfectly useless to us. I further urged that as
-matriculation fees had been exacted from us, in addition to the fees
-for tuition, and as we had been required to pass the Preliminary
-Examination “_for the medical degree_,” and as some of our own number
-had moreover passed the first Professional Examination, I could not but
-believe that we were entitled to demand the means of completing the
-ordinary University education, with a view to obtaining the ordinary
-degree; such belief being moreover confirmed by the emphatic opinion of
-very distinguished counsel. On these grounds I entreated the Court to
-reconsider their decision, and made the following suggestion:--
-
- “That, as the main difficulty before your honourable Court seems to be
- that regarding graduation, with which we are not immediately concerned
- at this moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims to ultimate
- graduation on the facts as they stand up to the present date; and, in
- case your honourable Court will now make arrangements whereby we can
- continue our education, we will undertake not to draw any arguments in
- favour of our right to graduation from such future arrangements, so
- that they may at least be made without prejudice to the present legal
- position of the University.”
-
-I appeal to every intelligent man and woman to say whether these
-words, taken in connection with my previous argument, were in the
-slightest degree ambiguous, or whether any doubt could really exist
-that in them I was pleading for facilities for such an education as
-would ultimately enable us to become legal practitioners of medicine,
-although I was willing that the actual question of graduation should
-remain in abeyance for a few months, till decided by legal authority,
-or otherwise. The public evidently so understood my letter, which was
-published in the papers, for it was considered that I had substantially
-gained my end, when the following reply from the secretary of the Court
-was also published:--
-
- “I am desired to inform you that you appear to ask no more than was
- offered by the Court in their resolution of the 8th ultimo, in which
- it was stated that, while the Court were restrained by legal doubts
- as to the power of the University to grant degrees to women from
- considering ‘the expediency of taking steps to obtain, in favour of
- female students, an alteration of an ordinance which might be held not
- to apply to women,’ they were ‘at the same time desirous to remove,
- so far as possible, any present obstacle in the way of a complete
- medical education being given to women; provided always that medical
- instruction to women be imparted in strictly separate classes.’ On the
- assumption, therefore, that while you at present decline the offer
- made by the Court with reference to certificates of proficiency, you
- now ask merely that arrangements should be made for completing the
- medical education of yourself and the other ladies on behalf of whom
- you write, I am to state that the Court are quite ready to meet your
- views. If, therefore, the names of extra-academical teachers of the
- required medical subjects be submitted by yourself, or by the Senatus,
- the Court will be prepared to consider the respective fitness of the
- persons so named to be authorised to hold medical classes for women
- who have, in this or former sessions, been matriculated students
- of the University, and also the conditions and regulations under
- which such classes should be held. It is, however, to be distinctly
- understood that such arrangements are not to be founded on as implying
- any right in women to obtain medical degrees, or as conferring any
- such right upon the students referred to.”
-
-My friends, as I say, congratulated me on this apparently important
-concession; but to make assurance doubly sure, I resolved to have
-absolute official confirmation of the apparent meaning of the
-Resolution, and therefore addressed another letter to the Court, in
-which, after thanking them for their apparent good intentions, I
-enquired whether I was correct in understanding--
-
- “1. That, though you at present give us no pledge respecting our
- ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed
- extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, and that you will
- take such measures as may be necessary to secure that they will be so
- accepted, if it is subsequently determined that the University has the
- power of granting degrees to women.
-
- “2. That we shall be admitted in due course to the ordinary
- Professional Examinations, on presentation of the proper certificates
- of attendance on the said extra-mural classes.”
-
-In reply, I was calmly informed that the Court meant nothing of the
-kind; that they would not agree to count any classes we might take
-as qualifying, and that in fact they would not stir a finger in any
-way whatever to enable us to become legally qualified doctors, though
-they might, if we spent a good many years of labour and a quite
-unlimited sum of money in obtaining our education, give us at the end
-these wonderful Certificates of Proficiency, which would be worth
-exactly--Nothing!
-
-What had been the meaning of the previous letter of apparent concession
-I confess myself quite at a loss to conceive. What advantage could
-accrue to us from submitting the names of extramural teachers to
-the Court, in which Professor Christison was the only medical man,
-I have never been able to guess, since the Court did not intend to
-take any means to make their teaching qualify for graduation, and we
-hardly needed its sanction in order to make private arrangements for
-non-qualifying instruction! One is inclined to wonder whether the
-idea was that the University Court possessed some supernatural power,
-analogous to that supposed by certain churches to reside in episcopal
-laying on of hands, which would in a miraculous way benefit those
-lecturers whom they might “authorise” to teach us, though such teaching
-was to be given in place and manner wholly unconnected with that
-University with which I had supposed their functions to be exclusively
-connected. However, I am content to leave this among the unexplained
-mysteries, with very hearty thankfulness that, at least, by timely
-enquiries, we saved ourselves from a still more hopeless waste of time
-and money, which indeed we were on the point of incurring, in reliance
-on the good faith of the Court, and the apparent meaning of its
-mysterious Resolution.[110]
-
-Having, however, at length arrived at a certainty that the Medical
-Faculty would rest with nothing short of our expulsion, if by any
-possibility they could attain that end; that the Senatus, though far
-more friendly, had not a sufficient majority of liberal votes to
-secure the permanent concession of our claims, however just, in the
-teeth of the strong medical opposition; and that the University Court
-would offer only such concessions as were quite valueless for our
-end, it became clear that it was useless to prolong the series of
-supplications which had, for nearly a year, been addressed in vain to
-one after another of the the ruling powers of the University.
-
-On the other hand, we had no less authority than that of the Lord
-Advocate of Scotland for believing that we were absolutely entitled
-to what we had so humbly solicited, and that a Court of law would
-quietly award to us what seemed unattainable by any other means;
-we had the very widely spread and daily increasing sympathy of the
-community at large, and received constant offers of help from friends
-of every kind, who were none the less inclined to befriend us because
-our opponents stood in high places, and were utterly relentless in
-their aims and reckless in their means. Under these circumstances, we
-have done the one thing that remained for us to do, we have brought an
-action of Declarator against the Senatus of the University;--praying
-to have it declared that the Senatus is bound, in some way or other,
-to enable us to complete our education, and to proceed to the medical
-degree which will entitle us to take place on the Medical Register
-among the legally qualified practitioners of medicine. By this
-action it will be decided,--once more to quote our great champion,
-the _Scotsman_,--whether, indeed, “a University can, with formal
-solemnity, and with the concurrence of all its component parts, decree
-the admission of women to study for the profession of medicine, and
-then deny them access to those means by which alone they can enter that
-profession; whether, indeed, a University is absolved from all duties
-towards such of its matriculated students as may have the misfortune
-to be women. It will have to be decided whether any corporate body can
-make a contract of which all the obligations are on one side, and can
-exact fees and demand obedience to regulations, without in its turn
-incurring any responsibility; and can at pleasure finally send empty
-away those whose presence is inconvenient, without any regard to the
-money and time and labour which they have expended in simple reliance
-upon its good faith.”[111]
-
-It is a very great satisfaction to me to find that some of the most
-illustrious members of the Senatus have expressed their own opinion on
-these points in the most emphatic way, for they have refused utterly
-to be parties to the defence of this action, and have entered on the
-Record a Minute from which I extract the following passage:--
-
-“We dissent from and protest against the Resolution of the Senatus
-of March 27, 1872, to undertake the defence of the action. This we
-do for the following reasons:--(1.) Because we see no just cause for
-opposing the admission of women to the study and practice of medicine,
-but on the contrary, consider that women who have honourably marked out
-such a course of life for themselves, ought to be forwarded and aided
-in their laudable endeavour as much as possible, by all who have the
-means, and especially by those having authority in any University or
-other Institution for Education; (2.) Because in particular, we feel
-such aid and encouragement, rather than opposition and discouragement,
-to be due from us to those women who have enrolled themselves in the
-University of Edinburgh, and we entirely concur with respect to them,
-in the desire expressed by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, the Rector
-of the University, that they should obtain what they ask--namely,
-a complete medical education, crowned by a degree; (3.) Because we
-have seen no sufficient reason to doubt the legal and constitutional
-powers of our University, to make arrangements that would be perfectly
-adequate for the purpose, and we consider the public questioning of
-such powers, in present circumstances, by the University itself, or
-any of its component bodies, unnecessary, impolitic, and capable of
-being construed as a surrender of permanent rights and privileges of
-the University, in order to evade a temporary difficulty; (4.) Because,
-without pronouncing an opinion on the question now raised as to the
-legal rights which the pursuers have acquired by matriculation in the
-University, admission already to certain examinations, or otherwise, to
-demand from the University continued medical instruction and the degree
-on due qualification, we yet believe that they have thereby, and by
-the general tenor of the proceedings, both of the Senatus and of the
-University Court in their case, hitherto acquired a moral right, and
-created a public expectation, which the University is bound to meet by
-the full exercise of its powers in their behalf, even should it be with
-some trouble; (5.) Because, with these convictions, and notwithstanding
-our utmost respect for those of our colleagues from whom we may have
-the misfortune to differ on the subject, we should individually feel
-ashamed of appearing as defenders in such an action, and should account
-any such public appearance by us in the character of opponents to women
-desiring to enter an honoured and useful profession, a matter to our
-discredit.”[112]
-
-The following are the names of the six Professors who have taken this
-memorable stand:--John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Professor of Institutes
-of Medicine; David Masson, M.A., Professor of Rhetoric and English
-Literature; Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy;
-James Lorimer, M.A., Professor of Public Law; Archibald H. Charteris,
-D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities; and
-William Ballantine Hodgson, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy.[113]
-
-And so I have brought down as clearly and as briefly as I have been
-able the history of this great struggle to the present moment, for that
-it is a great struggle, and one that will astound most of those who may
-read these lines some thirty years hence I think no thoughtful person
-will deny.
-
-I should like in conclusion to say a very few words on two only of the
-general questions which are bound up with the final solution of the
-problem of the Medical Education of Women.
-
-And, first, as to the difficulties which are, or are not, inherent
-in the admission of women to a University, and especially in them
-studying in mixed classes. I believe most firmly that if, when we
-first applied for admission in Edinburgh, we had simply been given
-the ordinary tickets, and, if either no notice had been taken of our
-entering the classes, or the other students had been invited, as
-they were by Dr Alleyne Nicholson, to join in welcoming us to their
-midst, no difficulties would ever have arisen at all; or at least no
-difficulties but might have been most easily smoothed away by any
-manly teacher with a real reverence for his subject, and a belief in
-the profound purity of Science.[114] I am sure that in theory it is
-both possible and right for ladies and gentlemen to study in the same
-classes any and every subject which they need to learn, and I have
-very little doubt that this will ultimately be the usual arrangement
-as civilization advances. But I am equally certain that boys of a low
-social class, of small mental calibre, and no moral training, are
-utterly unfit to be admitted to a mixed class, and I confess that I
-was most painfully surprised in Edinburgh to find how large a number
-there are of medical students who come under this description. I had
-honestly supposed, as I wrote three years ago, that ladies need fear
-no discomfort in an ordinary medical class, as “the majority of the
-students would always be gentlemen.”[115] I regret that on this point
-I have been compelled somewhat to modify my opinion, though I would
-fain hope that the circumstances which obliged me to do so were to a
-great extent exceptional and local.[116] Nor do I think it possible
-that a mixed class can be satisfactorily conducted by any man who is
-not capable of inspiring his students with a reverence for purity,
-or who does not naturally teach them alike by example and precept,
-that the fear of competition is essentially low and mean, and that
-the acme of degradation is reached when strength of any kind is used
-for the injury or annoyance of the weaker or less protected; and,
-this being so, I acquiesce very heartily in the decision that, at
-present, wherever professors and students think it necessary, women
-shall be taught medicine only in separate classes, though I hope, even
-in my life-time, to see the day when such regulations are no longer
-required, because students and teachers alike have risen to a higher
-moral level.[117] In the meantime, let us but be granted permission
-to acquire our knowledge in separate classes, at whatever cost, and
-the authorities may be very sure that we shall not trouble them with
-requests again to be subjected to the unsavoury companionship of which
-we had such full experience in 1870–71.[118]
-
-And, lastly, with regard to future legislation respecting medical
-practice, I would say but one word. It is clearly right that, for the
-protection of the helpless and ignorant, the State should take means
-to distinguish between competent and incompetent practitioners of
-medicine, and I hope that women as well as men will always be required
-very thoroughly to prove their fitness for practice before they are
-allowed to undertake it, at least under national sanction. But it
-is not in the least for the good of the nation that any monopoly
-should be encouraged, whether in matters of teaching, examination,
-or practice. Is it not simply shameful that all that I have now been
-relating should be _possible_ in this country, and possible because of
-a law which appoints but one door to the medical profession,--that of
-Registration,--limits Registration to those who have passed through
-certain definite Schools, and satisfied certain definite Boards, and
-yet allows those Schools and Boards absolute power to shut their
-doors on one-half of the human race, and that even in the case of
-Universities largely subsidised from public funds, and at a time when
-the public are positively clamouring for women doctors for women? We
-can see plainly enough why it is (in the lowest sense) the interest
-of medical men to exclude women from their profession,--though, thank
-God, there are hundreds of medical men who would scorn to put their
-interests in one scale when justice weighed down the other,--but it
-is _not_ the interest of the public or of the nation to sanction any
-such monopoly;[119]--it is their interest to throw open the gates of
-competition as widely as possible, insisting only on a uniform standard
-of attainment for all, of either sex, who would enter them; for, by
-thus increasing the supply of really competent doctors, they give
-themselves the best possible opportunities of selection; and, as I have
-pointed out elsewhere, they double the chances of growth and advance in
-the fields of medical science.
-
-When this momentous question again comes before Parliament, I trust
-that the issues involved will be fully realised; and that, while
-providing for the most stringent examination of every candidate, no
-arbitrary barrier will be placed in the way of any, and no regulations
-be allowed to stand which militate against the good old English motto
-for all,--a Fair Field and no Favour!
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[71] By this Act a Court of Examiners was appointed and declared to be
-“authorised _and required_ to examine all person or persons applying to
-them, for the purpose of ascertaining the skill or abilities of such
-person or persons in the science of medicine, and his or their fitness
-and qualification to practise as Apothecaries;”--it being, however,
-stipulated that all candidates, so applying, should have gone through
-certain preliminary studies and apprenticeship.
-
-[72] The classes attended by Miss Garrett, in common with the other
-students, were as follows:--Chemistry, Practical Chemistry, Materia
-Medica, Botany, Zoology, and Natural Philosophy.
-
-[73] See _Note H_.
-
-[74] “A woman must have uncommon sweetness of disposition and
-manners to be _forgiven_ for possessing superior talents and
-acquirements.”--Miss ELIZABETH SMITH (_Memoir, by H. M.
-Bowdler_).
-
-[75] In the year 1870 the question was formally asked of the Italian
-Government whether women were legally entitled to study in the
-Universities, and the answer was in the affirmative.
-
-[76] The University Court consists of the Rector, the Principal, and
-the Lord Provost of Edinburgh; with five others appointed respectively
-by the Chancellor, the Rector, the Senatus, the Town-Council of
-Edinburgh, and the General Council of the University.
-
-[77] On this point I may quote the following passage from the
-_Scotsman_, whose great influence has always been most nobly exerted
-in this question on the side of justice and liberality, and to whose
-help in arousing the moral sense of the community, we owe a debt that
-we can never hope to pay. The words quoted occur in a leading article
-referring to a meeting of the General Council, of which mention will
-be found elsewhere:--“Even Dr Christison, who is well known to be in
-truth the very soul and centre of the opposition, and whose personal
-influence alone has probably prevailed to carry it on so long in the
-teeth of public opinion, thought it advisable to say at the Council
-meeting, that ‘if anything could be done to get the ladies out of their
-difficulty, he should be glad to be one to give them assistance.’ This
-expression sounds somewhat farcical to those who are aware that the
-present dead-lock arises simply from the fact that the ladies’ studies
-have now brought them to that point at which Dr Christison’s class
-comes next in turn to be attended, and that the Professor, in spite
-of his verbal gallantry, has flatly refused either to instruct them
-himself or facilitate arrangements by which any one can do so in his
-place.”--_Scotsman_, October 31, 1871.
-
-[78] As some attempts have been lately made to throw doubt on the
-validity of the regulations just quoted, and, in fact, on the legality
-of the matriculation of women, I think it well to specify distinctly
-certain of the persons who were most immediately concerned in the
-University action just described. The University Court which drew up
-the above regulations, contained among its members Mr Moncreiff, then
-Lord Advocate of Scotland, and Mr Gordon, who had held the same office
-under a previous Government, besides two other legal members. The
-Chancellor who gave his express sanction to all the measures taken,
-was Lord Glencorse, (Inglis,) the Lord Justice-General of Scotland. I
-leave the public to judge how far it is probable that these gentlemen
-conjoined to do an illegal and invalid act on behalf of the University.
-
-[79] I fully agree in the following remarks made by a local paper when
-the results of the next summer term were declared:--“The whole number
-of gentlemen who appear in the prize-lists (in Botany) are 32, out of
-140 competitors,--_i.e._, about 23 per cent.; of the ladies, _all_.
-We believe that these results prove, not that women’s capacities are
-better than those of men--a thing that few people would assert--but
-that these women who are devoting themselves to obtain, in spite of
-all difficulties, a thorough knowledge of their profession, are far
-more thoroughly in earnest than most of the men are, and that their
-ultimate success is certain in proportion. Nor would we omit the
-inference that, this being so, those who wantonly throw obstacles in
-the way of this gallant little band incur a proportionately heavy
-responsibility, as wanting not only in the spirit of chivalry, but even
-in the love of fair play, which we should be sorry to think wanting in
-any Briton.”--_Daily Review_, August 5, 1870.
-
-[80] Compare Miss Garrett’s experience, p. 78.
-
-[81] I am told that on this occasion the obstructives of the day
-actually shut the College gates on the ladies, but that the gallant old
-Professor, nothing daunted, admitted them through a ground-floor window
-in South College Street!
-
-[82] See _Note I_.
-
-[83] The following passage occurs in a leading article on the riot got
-up in Philadelphia by male medical students, when in 1869 ladies were
-first admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital:--“Their riotous procedure
-is just a manifestation of the same trades-union spirit that will stoop
-to any meanness, join in any tyranny, be guilty of any cruelty, rather
-than allow interference with what is considered as its ‘vested rights.’
-In last week’s _Lancet_ we find a letter from a medical man, who asks
-with _naïve_ surprise whether the advocates of female physicians can
-possibly be aware that there are hundreds of medical _men_ not able to
-make a comfortable living! We know not which most to admire--the cool
-assumption that the medical profession exists only or mainly to fill
-the pockets of its members, or the serene assurance that takes it for
-granted that no woman has a right to expect to be allowed the chance of
-earning a living, till all male competitors are safely and sufficiently
-provided for! It is rather amusing to contrast the evidently keen
-dread of successful competition which degrades a man thus to plead
-_in formâ pauperis_, with the voluble assurances, in this and other
-medical papers, that nature has clearly interdicted to women the
-practice of medicine, and that here at least they cannot but utterly
-fail.”--_Scotsman_, Dec. 4, 1869.
-
-[84] _Times_, April 25, 1870.
-
-[85] See _Note J_.
-
-[86] “In answer to an incorrect statement which appeared in one of the
-medical papers respecting his class, Dr Alleyne Nicholson has forwarded
-to its editor a letter, from which we extract the following passage:--
-... “The course of lectures on Zoology, which I am now delivering to a
-mixed class, is identically the same as the course which I delivered
-last winter to my ordinary class of male students. I have not hitherto
-emasculated my lectures in any way whatsoever, nor have I the smallest
-intention of so doing. In so acting, I am guided by the firm conviction
-that little stress is to be laid on the purity and modesty of those who
-find themselves able to extract food for improper feelings from such
-a purely scientific subject as zoology, however freely handled. ‘To
-the pure all things are pure.’” In the moral courage and manly purity
-of the above letter we find fresh cause to congratulate the ladies on
-the teacher they have secured on a subject which might easily have
-been made offensive by a man of prurient mind. As teachers of truly
-scientific spirit become more common, we shall, doubtless, hear less
-and less of the difficulties of giving instruction to classes composed
-of medical students of both sexes.”--_Daily Review_, June 14, 1870.
-
-[87] I am sorry to say that hardly a year later a majority of these
-lecturers were so overborne by the prevailing medical influence, that
-they rescinded the above regulations, merely permissive as they were,
-and, in spite of the remonstrances of the gentlemen whose classes
-we had attended, passed a resolution forbidding any of their number
-to instruct lady students, either in mixed or separate classes,
-in Surgeons’ Hall. That no doubt whatever might remain as to the
-_animus_ which dictated this resolution, they distinctly confined the
-prohibition to the case of ladies _who were registered students of
-medicine_,--expressly allowing the continued instruction of midwives!
-I wish that space would permit of my quoting the remarks made on this
-occasion by the _Scotsman_ of July 19, 1871, and by other papers.
-
-[88] See _Note K_.
-
-[89] See _Note L_.
-
-[90] This mob was not wholly or mainly composed of our fellow-students
-at Surgeons’ Hall, though a few of them were present. The larger
-number, however, belonged to the lowest class of University students,
-who had been summoned together by an anonymous missive circulated in
-the class-rooms the same morning.
-
-[91] See _Note M_.
-
-[92] It is worth remark that, for the first time within memory, lady
-contributors used their right of voting on this occasion, and it is
-tolerably significant that more than a dozen voted on our behalf, and
-not one against us. The number of doctors who voted for us was three or
-four; against us, more than twenty.
-
-[93] The text of the petition was as follows:--
-
- “_To the Court of Contributors to the Royal Infirmary._
-
- “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--We, the undersigned Women of
- Edinburgh, not being able to attend the Meeting at which the admission
- of Female Medical Students to the Infirmary will be discussed, desire
- hereby to express our great interest in the issues involved, and
- our earnest hope that full facilities for Hospital study will be
- afforded by the Managers to all women who desire to enter the Medical
- Profession.”
-
-[94] See _Note N_.
-
-[95] Several of the principal citizens, including the senior member
-for Edinburgh, had spoken strongly on our behalf at the meetings just
-mentioned; indeed it has been remarkable throughout how strongly the
-municipal element has been on our side, while the leaders of the
-opposition have, with hardly an exception, been medical men, and their
-immediate friends and followers.
-
-[96] See _Note O_.
-
-[97] See _Note P_.
-
-[98] See _Note Q_.
-
-[99] See _Note R_.
-
-[100] On a subsequent very similar occasion the _Scotsman_
-remarked:--“It may be noticed that this is the third time that
-startling announcements have been fired at the lady students on the
-very eve of important examinations, possibly with the professional view
-of testing the soundness of their nerves.”--_Scotsman_, March 21, 1872.
-
-[101] The text of the resolution was as follows:--“That in the opinion
-of this Council, the University authorities have, by published
-resolutions, induced women to commence the study of medicine at the
-University; that these women, having prosecuted their studies to
-a certain length, are prevented from completing them from want of
-adequate provision being made for their instruction; that this Council,
-without again pronouncing any opinion on the advisability of women
-studying medicine, do represent to the University Court that, after
-what the Senatus and Court have already done, they are at least bound
-in honour and justice, to render it possible for those women who have
-already commenced their studies to complete them.”
-
-[102] _Lancet_, October 28, 1871.
-
-[103] I am assured by Mrs Henry Kingsley, who kindly acted as _Hon.
-Sec._ to this memorial, that the signatures might have been multiplied
-tenfold, had any organized effort been made to obtain them by means of
-paid agents taking the papers from house to house.
-
-[104] “The Edinburgh school has come badly out of its imbroglio with
-the lady students. The motion of Dr Alexander Wood, to which we made
-reference last week, was negatived by a majority of ten. As we then
-pointed out, the issue before the General Council was neither more
-nor less than this--to keep faith with the female students whom
-the University had allowed to proceed two years in their medical
-curriculum. The Council was not asked to commit itself in the slightest
-degree to any opinion, favourable or unfavourable, to the admission
-of ladies to a medical career. It had only to concede, in common
-courtesy, not to say common fairness, the right to which the best legal
-advice had clearly shown the female students to be entitled,--the
-right to carry on the studies they had been allowed to prosecute half
-way towards graduation. Will it be believed? An amendment postponing
-the settlement of the difficulty till it had been duly considered by
-the authorities of the University was put and carried; as if there
-was any more room for “consideration” in the matter! Thus Edinburgh
-stands convicted of having acted unfairly towards seven ladies whom
-she first accepted as pupils, and then stopped half-way in their
-career.”--_Lancet_, Nov. 4, 1871.
-
-[105] “It mattered nothing that firms had voted ever since the
-Infirmary was founded; that contributors qualified only as members of
-firms had, as has now been ascertained, sat over and over again on
-the Board of Management, and on the Committee of Contributors. It was
-of equally slight importance that the firms whom it was now sought to
-disqualify had been among the most generous benefactors of the charity,
-and that, with the imminent prospect before them of great pecuniary
-necessity, it would probably be impossible, without their aid, to carry
-out even the plans for the new building. The firms had voted in favour
-of the ladies, and the firms must go, if, at least, the law would
-(as it probably will not) bear out the medical men in their reckless
-endeavour to expel them.”--_Scotsman_, January 29, 1872.
-
-[106] At this meeting a Committee of Contributors, previously
-appointed, reported in favour of the admission of lady students, and
-against the exclusion of the votes of firms, and this Report was
-approved by 232 votes to 227. On this occasion there voted for the
-approval of the Report 41 ladies and 10 doctors; against it, 6 ladies,
-44 doctors, and 5 druggists.
-
-[107] See _Note S_.
-
-[108] See _Note Q_.
-
-[109] In support of this suggestion the Court remarked that the
-question had been needlessly “complicated by the introduction of the
-subject of graduation, which is not essential to the completion of a
-medical or other education.” They _forgot_, however, to mention that
-though a degree is “not essential” to a medical education, it _is_
-absolutely indispensable to any practical use of it,--that is to say,
-to any lawful practice of the medical profession.
-
-[110] The correspondence above referred to is given in _Note T_.
-
-[111] _Scotsman_, March 25, 1872.
-
-[112] _Scotsman_, May 7, 1872.
-
-[113] Though a majority of the Senatus did decide to defend the action,
-I believe that it is understood that such decision did not imply, on
-the part of all who acquiesced in it, any moral conviction that we are
-not entitled to obtain the desired Declarator, since several other
-Professors appear to have agreed in feeling with the six dissentients,
-but to have acquiesced in the defence of the action for the sake of
-having a formal legal decision given on one side or the other.
-
-[114] “I am bold enough to say that there is nothing in the art of
-healing which may not fitly be spoken of before an audience of both
-sexes, provided there be a generally good tone prevailing among them,
-and the lecturer be of a pure and manly spirit. Indeed, I will go
-farther, and say that his example in treating subjects of the kind
-incidental to his work with equal purity and courage will be far
-from the least valuable part of his teaching. It will bring home to
-the hearts of his hearers, with more force than any other argument,
-the truth that every creature, every ordinance of God, is good and
-pure.”--_Medical Women_, by Rev. THOMAS MARKBY. London:
-Harrison.
-
-Compare with the above the following statement made by an Edinburgh
-medical student in the columns of the _Scotsman_:--“I beg leave to
-relate what I myself listened to in a lecture-room of the University,
-during the last summer session. On the occasion to which I refer,
-the Professor went a long way beyond the requirements of scientific
-teaching--into the regions of “spicy” but indelicate narrative--in
-order that he might appropriately introduce remarks to the following
-effect:--“There, gentlemen, I have minutely described to you those
-interesting incidents which it would have been impossible for me to
-notice if women were present; and I hope that we may be long spared the
-annoyance which their presence here would inflict upon us.” The tempest
-of applause that followed showed only too well the harmony which
-existed between teacher and pupils on points that would have been far
-better left unnoticed.”--_Scotsman_, December 26, 1870.
-
-[115] See “_Medicine as a Profession for Women_,” p. 62.
-
-[116] “The truth is, a class of young men, inferior socially to
-their predecessors of ten years ago, now resort to the Edinburgh
-School, which has lost much of its attractiveness now that London
-and other seats of learning are so well appointed and so efficiently
-worked.”--_Lancet_, February 17, 1872.
-
-[117] “_Mundis omnia munda!_ Neither ladies nor lecturers are conscious
-of ‘indelicacy’ or ‘breach of decorum.’ Can it be that the unruly
-students are ‘nice’ only upon Dean Swift’s principle, because they are
-‘nasty?’”--_Globe_, Dec. 10, 1870.
-
-[118] See _Note U_.
-
-[119] “The wrong done to individuals by denying them the training
-necessary to the pursuit of a branch of knowledge, and the practice of
-an art for which they may have a special taste and capacity, is very
-great; and it involves a wrong not less signal to society, in limiting
-the sources whence good may come to it.”
-
-  _Daily News_, Nov. 1, 1871.
-
-
-
-
-NOTES.
-
-
-NOTE A, p. 11.
-
-The following are a few only out of many indications of the existence
-of the painful feeling alluded to in the text. The reader will hardly
-need to be reminded that this is especially a subject respecting which
-a maximum of feeling may well exist with a minimum of expression, for
-hardly anything but a sense of duty would make a woman write on such a
-question to the newspapers.
-
-
- ... “But there remains to be considered the modesty and delicacy of
- the patients,--a question hardly yet mooted; these poor women having,
- I suppose, too much of the reality to raise the point. It cannot be
- denied that at least one-half of the patients of medical men are
- women, or that usually (from natural causes) they require medical
- services more certainly and frequently than men; and operations
- delicate or indelicate, so called, must be performed, questions,
- delicate or indelicate, must be asked, and answered too, if not by the
- patient herself, by the nurse, who, I believe, is usually a woman.
-
- “There is much reason to believe that many women, either owing to the
- nature of their malady, or from constitutional nervousness or reserve,
- never avail themselves of the services of a medical man without
- reluctance. To them it is always a painful effort--the twentieth time
- as much as the first. It would, I think, be odd if something of this
- kind were not felt very strongly by every woman on some occasions,
- and I have seen very experienced mothers quite distressed, if by any
- chance, they were deprived of the assistance of ‘the doctor they
- were used to.’ The wives of medical men have told me that it was
- their one comfort to feel that in their hour of suffering only their
- own husband and a good nurse need be with them. I think this is not
- unnatural.”--Letter by “MEDICUS,”
-
-   _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 11, 1870.
-
-
- “I happened to be speaking to a young shopwoman--a total stranger to
- me--and in the course of conversation advised her to seek medical
- advice, when she replied, with a sudden gush of tears in her eyes,
- that she _had_ been in the Infirmary, in Dr Matthews Duncan’s wards
- for a fortnight, and had during that time suffered so much from the
- constant presence of crowds of male students during certain inevitable
- but most unpleasant examinations of her person, that, as she herself
- forcibly expressed it, ‘it almost drove me mad.’”
-   _Daily Review_, Nov. 18, 1870.
-
-
- “SIR,--A new obstacle has been thrown in the way of women
- acquiring a knowledge of the medical profession. The special obstacle
- at present is injury to the delicacy of mind of the male students.
- This delicacy, if real, must be a serious drawback to the proper
- exercise of their profession in after life. That it is so, many a
- suffering woman knows.
-
- “The question, however, arises--which evil is the greater,--that five
- hundred youths, in full health and vigour, should be made a little
- uncomfortable by the presence of seven women, or that seven times five
- hundred women, unnerved by suffering, should be subjected to the very
- trial they shrink from.
-
- “That women do truly shrink from this trial, the number of wretched,
- broken-down sufferers from chronic disease but too clearly proves. It
- is only when racked by constant pain that a woman’s natural delicacy
- at last gives way, often only to hear said the words (how bitter they
- are!) ‘too late.’
-
- “The returns of the Registrar-General could easily prove the vast
- sacrifice of life, did delicacy not again step in with ‘consumption
- and liver complaints,’ as more euphonious terms for the real disorders
- of which these are the mere after-results.
-
- “This objection, looked at fairly, is a case of the delicacy of five
- hundred men _versus_ that of all suffering women.
-
- “I leave the fathers and husbands of Edinburgh to judge righteous
- judgment thereon.--I am, &c., A SUFFERER.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, November 21, 1680.
-
-
- “I think most thoughtful women will bear testimony to the amount
- of preventible suffering that passes unaided, because the natural
- sensibilities of women prevent their resorting with comfort to
- treatment by medical men for certain diseases. I can count almost by
- dozens the cases which have come under my personal observation of
- health ruined, and life’s pleasures and usefulness alike lost with it,
- because young girls (and sometimes older women too) will not submit
- to receive from a man, however respected, the personal examination
- and treatment necessary for their restoration, and because no woman’s
- skill has been at their command. Let your readers divest themselves
- for a moment of conventional habits of thought, and inquire what would
- then be their instinctive opinion of the existing custom which compels
- one sex to be dependent on the other for medical treatment of the
- most delicate kind. Imagine the case reversed. If henceforth women
- alone were to attend on men, what would the world say to that? At any
- rate, is it not time that women should at least be allowed a choice in
- this matter? And if this be so, it is clear that some women must be
- thoroughly educated for the medical profession....--I am, &c., A
- WOMAN.”
-
-   _Manchester Examiner and Times_, November 30, 1870.
-
-
- “Mention is rarely made of the many women who are waiting longingly
- for the time when it will be possible for them to consult doctors of
- their own sex--when they will no longer be forced, at the risk of
- their health, and perhaps life, to consult men in circumstances under
- which their natural feelings of delicacy revolt; but I am sure that
- the number of these is not small, and long suffering as they have
- hitherto been, their voice in time will make itself heard, if all
- other monitions are disregarded. I am, &c., A WOMAN WHO DESIRES A
- WOMAN DOCTOR.”
-
-   _Daily Review_, Dec. 22, 1870.
-
-
- “We often hear of the possible dislike of male patients to the
- presence of lady students, but let us also give the weaker sex a
- little credit for these same much-talked-of feelings of modesty and
- decency. Many a time have I stood by the bedside of poor girls who
- seemed ready to sink under the shame of being exposed before a number
- of young men--a feeling which could not be overcome even by the agony
- of the operations.... A MEDICAL STUDENT.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, Dec. 26, 1870.
-
-
-   EDINBURGH, Dec. 28, 1870.
-
- “SIR,--In the present controversy regarding the extension
- to women of facilities for obtaining a complete medical education,
- it is reiterated on one side that there is a no demand among women
- themselves for doctors of their own sex. In visiting a district
- of nine families in a poor quarter of the Old Town, inhabited
- principally by Irish, I found four women seriously out of health;
- not so seriously, however, but that they might have been cured by
- timely medical advice. I urged each of them more than once to go to
- the Dispensary, but all persistently refused, each of them saying in
- different words that, if ladies were doctors, as they had heard they
- were in some places, they would have had medical advice long before.
- The feelings of these poor women were so strong on the subject that
- I found it was useless to urge them further. It seems only just and
- reasonable that qualified female medical attendants should be within
- the reach of those who either have a strong preference for it, or who
- will not avail themselves of any other.--I am, &c., A DISTRICT
- VISITOR.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, Dec. 29, 1870.
-
-
- “As one who, for a short time, was a patient under a late very eminent
- doctor of Edinburgh, I say that I believe nothing would again induce
- me to do what I then did, in ignorance of what was before me. The
- anguish of mind suffered silently by women in such circumstances is
- not to be described, and is likely seriously to influence the effect
- of the medical treatment. It is surely time for men to cease to speak
- of what _women feel_ in this matter. It is impossible for them to
- know what women will never tell them--the unwillingness, the delay,
- often _too long_, which precedes their stammered request for advice.
- What women need is, that some of their own sex should have the power
- of qualifying themselves to act as their advisers. Who has a right to
- say they shall not, when the voice of their countrywomen calls on them
- to do it?--I am, &c., AN ENGLISHWOMAN.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, June 6, 1872.
-
-
-NOTE B, p. 37.
-
-In answer to the sufficiently arrogant enquiry from Dr Henry
-Bennet,--“What right have women to claim mental equality with men?”--I
-addressed the following letter to the _Lancet_, and as it seems to me
-to sum up our position fairly enough, I here reprint it.
-
-   EDINBURGH, June 21st, 1870.
-
- “SIR,--I see in your columns of June 18th a letter on ‘Women
- as Practitioners of Midwifery,’ and appeal to your sense of fairness
- to allow me a fourth part of the space it occupied, for a few words in
- reply.
-
- “It is hardly worth while to discuss the early part of the letter, as
- the second paragraph sufficiently disposes of the first. After saying
- that women are ‘sexually, constitutionally, and mentally unfitted
- for hard and incessant toil,’ Dr Bennet goes on to propose to make
- over to them, as their sole share of the medical profession, what he
- himself well describes as its ‘most arduous, most wearing, and most
- unremunerative duties.’ In the last adjective seems really to lie the
- whole suitability of the division of labour, according to the writer’s
- view. He evidently thinks that women’s capabilities are nicely
- graduated to fit ‘_half-guinea_ or _guinea_ midwifery cases,’ and
- that all patients paying a larger sum, of necessity need the superior
- powers of the ‘_male_ mind of the Caucasian race.’ Let whatever is
- well paid be left to the man, then chivalrously abandon the ‘badly
- remunerated’ work to the woman. This is the genuine view of a true
- trades-unionist. It is well for once to hear it candidly stated. As I
- trust the majority of medical men would be ashamed of avowing such a
- principle, and as I am sure it would be indignantly disavowed by the
- general public, I do not care to say more on this point.
-
- “But when Dr Bennet proceeds to dogmatise about what he calls our
- claim to ‘mental equality,’ he comes to a different and much more
- important question. I, for one, do not care in the least either
- to claim or disown such equality, nor do I see that it is at all
- essential to the real question at issue. Allow me to state in a few
- words the position that I, and, as I believe, most of my fellow
- students take. We say to the authorities of the medical profession,
- ‘State clearly what attainments you consider necessary for a medical
- practitioner; fix your standard where you please, but define it
- plainly; put no obstacles in our way; either afford us access to the
- ordinary means of medical education, or do not exact that we shall
- use your special methods; in either case subject us ultimately to
- exactly the ordinary examinations and tests, and, if we fail to acquit
- ourselves as well as your average students, reject us; if, on the
- contrary, in spite of all difficulties, we reach your standard, and
- fulfil all your requirements, the question of ‘mental equality’ is
- practically settled, so far as it concerns our case; give us then the
- ordinary medical license or diploma, and leave the question of our
- ultimate success or failure in practice to be decided by ourselves and
- the public.’ This is our position, and I appeal, not to the chivalry,
- but to the justice, of the medical profession, to show us that it is
- untenable, or else to concede it at once.--I am, Sir, your obedient
- servant, SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
-
-   _Lancet_, July 9, 1870.
-
-
-NOTE C, p. 46.
-
-The statement in the text was made the subject of a newspaper
-controversy; and I append the following very valuable evidence which
-was thus elicited in support of my assertion:--
-
-
- “SIR,--Permit me to bear my testimony to the state of the
- facts on this question as far as English convents are concerned. I
- was for some years medical attendant to a Franciscan convent, and
- was frequently consulted by the nuns. They were examined and treated
- like other patients, except where certain maladies were concerned,
- and then they suffered in silence, or with such relief as could be
- given by medicines, after a diagnosis founded on questions and general
- symptoms only. I especially remember two cases.... In neither of these
- any examination was permitted, or any surgical treatment regarded
- as a possibility, in spite of all the representations I could make,
- and although, I believe, I possessed the full confidence of the
- patients and of the Superior. Whether a female surgeon would have been
- allowed to examine and operate I cannot say.--I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
- F.R.C.S.”
-
-   _Lancet_, May 18, 1872.
-
-
- “SIR,--Kindly permit me to say a few words with regard to Miss
- Jex-Blake’s statement, that very many women, and in particular, nuns,
- would certainly show a preference for the medical and surgical aid
- of one of their own sex, were any choice possible to them. As being
- myself a Catholic, and having many near relatives nuns, I can most
- confidently confirm this assertion. “I have known, for many years,
- and in the closest intimacy, ladies, members of various religious
- orders, in this country and in France, and I am quite aware that
- recourse to male medical advice, in peculiar cases, is looked upon
- in religious houses as something much more painful than any physical
- suffering, or even death.
-
- “My father was medical attendant to a convent of English nuns, and I
- think I may safely say that any advice given to nuns in such cases
- was entirely at second hand, the doctor’s wife being the favourite
- resource in these emergencies....
-
- “Then, again, how can any man, medical or not, know what agonies of
- shame and outraged modesty women can and do undergo, when submitting
- to male medical and surgical treatment? How many women cannot overcome
- their repugnance, and die with their special ailments unsuspected,
- or discovered too late? On the other hand, how many women are at
- great pains to _conceal_ the shrinking which they feel when exposing
- their peculiar ailments to even a long-known and valued medical man?
- Why should we have these added to our other unavoidable sufferings?
- The reality of these feelings is, I am certain, within the personal
- knowledge of every one of your female readers. No one wishes to deny
- modesty to the stronger sex; but let us suppose them _compelled_ to
- reveal all their physical ills to _women_--how would they feel?--I am,
- &c., A CATHOLIC WIFE AND MOTHER.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, May 27, 1872.
-
-
-NOTE D, p. 49.
-
-While reviewing the above for the press (May 1872), the following lines
-came under my notice, and I think them the more suitable to quote as
-they are from the pen of a woman who has never herself shown the least
-inclination for the study of medicine, and who, therefore, speaks
-entirely from the abstract point of view:--
-
- “Nothing will ever make me believe that God meant men to be the
- ordinary physicians of women and babies. A few masculine experts
- might be tolerated in special institutions, so that cases of peculiar
- danger and difficulty might not be left, as they are now, to the
- necessarily one-sided treatment of a single sex; but, in general, if
- ever a created being was conspicuously and intolerably out of his
- natural sphere, it is in my opinion, the male doctor in the apartment
- of the lying-in woman; and I think our sex is really guilty, in the
- first place, that it ever allowed man to appear there; and, in the
- second, that it does not insist upon educating women of character and
- intelligence and social position for that post.
-
- “Indeed, common delicacy would seem to demand that all the special
- diseases of women should be treated principally by women; but this
- aside, and speaking from common sense only, men may be as scientific
- as they please,--it is plain that thoroughly to know the women’s
- organism, what is good for it and what evil, and how it can best be
- cured when it is disordered, one must be one’s self a woman. It only
- proves how much unworthy passion and prejudice the great doctors
- allow to intrude into their adoration of ‘pure science’ and boasted
- love of humanity, that, instead of being eager to enlist the feminine
- intuitions and investigations in this great cause, as their best
- chance of arriving at truth, they are actually enacting the ignoble
- part of churls and misers, if not of quacks. For are they not well
- enough aware that often their women patients are so utterly beyond
- them that they do not know what to do with them! The diseases of
- the age are nervous diseases, and women are growing more nervously
- high-strung and uncontrollable every day, yet the doctors stand
- helplessly by and cannot stop it. When, however, there shall be a
- school of doctresses of high culture and thorough medical education
- going in and out among the sex with the proper medical authority, they
- will see, and will be able to prevent, much of the moral and physical
- neglect and imprudence which, now unchecked in school and home, make
- such havoc of the vital forces of the present generation.”
-
-   “_Co-operative Housekeeping_,” by Mrs C. F. Pierce.
-
-
-NOTE E, p. 53.
-
-For the edification of the next generation, to whom all this bigotry
-will probably appear almost incredible, I subjoin the passage alluded
-to in the text. I am sorry to say it is by no means the worst I might
-have quoted from the same paper.
-
- “For ourselves, we hold that the admission of women into the ranks
- of medicine is an egregious blunder, derogatory to the status and
- character of the female sex, and likely to be injurious, in the
- highest degree, to the interests and public estimation of the
- profession which they seek to invade.
-
- “By insisting on the attendance of all students at the public-class
- delivery of anatomical lectures, and in the public-class
- dissecting-room, the only possible guarantee of uniformity of teaching
- will be obtained, and, at the same time, a difficulty will be placed
- in the way of female intrusion which it will not be easy for women of
- character, and clearly none else are eligible, to surmount. We hope,
- however, that the Court of Examiners will not stop with the erection
- of the barrier we suggest, but that they will distinctly refuse to
- admit any female candidate to examination unless compelled by a legal
- decision from the bench; and we also hope that they will be supported
- in such refusal by the Master and Wardens of the Society, as well as
- by the profession out of doors.”
-
-   _Medical Times and Gazette_, Feb. 27, 1867.
-
-
-NOTE F, p. 56.
-
-Since the first admission of women to the University of Zurich in 1867,
-five women have taken degrees there in Medicine, but none at present in
-any other Faculty. During the present year (1872) there are at Zurich
-no less than 51 women studying in the Medical Faculty, and 12 in that
-of Arts.
-
-
-NOTE G, p. 62.
-
-
- “Now at last the vexed question of mixed classes will be solved,
- and there can be no doubt in the minds of those who have ever been
- engaged in scientific study of the favourable result to be expected.
- It is curious to note in the history of the present movement how,
- one after another, old objections have vanished, and old arguments
- have become no longer available. It is pretty certain that this last,
- and perhaps greatest, stumbling-block to the minds of many will also
- disappear when it is seen with what beneficial results the system of
- mixed education is attended. And one great advantage to be expected
- is the benefit that will accrue from the higher reverence for science
- that must necessarily result from such a system. Once admit the
- impropriety of teaching men and women together, and you tax science
- with impurity; and while such a feeling is entertained (and it surely
- must be lurking in the minds of those who oppose mixed classes), the
- study of science, if not absolutely injurious, must be robbed of great
- part of its power to elevate the mind and heart.... Science has had to
- fight many a hard battle. For a long time it was asserted that science
- and religion were antagonistic to each other, but a Faraday has shown
- us how the two may go hand in hand, each helping and supporting the
- other. Last April we were told that the study of science was linked
- with impurity of thought, and we look upon the present action of the
- Lecturers of Surgeons’ Hall as a result of the indignant protest which
- every pure-minded man of science must have longed to utter against
- such a wholly false and calumnious statement. It is as the champions
- of science rather than of medical women that these gentlemen must be
- regarded. In any case science would have passed through this last
- attack, as she has ever done through all similar attacks, victorious
- and unscathed and unrestrained in her power to bless and help mankind;
- but the lecturers of our city have the no small honour of having
- publicly testified their unqualified conviction of the entire purity
- of all scientific knowledge and research.... Now that the Lecturers
- of Surgeons’ Hall have come forward as a body to affirm the same
- principle, we may indeed hail the beginning of the end, and may trust
- soon to see the day when the man who condemns the teaching of science
- to classes of both men and women will simply stand self-convicted as
- wanting alike in true scientific spirit and in genuine purity of mind.”
-
-   _Daily Review_, July 11, 1870.
-
-
- “It seems that two ladies have this week applied for admission as
- students to St Thomas’s Hospital in London, and a medical contemporary
- makes this fact the excuse for a fresh onslaught on all women who
- may, for the sake of a thorough medical education, wish to enter the
- existing schools which at present possess a legal monopoly of that
- education. The editorial delicacy declares--‘that any women should
- be found who desire such fellowship in study is to us inexplicable.’
- This ill-bred sneer directed against ladies as medical students is
- peculiarly ill-timed at a moment when the medical profession are
- loudly calling on women to come to their aid in the military hospitals
- of the Continent, teeming, as we know them to be, with horrors which
- certainly far surpass any that ladies are likely to encounter in their
- ordinary course of study, and which must inevitably be witnessed in
- company ‘with persons of the opposite sex.’ Certainly no reasons of
- delicacy at least can justify women’s co-operation in the one case,
- and yet demand their exclusion in the other.
-
- “The truth is, that of course a certain conventional standard of
- propriety exists, which it is well and desirable to maintain under
- ordinary circumstances, as between persons of opposite sexes; and this
- rule forbids the casual discussion of most medical and some scientific
- subjects in chance audiences composed of ladies and gentlemen. But a
- higher law remains behind--_Salus populi suprema Lex_. If perishing
- humanity cries aloud for help, as during the present fearful struggle,
- we should think little of the pretended delicacy which could hinder
- either men or women from flocking to the rescue, and bid them
- pause, ‘in the name of modesty,’ to consider whether, under these
- circumstances, drawing-room proprieties would always be observed. So,
- too, when the question really at stake is whether all women are to be
- deprived of the medical services of their own sex, for fear some men’s
- ‘delicacy’ should be shocked by the idea of their studying in the
- ordinary class-rooms, it is time to protest that, true science being
- of necessity impersonal, is absolutely pure. We remember that, when
- an attack was made on Dr Alleyne Nicholson a month or two ago, for
- admitting women to his classes, he replied in a letter to one of the
- medical papers, that he laid ‘small stress on the purity or modesty of
- those who find themselves able to extract food for improper feelings
- from a purely scientific subject,’ and we confess that we are inclined
- to share his opinion, which we suspect will be that of all the noblest
- and most enlightened men of science.
-
- “A great deal of nonsense has been talked with reference to ‘mixed
- classes,’ and as it is probable that the subject may come up again
- in a practical shape before long, it is as well to say a few plain
- words about the question at issue. First of all, let it be clearly
- established that medicine cannot be taught advantageously, nor
- indeed legally, in holes and corners to half-a-dozen or even a dozen
- students. In the very paper in which appeared the offensive paragraph
- to which we have alluded, we find a plea for the consolidation of the
- London Medical Schools into a smaller number, because ‘there are not
- students enough’ to support them all in perfection, and because two
- or three well-paid lecturers with abundant apparatus could teach to
- far greater advantage than twice or thrice that number under present
- circumstances. If this is true where there are at least several
- hundred students to be divided among the eleven existing schools,
- how palpably absurd it is to recommend our countrywomen to ‘have
- separate places of medical education and examination,’ when the whole
- number of ladies desiring to study medicine in England may perhaps
- number a score! Our own University professors tell us plainly that
- separate classes for half-a-dozen ladies are an impossibility, and
- the practical experience of Surgeons’ Hall, pointing in the same
- direction, evidently guided its lecturers in their recent vote. The
- broad fact, therefore, must be accepted, that either the door must be
- shut in the face of all women, and that at a moment when some of them
- are proving to a demonstration their remarkable fitness to enter it,
- or they must be allowed, as they long ago requested, to enter quietly
- and without remark, and take their places with other students, to
- learn the common lessons equally necessary for all.
-
- “And, after all, what are the arguments on the other side? We are
- told oracularly that what is proposed is _contra bonos mores_, and are
- warned with equal solemnity of the imminent downfall of any school
- that dares to break loose from the bondage of Medical Trades-Unionism
- and afford to women exactly the same advantages as to other students.
- We do not wish to speak solely, or even chiefly, in the interests of
- women; we wish to look at the question broadly and with a view to the
- possible moral results to the public at large; and from this point of
- view we cannot but feel that the more general association of the sexes
- in earnest labour, and especially in scientific and medical study, may
- be of the greatest importance to the community. Though the traditions
- of the Bob Sawyer period are happily passing away, there yet seems to
- linger an idea that medical students as a rule adopt a lower moral
- standard and are of a more generally reckless character than those
- studying for other professions. If this is so, may not the explanation
- be found in the sort of half-expressed idea that seems prevalent in so
- many people’s minds that there is in medical study something which, if
- not actually improper and indelicate, certainly tends that way, and
- had better be ignored as much as possible--something at least which
- the average public would probably sum up as ‘rather nasty.’ We believe
- that it is on this popular idea--which every true physician would
- indignantly disclaim--that the opponents of women’s education trade
- when they try to enlist public feeling against mixed classes. They
- talk in a vague and very offensive way about certain studies which
- form a necessary part of medical education, and not being themselves
- capable of seeing the true dignity and profound purity of all science,
- especially when pursued with the aim of succouring pain and combating
- disease, they manage too often to impress the general public with the
- idea that by sanctioning the joint study of medicine by men and women
- the said public would commit itself to some shocking impropriety,
- all the more awful for being quite indefinite--_omne ignotum pro
- magnifico_. It is probable that this sort of vague terror is, in fact,
- the best weapon yet forged against women students, but, like many
- another terror, it is one that vanishes in the clear daylight. Let it
- once be broadly understood that science has no hidden horrors, that
- the study of God’s works can never be otherwise than healthful and
- beautiful to every student who brings to their contemplation a clear
- eye and a clean hand, and this weapon of darkness will be shivered for
- ever. We believe, indeed, that nothing could be more desirable for the
- average young medical student than to find himself associated in daily
- study with women whom he cannot but respect; nothing more calculated
- to give him an earnest sense alike of the dignity and of the purity
- of his vocation than to labour in it side by side with ladies whose
- character and whose motives are to him a daily reminder that he and
- they alike are set apart both as the votaries of science and the
- ministers of suffering humanity.”
-
-   _Daily Review_, October 11, 1870.
-
-
-NOTE H, p. 78.
-
-The following extracts will show the position and opportunities of
-study enjoyed by lady probationers and nurses at London hospitals. The
-first is taken from a letter written by a lady who was herself trained
-as a surgical nurse in a hospital. She writes:--
-
- “In the ordinary course of the day’s work, I went round the wards with
- the visiting surgeons, and at the same time as the students, and, in
- fact, I should think, enjoyed exactly the same opportunities that
- people profess to be so much shocked at your desiring to obtain in
- Edinburgh. Part of my time was spent in study in the female and part
- in the male wards; and I never found either students or patients see
- anything at all exceptional in my presence in the latter, though I
- often had to perform services for the male patients which would never
- be expected of you as students. When any patients from my wards went
- into the theatre, for operation, I, as a matter of course, accompanied
- them, and was present during the operation, standing often quite near
- the surgeon, however many students might be there at the time. I was,
- therefore, constantly associated with the students in the hospital
- work, as were all the other ladies studying in the same capacity, and
- I never saw any difficulty in this arrangement, nor had any reason to
- suppose that the students did.”
-
-Thinking that a lady’s evidence might be challenged on this matter, I
-wrote to one of the principal surgeons of the Middlesex Hospital for
-confirmation of her statement, and received the following reply:--
-
- “Nurses and lady probationers are present in the wards, and attend the
- surgeons in their visits, and are present at operations. The students
- never, so far as I observed, took any notice of the question as to
- whether the female attendants in the wards were ladies or ordinary
- nurses--never, in short, troubled themselves about them.”
-
-While on the subject, I will quote an extract from a letter received
-from Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, the first Englishwoman who ever received a
-medical degree. She says:--
-
- “I walked St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the years 1850–51. I received
- permission to do so from the Governors, and was received by the
- medical faculty with a friendly courtesy for which I shall always be
- grateful. I always went round with the class of students during the
- physician’s visits. The medical class numbered about thirty students.
- I spent between five and six hours daily in recording and studying
- cases. During the visits, I never received anything but courtesy
- from the students. When studying in the wards, I received much kind
- assistance from the clinical clerks and dressers. While leaving the
- hospital the treasurer said to me--‘When we gave you permission to
- enter, we thought we were doing something so unusual that we were
- rather anxious about the result, but, really, everything has gone on
- so quietly, so exactly as usual, that we had almost forgotten you
- were here.’ ... My observation of mixed study is, that a small select
- number of women may join an ordinary school with little difficulty,
- and that there is even less trouble in arranging hospital visiting
- than class-room instruction.”
-
-The last case that I will cite with reference to hospital instruction
-is that of Mrs Leggett, who is now attending as a regular student in
-Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin, and who writes:--
-
- “I had the unanimous consent of the Board to pursue my medical
- studies in Steevens’ Hospital. As to the medical students, they are
- always civil. Dr Macnamara, President of the College of Physicians of
- Ireland, said it was his opinion that the presence of ladies would
- refine the classes.”
-
-With reference to the attendance of this lady, Dr Hamilton, Medical
-Secretary of Steevens’ Hospital, writes--
-
- “So far as we have gone, we find the education of mixed classes in one
- hospital to work very well.”
-
-
-NOTE I, p. 93.
-
-The following are a few only out of very many expressions of public
-indignation at this episode:--
-
-
- “One of the most singular of University ‘scandals’ comes to us from
- decorous Edinburgh. True, it is the very antithesis of cases--such as
- are only too familiar on this side the Border--of debauchery at night,
- and a scene in court next morning, but it is not a whit the less
- discreditable. The transgressor, however, is not a college student,
- but a college professor. The case admits of, we might say demands,
- historic treatment. Some years ago, Dr Hope, then Professor of
- Chemistry in the University, gave a course of lectures to ladies--at
- that time quite an experiment--and was so much gratified, we are
- told, at their popularity, that he devoted the proceeds, amounting
- to about a thousand pounds, to found what have since been termed
- Hope Scholarships. We now get to a very modern period indeed. The
- Chemistry class during last winter numbered no less than 236 students,
- of whom six were ladies, who had been admitted to study in the
- medical classes, ‘in accordance with the decision of the University
- authorities at the beginning of the session.’ A few days ago the
- results of the examination were made known, when it appeared that one
- lady, Miss Mary Edith Pechey, was in the proud position of third in
- the list of honours, and another lady, Miss Sophia Jex-Blake, tenth.
- Miss Pechey’s success is the more gratifying, inasmuch as she is a
- fresh student, while the two gentlemen who stood above her on the
- list have attended a previous course of lectures. Dr Crum Brown, the
- Professor of Chemistry, in announcing the results, took upon himself
- to say that he should pass over Miss Pechey and award one of the Hope
- Scholarships to the next male on the list. This is directly in the
- teeth of the regulations made and provided for his guidance; according
- to which these scholarships are to be awarded to ‘the four students
- whose names stand highest in the chemistry class for the session.’
- We understand that Professor Crum Brown justifies his action on the
- ignoble plea ‘that the women now studying in the University class do
- not form part of the University class, on account of their meeting at
- a different hour.’ Great indignation has very naturally been excited
- in Edinburgh by this incident, and the question has been referred to
- the Senate of the University, who, though a corporate body, will, we
- hope, act as honourable men.”
-
-   _Manchester Examiner and Times_, April 6, 1870.
-
-
- “The inferior sex has always been a nuisance and a bore. A wise old
- Sultan of Turkey used to ask, whenever anything went wrong, ‘Who was
- she?’ One day while the Sultan was making an addition to his palace
- (as is the habit of Sultans), a labourer fell from the scaffold and
- was killed. ‘Who was she?’ said the Sultan at once. The inferior sex
- is always plaguing the superior sex in one way or another, and now
- it seems that the inferior sex are winning _our_ scholarships over
- our most sacred heads. This is a matter which must be looked to. We
- will stand a great deal, but this is going a little too far; we must
- agitate; members must pledge themselves on the hustings to a bill
- providing that any one of the inferior sex who gains a scholarship
- must not have it at any price whatever, or we shall all be undone. We
- must have an Act for the repression of women; we are very sorry to
- say such terrible words, but the thing must be done: it had better be
- done at once while the nation is in a mood for repression. Particular
- cases thrust themselves prominently on the national mind, and cause
- legislation: the Coercion Bill for Ireland was thrust on to an
- unwilling Government by a very few of the later agrarian outrages: the
- last ounce breaks the camel’s back. If Miss Edith Pechey chooses to
- come in _facile princeps_ at the head of the Chemistry Class of her
- year, we of the superior sex must really look to ourselves. We have
- the power of legislation still left in our hands, and we warn such
- ladies as Miss Edith Pechey and Miss Jex-Blake that we shall use it.
- We must have a bill for the protection of the superior sex.
-
- “We feel sure that the ladies will forgive joking about a very absurd
- matter. Ladies should surely understand the power of ridicule.
- We think that the ‘_reductio ad absurdum_’ in this matter is the
- proper line of argument. The facts of the case seem to be simply
- these:--After protracted delays and much discussion, the University
- authorities last autumn vouchsafed to ladies the permission to
- enter the College as matriculated medical students, with the single
- restriction that their instruction should be conducted in separate
- classes. On referring to the minutes of the University Court, we
- find the following definition of the position to be taken by the new
- students:--‘All women attending such classes shall be subject to all
- the regulations now, or at any future time, in force in the University
- as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes,
- examination, or otherwise.’ We turn to the Calendar to see what are
- the ‘regulations in force in the University’ as to examination in
- chemistry, and we find at page 84 the following:--‘The class honours
- are determined by means of written examinations held during the
- session. The four students who have received the highest marks _are
- entitled to have the Hope Scholarships_ to the laboratory of the
- University.’ The ladies accepted in good faith the regulations of the
- University, and, fired by a laudable ambition to prove themselves
- worthy of the privileges now accorded for the first time to women,
- worked with an assiduity that may be guessed when it is found that
- one of them, Miss Pechey, actually gained the highest number of
- marks awarded during the session to any student attending chemistry
- for the first time, though she was excelled (by one and two marks
- respectively) by two gentlemen who had gone through a previous
- course of lectures. But when the day arrived which was to reward all
- this work, the Professor announced, without, as it seemed to us, a
- shadow of justification, that the four scholarships would be given,
- _not_ according to the University regulations to the four students
- ‘_entitled to them_,’ but to the three gentlemen who had won the
- first, second, and fourth places, and to the one who stood fifth on
- the list, this last having earned a most honourable place by his
- talents and industry, but _not_ the Hope Scholarship, though now he
- has, of course, the right to claim free admission to the laboratory
- as it has been promised to him. This, then, is a University episode.
- Six students are admitted on the distinct understanding that, with one
- exception (dictated, as we think, by a whimsical propriety), they are
- to be ‘subject to the regulations of the University;’ no hint is given
- to them that this statement is analogous to the one which pithily
- describes women’s political condition in England--‘_He_ means _she_
- when it’s a question of hanging; _he_ doesn’t mean _she_ when it’s a
- question of voting.’ The ladies are encouraged to exert their utmost
- power for work; when the rewards are to come, and it is found that one
- of them has earned one of the highest honours attainable by the class,
- she is calmly informed that that honour has been given to somebody
- else! A neater instance of generosity with other people’s property it
- has never been our lot to witness, and we don’t care how long it is
- before we repeat the experience.
-
- “The only excuse that we can with the utmost stretch of charity
- imagine in this case would be that Dr Crum Brown thought some
- difficulty might arise respecting Miss Pechey’s use of the
- scholarship (which gives free admittance to the laboratory), under
- the restrictions now imposed on women by the University Court--for
- we will not suppose for a moment that the Professor could himself
- wish to impede the further progress of a student of such merit. But
- if such difficulty occurred it might be an excellent reason for
- relaxing those restrictions, when they are seen to deprive a student
- of the full reward of her past work, and at the same time to prevent
- her prosecuting further the study in which she has so distinguished
- herself; but we are quite at a loss to see how any legitimate argument
- can be drawn thence to justify Dr Brown in laying violent hands on a
- scholarship which has been fairly earned by one person for the purpose
- of presenting it to another. It is possible that A’s circumstances
- may prevent his deriving full benefit from some of his possessions,
- but the law would hardly consider this fact a valid reason for B’s
- ‘annexing’ the said possession for the benefit of C. If Dr Brown
- chooses to admit a fifth student to the laboratory he can of course do
- so, but unless we are greatly mistaken he will probably be informed
- by the Law Faculty (whom he might previously have consulted with
- advantage) that neither he nor any other person can alter the fact
- that Miss Pechey and no one else _is_ third Hope Scholar.”
-
-   _Daily Review_, April 1, 1870.
-
-
- “A very odd and very gross injustice appears to have been attempted
- in the University of Edinburgh. In that University the lady medical
- students are taught in a separate class,--not from any wish of their
- own, but through the delicacy of the professors. In the chemical
- class, Miss Edith Pechey gained the third place, and was first of
- the first year’s students, the two men who surpassed her having
- attended the class before. The four students who get the highest marks
- receive four Hope Scholarships,--scholarships founded by Dr Hope some
- years ago out of the proceeds of a very popular _ladies’ class_ of
- chemistry, with the success of which he had been much gratified. Yet
- Miss Edith Pechey was held by the professor not to be entitled to the
- third scholarship, and omitting her name, he included two men whom
- she had beaten, and who stood fourth and fifth in the examination,
- his excuse being that the women are not part of the University class,
- because they are separately taught. Yet Dr Crum Brown awards Miss
- Pechey a bronze medal, to which only members of the University class
- are said to be entitled! It is quite clear that such a decision cannot
- stand. To make women attend a separate class, for which they have to
- pay, we believe, much higher fees than usual, and then argue that they
- are out of the pale of competition because they do so, is, indeed, too
- like the captious schoolmaster who first sent a boy into the corner
- and then whipped him for not being in his seat.”
-
-   _Spectator_, April 9, 1870.
-
-
- “The letter Miss Pechey addressed to us the other day was written in
- an admirable spirit, and must insure her the hearty sympathy of all,
- whatever their opinions upon the points in question. She has done her
- sex a service, not only by vindicating their intellectual ability
- in an open competition with men, but still more by the temper and
- courtesy with which she meets her disappointments. Under any view
- of the main question, her case is a hard one, for it is clear both
- she and the other lady students were led to attend the classes under
- the misapprehension of the privileges to which they were admissable.
- If the University intended to exclude ladies from the pecuniary
- advantages usually attached to successful study, the intention should
- have been clearly announced. Miss Pechey, in the spirit of a true
- student, says she is abundantly repaid for her exertions by the
- knowledge she has acquired; but it is none the less hard that, having
- been encouraged to labour for a coveted reward, and having fairly won
- it, she should be disqualified by a restriction of which no warning
- had been given her.”
-
-   _Times_, April 25, 1870.
-
-
- “There are probably few persons who did not learn with regret the
- decision of the Edinburgh Senatus in respect of the Hope Scholarships.
- It is not pleasant that such a story of, at least, seeming injustice
- should circulate through foreign universities, to the discredit of
- our own, for there cannot be much doubt as to the view that will
- be taken of the case by those nations--now forming the majority in
- Europe--who have admitted women to their medical colleges on terms of
- exact fairness and equality with their other students.... A medical
- contemporary argues that this affair proves how unwise it was to
- admit women to the University of Edinburgh--such admission being, as
- is asserted, the natural source of ‘constant squabbles.’ But most
- unprejudiced people, judging the case at first sight, would surely
- rather see here the evil of a partial, restricted, and permissive
- legislation. If women have a claim to medical education at all, they
- have exactly the same claim as men; if they are to be received as
- students at all, they must certainly be treated with even-handed
- justice, and not as social or rather academical _pariahs_, to whom
- the bare crumbs of instruction are vouchsafed as a grace and bounty;
- while all the honours and rewards are to be reserved to their male
- competitors. Looking at the thing for a moment, merely in the
- interests of the young men, and as a question of expediency, we cannot
- imagine anything much worse for their moral guidance than to find that
- women are indeed to compete with them, but so shackled that they can
- never win; or rather that, if they do win, the prizes will be snatched
- from their grasp and given to men whom they have beaten. We have heard
- that, in both classes where the ladies have this year studied, a very
- unusual access of zeal and energy has been noticed among the gentlemen
- in the other section of the class--a happy effect of such competition,
- which has often been observed in the mixed colleges of America, and
- which surely need not be neutralised here by the providence of the
- Senatus.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, April 15, 1870.
-
-
- “The Senatus has, by a small majority, confirmed Professor Crum
- Brown’s decision with regard to Miss Pechey and the Hope Scholarship,
- on the grounds previously presumed by us. But these grounds, if so
- they may be called, are in our opinion insufficient to deprive Miss
- Pechey of the Scholarship. Whatever may be our views regarding the
- advisability of ladies studying medicine, the University of Edinburgh
- professed to open its gates to them on equal terms with the other
- students; and unless some better excuse be forthcoming in explanation
- of the decision of the Senatus, we cannot help thinking that the
- University has done no less an injustice to itself than to one of its
- most distinguished students.”
-
-   _British Medical Journal_, April 16, 1870.
-
-
-NOTE J, p. 96.
-
-For the credit of the profession, I append also the following indignant
-protest from the chief medical paper:--
-
- “There are very varying opinions abroad in the medical profession and
- among the public, as to the advisability of allowing women to practise
- medicine. There are still more serious and widely-spread doubts as
- to the possibility of educating ladies in the same lecture rooms and
- dissecting rooms with male students. But, until last week, we were not
- aware that any one in the profession, or out of it, held that the mere
- fact of ladies wishing to be educated in common with men, in order
- that they might make sure of receiving the highest and most thorough
- scientific training, justified those who held contrary opinions in
- loading them with abuse and vulgar insult. It has been reserved for
- Dr Laycock, professor in the famous University of Edinburgh, to set
- an example which, we trust, even the least courteous and gentlemanly
- of first-year’s students will hesitate to follow.... We shall only
- remark that if the coarsest of those few students who still keep alive
- the bad traditions of the Bob Sawyer period had given utterance to
- the insinuations which were used by this distinguished Professor, we
- should simply have shrugged our shoulders, and concluded that the
- delinquent would be at once expelled with ignominy from his school.
- Unfortunately there are no such punishments for highly-placed men like
- Dr Laycock, but at the least we can express the deep indignation and
- disgust which we are certain every gentleman in the profession must
- feel at the outrage of which he has been guilty.”
-
-   _Lancet_, April 30, 1870.
-
-
-NOTE K, p. 101.
-
-The following are the papers referred to in the text:--
-
-
-(1.)--_Letter from the Lady Students._
-
- “MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,--We, the undersigned registered
- students of medicine, beg to lay before you the following facts, and
- to request your kind attention to them:--
-
- “On applying in the usual course for students’ tickets of admission to
- attend the practice of the Royal Infirmary, we were informed by the
- clerk that the Managers were not prepared to issue tickets to _female_
- medical students. We earnestly request you to reconsider this decision
- on the following grounds:--
-
- “1. That the authorities of the University of Edinburgh and of the
- School of the College of Physicians and Surgeons have admitted our
- right to study medicine with a view to graduation.
-
- “2. That an important and indispensable part of medical education
- consists in attending the practice of a medical and surgical hospital,
- and that the regulations of the Licensing Boards require, as part of
- the curriculum of study, two years’ attendance at a ‘general hospital
- which accommodates not fewer than eighty patients, and possesses a
- distinct staff of physicians and surgeons.’
-
- “3. That the only hospital in Edinburgh possessing the required
- qualifications is the Royal Infirmary, and that exclusion from that
- institution would therefore preclude the possibility of our continuing
- our course of medical study in this city.
-
- “4. That, in the present state of divided opinion on the subject, it
- is possible that such a consummation may give satisfaction to some;
- but we cannot suppose that your honourable Board would wish to put
- yourselves in the attitude of rendering null and void the decisions
- of the authorities of the University of which we are matriculated
- students, and of the School of the College of Physicians and Surgeons,
- where we are now attending the classes of anatomy and surgery.
-
- “5. That it has been the invariable custom of the Managers to grant
- tickets of admission to students of the University and of Surgeons’
- Hall, and that, as far as we are aware, no statute of the Infirmary
- limits such admission to students of one sex only.
-
- “6. That the advertised terms on which the wards of the Infirmary
- are open to all registered and matriculated students were such as to
- leave no doubt on our minds that we should be admitted; if, therefore,
- our exclusion should be finally determined, we shall suffer great
- pecuniary loss and damage by this departure of the Managers from their
- advertised regulations.
-
- “7. That if we are granted admission to the Infirmary by your
- honourable Board, there are physicians and surgeons on the hospital
- staff who will gladly afford us the necessary clinical instruction,
- and find no difficulty in doing so. In support of the above assertion,
- we beg to enclose the accompanying papers, marked A. and B.
-
- “8. That we are fellow-students of systematic and theoretical surgery
- with the rest of Dr Watson’s class in Surgeons’ Hall, and are
- therefore unable to see what legitimate objection can be raised to our
- also attending with them his hospital visit.
-
- “9. That a large proportion of the patients in the Infirmary being
- women, and women being present in all the wards as nurses, there can
- be nothing exceptional in our presence there as students.
-
- “10. That in our opinion no objection can be raised to our attending
- clinical teaching, even in the male wards, which does not apply with
- at least equal force to the present instruction of male students in
- the female wards.
-
- “11. That we are unable to believe it to be in consonance with the
- wishes of the majority of the subscribers and donors to the Infirmary
- (among whom are perhaps as many women as men) that its educational
- advantages should be restricted to students of one sex only, when
- students of the other sex also form part of the regular medical
- classes.
-
- “We beg respectfully to submit the above considerations to the notice
- of your honourable Board, and trust that you will reconsider your
- recent decision, which threatens to do us so great an injury, and
- that you will issue directions that we, who are _bona fide_ medical
- students, registered in the Government register by authority of the
- General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United
- Kingdom, be henceforth admitted to your wards on the same terms as
- other students.--We are, my Lord and Gentlemen, yours obediently,
-
-   “SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE, MARY EDITH PECHEY, ISABEL J. THORNE, MATILDA C.
-    CHAPLIN, HELEN EVANS, MARY A. ANDERSON, EMILY BOVELL.”
-
- “November 5, 1870, 15 Buccleuch Place.”
-
-
-  November 5, 1870.
-
- _Paper A._--“We, the undersigned physicians and surgeons of the
- Royal Infirmary, desire to signify our willingness to allow female
- students of medicine to attend the practice of our wards, and to
- express our opinion that such attendance would in no way interfere
- with the full discharge of our duties towards our patients and other
- students.--J. HUGHES BENNETT, GEORGE W. BALFOUR,
- PATRICK HERON WATSON.”
-
- In _paper B_, Dr Matthews Duncan and Dr Joseph Bell expressed their
- readiness, if suitable arrangements could be made, to teach the female
- students in the wards separately.
-
-
-(2.)--_Letter from, Dr Handyside and Dr Watson._
-
-  November 5, 1870.
-
- “MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,--As lecturers in the Edinburgh
- Medical School, we beg most respectfully to approach your honourable
- Board, on behalf of the eight female students of this school whom,
- we understand, you object to admit to the practice of the Royal
- Infirmary. On their behalf we beg to state:--
-
- “1. That they are regularly registered students of medicine in this
- school.
-
- “2. That they are at present attending, along with the other students,
- our courses of anatomy, practical anatomy, demonstrations of anatomy,
- and systematic surgery, in the school at Surgeons’ Hall.
-
- “3. That as teachers of anatomy and surgery respectively, we find no
- difficulty in conducting our courses to such mixed classes composed of
- male and female students, sitting together on the same benches; and
- that the presence of those eight female students has not led us to
- alter or modify our course of instruction in any way.
-
- “4. That the presence of the female students, so far from diminishing
- the numbers entering our classes, we find both the attendance and the
- actual numbers already enrolled are larger than in previous sessions.
-
- “5. That in our experience in these mixed classes the demeanour of the
- students is more orderly and quiet, and their application to study
- more diligent and earnest, than during former sessions, when male
- students alone were present.
-
- “6. That, in our opinion, if practical bedside instruction in the
- examination and treatment of cases is withheld from the female pupils
- by the refusal to them of access as medical students to the practice
- of the Infirmary, we must regard the value of any systematic surgical
- course thus rendered devoid of daily practical illustration, as
- infinitely less than the same course attended by male pupils, who have
- the additional advantage of the hospital instruction under the same
- teacher.
-
- “7. That the surgical instruction, being deprived of its practical
- aspect by the exclusion of the female pupils from the Infirmary, and
- therefore from the wards of their systematic surgical teacher, the
- knowledge of these female students may very reasonably be expected to
- suffer, not only in class-room examinations, but in their capacity to
- practise their profession in after life.
-
- “8. That our experience of mixed classes leads us to the conviction
- that the attendance of the female students at the ordinary hospital
- visit, along with the male students, cannot certainly be more
- objectionable to the male students and the male patients than the
- presence of the ward nurses, or to the female patients than the
- presence of the male students.
-
- “9. That the class of society to which these eight female students
- belong, together with the reserve of manner, and the serious and
- reverent spirit in which they devote themselves to the study of
- medicine, make it impossible that any impropriety could arise out of
- their attendance upon the wards as regards either patients or male
- pupils.
-
- “In conclusion, we trust that your honourable Board may see fit, on
- considering these statements, to resolve not to exclude these female
- students from the practice of, at all events, those physicians and
- surgeons who do not object to their presence at the ordinary visit
- along with the other students.
-
- “Such an absolute exclusion of female pupils from the wards of the
- Royal Infirmary as such a decision of your honourable Board would
- determine, we could not but regard as an act of practical injustice
- to pupils who, having been admitted to the study of the medical
- profession, must have their further progress in their studies
- barred if hospital attendance is refused them.--We are, my Lord and
- Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
-
-   “P. D. HANDYSIDE, PATRICK HERON WATSON.”
-
-
-At a meeting of the lecturers of the Extra-mural School, held in
-Surgeons’ Hall, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the following resolution was
-proposed and carried, a corresponding communication being laid before
-the Managers at their meeting on Saturday, Nov. 12, 1870:--
-
- “That the extra-mural lecturers in the Edinburgh Medical School do
- respectfully approach the Managers of the Royal Infirmary, petitioning
- them not to offer any opposition to the admission of the female
- students of medicine to the practice of the institution.”
-
-
-The following letter was also submitted at the next meeting:--
-
-  “15 Buccleuch Place, Nov. 13, 1870.
-
- “MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,--To prevent any possible
- misconception, I beg leave, in the name of my fellow-students and
- myself, to state distinctly that, while urgently requesting your
- honourable Board to issue to us the ordinary students’ tickets for the
- Infirmary (as they alone will ‘qualify’ for graduation), we have, in
- the event of their being granted, no intention whatever of attending
- in the wards of those physicians and surgeons who object to our
- presence there, both as a matter of courtesy, and because we shall be
- already provided with sufficient means of instruction in attending the
- wards of those gentlemen who have expressed their perfect willingness
- to receive us.--I beg, my Lord and Gentlemen, to subscribe myself your
- obedient servant, SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
-
- “To the Honourable the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.”
-
-
-NOTE L, p. 102.
-
-As ballads are said to be even more significant than laws of the
-popular feeling, I do not apologise for appending the following:--
-
-
-THE CHARGE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED;
-
-A LAY OF MODERN ATHENS.
-
-(_Suggested by a recent Students’ Song, containing the following
-verse_:--
-
-    “_The little band plied the battering ram,
-    With General Blake at its head,
-    When ‘specials’ rose five hundred strong,
-    And raised the siege--they fled,
-                              Brave Boys!_”)
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    ONCE more the trumpets sound to arms!
-    Once more ring forth war’s wild alarms!
-    Once more be Scotia’s host poured forth
-    To guard the bulwarks of the North--
-          The foe is o’er the Tweed!
-    Bring forth the banner Flodden saw,
-    Rear high the standard of the war!
-    Let every Gael in battle stand,
-    To drive the invader from the land--
-          Speed to the rescue, speed!
-
-    What mean the rushing footsteps fleet?
-    What mean the squadrons in the street?
-    “Five hundred specials” now appearing--
-    Five hundred voices hoarsely cheering,
-          Wild and disorderly!
-    Strange oaths pollute the evening air,
-    Foul jests the banners proudly bear;
-    What mean these bands in fierce array?
-    Champions of “delicacy” they,
-          And manly modesty.
-
-    Then marked the bard who stood afar
-    The gallant leaders of the war--
-    The plumèd crest of Andrew Wood,
-    Who for his sons in battle stood,
-          A Christison hard by!
-    A Turner, Laycock, Lister too,
-    All met for deeds of derring-do;
-    Gillespie, Douglas (Oh, that shame
-    Should fall on that time-honoured name!),
-          Dun-Edin’s chivalry.
-
-    To arms! to arms! the foe is nigh,
-    “Five hundred specials” do or die!
-    Admiring Europe’s eyes are cast
-    On Scotia’s greatest fight, and last,
-          O’er her Infirmary!
-    Press on! press on! Immortal gods!
-    What matter if o’erwhelming odds
-    Make others blush--_they_ know no shame,
-    “Brave boys!” led on by chiefs of name
-          To glorious victory!
-
-    The foe at last! With modest mien
-    And gentle glance, at length are seen
-    The seven women, whom to crush
-    The noble hundreds onward rush,
-          Undaunted to the fray!
-    What if in idle tales of yore
-    The man to guard the woman swore!
-    Such trash is bygone!--_now_ men stand
-    To guard their _craft_ from female hand,
-          In nineteenth century!
-
-    “_Women_ to claim _our_ lordly state!”
-    Cries Reverend Phin in fierce debate.
-    “_Women_ to strive _our_ gains to share!”
-    Shrieks Andrew Wood in wild despair,
-          “While five fair sons have I!”
-    “That _English_ girls should thus aspire!”
-    Quoth Christison in Scottish ire.
-    “Though their princess to Scotland come,
-    We’ll drive these errant damsels home,
-          For hospitality!”
-
-    “Great is Diana!” loudly cry,
-    Be imprecations heard on high!
-    Be mud upgathered from the street,
-    And flung with ribald oaths, to greet
-          The dreadful enemy!
-    Seven women yield, they must confess
-    On t’other side is _major vis_;
-    Glorious Five hundred, O rejoice!
-    Swell, each “brave boy” with tuneful voice,
-          Pæans of victory!
-
-    _Scotsman_, Feb. 10, 1871.
-
-
-NOTE M, p. 103.
-
-The following letter is an excellent illustration of the indignation
-felt by the more manly students at the events referred to:--
-
-   “EDINBURGH, November 19, 1870.
-
- “SIR,--As a certain class of medical students are doing their
- utmost to make the name of medical student synonymous with all that is
- cowardly and degrading, it is imperative upon all those who wish to be
- regarded as men, either individually or collectively, to come forward
- and express, in the strongest possible terms, their detestation of the
- proceedings which have characterised and dishonoured the opposition to
- ladies pursuing the study of medicine in Edinburgh. In the name, then,
- of all that is courteous and manly, I, as a student of medicine, most
- indignantly protest against such scenes as were enacted at the College
- of Surgeons on the evenings of Thursday and Friday last, and indeed on
- several occasions during the week.
-
- “I would it were possible to point out to public execration the movers
- and actors in such scenes; but it is difficult to decide where the
- responsibility begins.
-
- “Are only the hot-headed youths to be blamed who hustle and hoot at
- ladies in the public streets, and by physical force close the College
- gates before them? Or are we to trace their outrageous conduct to the
- influence of the class room, where their respected professor meanly
- takes advantage of his position as their teacher to elicit their mirth
- and applause, to arouse their jealousy and opposition, by directing
- unmanly inuendoes at the lady students? If such conduct be permissible
- on the part of the professors, alas for the school whose teachers have
- not even but one halfpennyworth of manliness to their intolerable deal
- of nastiness, or boasted philanthropy, as the case may be, and whose
- students crowd the academic precincts to hustle, hoot at, cover with
- mud, and even to strike at, ladies who have always shown themselves to
- be gentle and noble women.
-
- “The current report is, that these disgraceful outrages were
- originally and principally carried out by students of the College
- of Surgeons. This is contrary to fact. Certainly the majority of
- them conducted themselves in a most contemptible manner, roused, not
- by a word or look from the ladies, but by the possibility of being
- outstripped by them in the race for honours; and therefore did they
- elect to end the rivalry by an appeal to brute force. The truth,
- however, is that the rioters were called together by a missive,
- circulated by the students in the _Chemistry Class of the University_
- on Friday morning, on the back of which was written, “To be opened by
- those who signed the petition to the managers against the admission of
- female students.” This missive called upon the petitioners to assemble
- at the College of Surgeons before four o’clock, for the purposes
- which they so thoroughly carried out. The proceedings of Friday will
- therefore enable the public now to judge of the value which the
- majority of the managers of the Infirmary ought to have attached to
- the prayers of _such_ petitioners. Moreover, the professor who is
- to receive the complimentary address which is being got up by the
- same memorialists for his exertions in their cause, must feel highly
- flattered by the implied association.
-
- “What now is to be done with this vexed question of female education?
- Will it be settled by continuing those brutal exhibitions, or by
- asking the ladies to withdraw? Neither course is likely to prove
- successful. Another and a more honourable course has been suggested
- by some of the original memorialists, who--considering their honour
- dearer to them than their sympathies--declare that the blot can
- only be wiped away by their joining to aid the ladies who have
- been so thwarted and so abused in obtaining the object for which
- they have wrought so hard and endured so bravely.--I am, &c.,  VIR.”
-
-   _Scotsman_, November 22, 1870.
-
-
-NOTE N, p. 107.
-
-The following is the petition referred to:--
-
- “_To the honourable the Managers of the Royal Infirmary._
-
- “MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,--We, the undersigned Students
- of Medicine, moved solely by feelings of honour and justice,
- desire to approach your honourable board on behalf of our female
- fellow-students, whom, we understand, you object to admit to the
- practice of the Infirmary, under any circumstances whatever.
-
- “We do not pretend to offer any opinion on the question of mixed
- classes, or on the medical education of women; but we consider that,
- as the University of Edinburgh has admitted those ladies as students
- of medicine, and as they have now been engaged for some time in
- striving honourably and successfully to gain a knowledge of our
- profession, it is great injustice to attempt to bar their further
- progress by refusing them permission to attend the practice of the
- Infirmary.
-
- “We also have certain pretensions to feelings of decency and morality,
- but we are not aware that the lady students have either attempted or
- succeeded in outraging them. On the contrary, our feelings have been
- outraged by the unthinking and misguided of those of our own class
- who oppose them; for their disgraceful actions we would seek to atone
- by asking your honourable Board to make some arrangement by which the
- ladies may be admitted to the practice of the wards.
-
- “As a matter of compromise, we would respectfully request that the
- ladies be admitted to the wards of the three medical gentlemen who
- are willing to receive them. On our part we beg leave to express
- our perfect willingness to attend with them in considering the most
- serious and delicate cases in the wards.
-
- “We feel proud to assert our ability to study those cases from
- scientific and philanthropic points of view, with those feelings of
- delicacy and kindness which ought to actuate every medical man who has
- female patients under his care.”
-
-
-NOTE O, p. 109.
-
-The results of the winter session 1869–70 have been given in the
-text. During the succeeding summer session all the lady students
-(six in number) appeared in the prize lists in both classes which
-they attended, viz., Botany and Natural History. During the next
-winter, 1870–71, the classes taken were Anatomy and Surgery. Out of
-seven ladies, three were in honours in Anatomy (one of them in two
-departments), and four in Surgery. During the summer of 1871 there were
-five lady medical students in the Botany Class, and of these three
-appeared in the prize lists,--one of them in two departments. During
-the winter 1871–72, nine ladies attended Chemistry, and, of these,
-seven appeared in first-class honours, Miss Pechey, in this her second
-course, obtaining 100 per cent.; nine also attended Physiology, and,
-of these, two obtained first-class and three second-class honours; six
-being also in honours in Practical Physiology.
-
-It must be understood that, in the above statement, I have included
-only those ladies who were regular students of medicine; other ladies,
-on several occasions, joined the classes, and also appeared in the
-prize lists.
-
-
-NOTE P, p. 110.
-
- “COMMITTEE FOR SECURING A COMPLETE MEDICAL EDUCATION TO WOMEN IN
- EDINBURGH.
-
- “In view of the determined opposition from certain quarters which
- has met every effort made by ladies to obtain a medical education
- in Edinburgh, it was resolved, in January 1871, that a Committee
- should be formed, comprising all those who felt the injustice of the
- present arbitrary exclusion of women from the medical profession, and
- who desired to co-operate in the following objects:--(1.) To arrive
- at a thorough understanding of the real difficulties of the case,
- distinguishing clearly between those hindrances which are interposed
- by prejudice or self-interest, and the real obstacles (if any) which
- are inherent in the question. (2.) To secure the admission of women
- to Edinburgh University on the ordinary terms, though not necessarily
- in the same classes with men. (3.) To provide the means of qualifying
- Hospital instruction in Edinburgh for all ladies who are registered
- students of medicine.
-
- “To these primary objects the circumstances of the case have
- subsequently led the Committee to add the following:--(4.) To make
- such temporary arrangements as may be required to provide the ladies
- with qualifying instruction, in accordance with the present incomplete
- regulations of the University, until such time as the authorities
- themselves may see fit to make complete and adequate arrangements.
- (5.) To co-operate, from time to time, with the lady students,
- whenever necessary, and especially to aid them in obtaining such legal
- assistance as may be required to ascertain and assert their rights as
- matriculated students of the University, and as registered students of
- medicine.
-
- “Of this Committee the Lord Provost of Edinburgh consented to act
- as chairman; and the following ladies and gentlemen constituted the
- original Executive Committee: The Right Hon. The Lord Provost; Dr
- G. W. Balfour; Professor Bennett, M.D.; Dowager Countess of Buchan;
- Mrs Hill Burton; Professor Calderwood; Treasurer Colston; Andrew
- Coventry, Esq.; James Cowan, Esq.; Mrs Fleeming Jenkin; Mrs Henry
- Kingsley; Professor Lorimer; Professor Masson; Miss Agnes M‘Laren;
- David M‘Laren, Esq.; Dr Macnair; John Muir, Esq., D.C.L.; Mrs Nichol;
- Dr Niven; Alexander Nicholson, Esq.; Admiral Sir W. Ramsay, K.C.B.; Dr
- Heron Watson; Miss Eliza Wigham. W. S. Reid, Esq., _Hon. Treasurer_;
- Miss L. Stevenson, _Hon. Secretary_.”
-
-
-NOTE Q, pp. 110, 120.
-
-The case, drawn up by order of the Committee and submitted to Counsel,
-contained the facts relating to the Edinburgh lady students, which are
-narrated in the text, and further proceeded, as follows:--
-
- “ ... It is stated in ‘Maitland’s History of Edinburgh’ that the first
- mention of erecting a College in Edinburgh was found in the will of
- Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney, who, dying in 1558, bequeathed eight
- thousand Scottish merks towards founding a College ‘for the education
- of youth.’
-
- “In the subsequent benefactions and charters granted by Queen Mary in
- 1566, and by King James in 1582, no stipulation is made as to the sex
- of the students for whose benefit the College was to be established;
- and in 1583 proclamation was made inviting ‘all who were inclined to
- become scholars therein’ to enter their names in a certain book opened
- for the purpose.
-
- “The older University of Glasgow was founded under a Bull granted by
- Pope Nicholas V. at the suit of James II. of Scotland, and in this
- Bull it was expressly stated that the University of Bologna was to
- be followed as a model, and that the doctors, masters, and students
- of Glasgow were to enjoy all the privileges and rights possessed by
- those of Bologna. There is abundant historic evidence that women were
- never excluded from the University of Bologna, but frequently studied
- and took degrees there during the Middle Ages, and that no less than
- seven women at different times filled professorial chairs in this
- University, three of them being in the Medical Faculty, viz.:--
-
- “Dorotea Bucca, Professor of Medicine, early in the fifteenth century;
- Anna Morandi Mazzolini, Professor of Anatomy, 1750; Maria Della Donne,
- Professor of Midwifery, 1810.
-
- “It appears that the University of Edinburgh was founded generally
- on the same model, and the University Calendar states that ‘in 1621
- an Act was passed by the Scotch Parliament which ratified to the
- University, in ample form, all the rights, immunities, and privileges
- enjoyed by other Universities in the kingdom.’
-
- “There does not appear, in any of the statutes or ordinances
- subsequently issued, any regulation that male students alone should
- attend the University; nor in the recent Act of 1858 is there any such
- regulation. As a matter of fact, no applications for admission to the
- University of Edinburgh seem to have been made by women until the year
- 1869, as above mentioned.
-
- “In the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1858, section 12, power was
- given to the University Court ‘to effect improvements in the internal
- arrangements of the University, after due communication with the
- Senatus Academicus, and with the sanction of the Chancellor, provided
- that all such proposed improvements shall be submitted to the
- University Council for their consideration.’
-
- “By the same act (section 21), provision was made for ‘providing
- additional teaching by means of assistants to the Professors in
- any professorships already established or to be established,’ and
- several assistants were accordingly appointed by the Commissioners
- under the Act; and, subsequently, the Senatus appointed certain other
- assistants, and made them allowances out of the University revenues.
- None of these assistants have, however, hitherto delivered courses of
- lectures qualifying for graduation, though there does not appear to be
- any clause in the Act which forbids their doing so. The only course of
- instruction qualifying for medical graduation which is given entirely
- by an assistant is that of practical chemistry.
-
- “During the illness or absence of professors, temporary substitutes to
- lecture in their stead have frequently been appointed by the Senatus,
- with the sanction of the University Court.”
-
-The following Queries were not all asked in the first instance, but
-in part on a subsequent occasion (see p. 120); as, however, they were
-all submitted on the same case, and concern the same subject, I give
-them here consecutively, arranged in the order in which the Opinions
-obtained thereon were presented to the Senatus or University Court:--
-
- “_Query_ 1.--In the permission given to women to study ‘for the
- profession of medicine’ in the University of Edinburgh (bearing date
- November 12, 1869), was it involved in clauses 1, 2, and 6, that they
- should be allowed to pass the ordinary professional examinations
- and to proceed to the degree of M.D. in the University, subject
- only to the restrictions laid down in the said regulations; and is
- it therefore incumbent on the Medical Faculty to admit them to the
- necessary examinations to the extent of the subjects in which they are
- already qualified to pass?
-
- “_Opinion._--Reading the regulations referred to in connection with
- the resolutions of the Medical Faculty which were approved of by the
- Senatus, the University Court, and the General Council, we think
- that their import and meaning is that, subject to the restrictions
- laid down in the regulations, women shall be allowed not merely to
- qualify themselves for the ordinary professional examinations with a
- view to obtain a medical degree in the University, but also, when so
- qualified, to be admitted to these examinations. We are, therefore, of
- opinion that it is the duty of the Medical Faculty to admit them to
- examination accordingly.
-
- “_Query_ 2.--If this was not involved, is it in the power of the
- Senatus, either alone or in conjunction with the University Court,
- to accord the required permission to admit them to professional
- examination with a view to graduation?
-
- “_Opinion._--Upon the ground of keeping faith with the women who have,
- in reliance upon the regulations and in compliance with the terms
- thereby prescribed, qualified themselves for professional examination
- with a view to graduation, we are of opinion that the Senatus is
- entitled to direct that they shall be admitted to examination; and
- we also think that, without any further direction or authority than
- the regulations necessarily imply, the Medical Faculty is entitled to
- admit them to examination.
-
- “_Queries_ 3 and 4.--Is it competent for the Senatus, either directly
- or in conjunction with the other University authorities, to appoint
- special lecturers to deliver qualifying courses of lectures to women
- who are matriculated and registered students of medicine, when such
- instruction cannot be obtained from the professors of the special
- subjects in question? Is it competent for the Senatus or other
- University authorities so far to relax the ordinary regulations with
- respect to extra-mural classes as to authorise women to attend outside
- the University those courses of lectures which are denied to them by
- the Professors within the walls, such courses being held to qualify
- for graduation beyond the number of _four_, as contemplated in the
- present regulations?
-
- “_Opinion._--If the existing regulations with respect to graduation in
- medicine stand upon statutes passed by the University Commissioners,
- whose powers have now expired, it is competent for the University
- Court to alter them with the written consent of the Chancellor and
- with the approval of Her Majesty in Council. This is provided by
- section 19 of the Act of 1858. If they stand on the authority of the
- Court, or of any other power in the University itself, we should think
- that they may be altered by the University Court under section 12 of
- the Act, ‘after due communication with the Senatus Academicus, and
- with the sanction of the Chancellor,’ but with the proviso that the
- proposed alteration ‘shall be submitted to the University Council for
- their consideration.’ In one or other of these ways it appears to
- us that any provision which may be deemed necessary, or proper and
- reasonable, for enabling women to complete their medical studies, with
- a view to graduation, maybe made.”
-
- “_Query_ 5.--Whether the Senatus, University Court, University Council
- and Chancellor, had collectively the power of granting to women the
- permission to matriculate as students as they did in 1869, and whether
- the regulations issued officially (November 12, 1869) are valid as
- regards such matriculation?
-
- “_Opinion._--We are of opinion that the University Court, in virtue
- of the powers conferred upon it by the 12th section (2) of the Act
- 1858, have power, after communication with the Senatus, and with the
- sanction of the Chancellor, and after the University Council have
- considered the subject, to grant permission to women (as they did in
- 1869) to matriculate as students, and the resolutions of the Court in
- that year are valid.
-
- “_Query_ 6.--Whether the medical Professors are exonerated from
- obligation to teach, in some way or other, all matriculated students,
- by the fact, that, in clause 3 of the regulations quoted above, it is
- merely stated that they ‘shall be permitted to have separate classes
- for women?’
-
- “_Opinion._--The University Court having statutory powers to ‘effect’
- improvements in the ‘internal arrangements of the University,’ and it
- being within their power, under this enactment, to allow women to be
- educated at the University, we are of opinion that this resolution
- must be carried out in good faith and obeyed by the Professors. The
- third resolution of the University Court of November 1869, which
- ‘_permits_’ the Professors to have separate classes for women, in no
- way derogates from the resolution of the Court that women ‘shall be
- admitted to the study of medicine.’
-
- “_Query_ 7.--In case such women as are matriculated students of
- medicine in the University are refused instruction by the individual
- medical Professors, what is their legal mode of redress, and against
- whom should it be directed?
-
- “_Opinion._--We are of opinion that the University Court can compel,
- by action, the medical Professors to obey the resolutions of November,
- 1869, by holding separate classes for the education of women. With
- respect to the title of the women, we think that those of them who
- have matriculated and passed the preliminary examinations have a
- title, and may enforce their rights by action. The proper form of
- action is, we think, a declarator against the Professors refusing to
- obey the resolution of the University Court, with petitory conclusions
- to the effect that they should be ordained to hold separate classes
- for the instruction of the pursuers, they receiving their due
- remuneration.
-
- “_Query_ 8.--Whether, in the first constitution or charter of the
- University, or in any of the subsequent statutes, there is anything
- which limits the benefits of the University to male students.
-
- “_Opinion._--The Charter of Erection and Confirmation of the ‘College
- of Edinburgh’ by King James VI., dated 14th April, 1582, granted
- certain lands and revenues to the Magistrates and Town Council of
- Edinburgh, with a license to employ those revenues, and such others
- as well-disposed persons might bestow on them, in the erecting of
- suitable buildings for the use of professors and ‘scholars’ of
- grammar, humanity, and languages, philosophy, theology, medicine,
- and laws, and other liberal sciences. The King, by this charter
- (as interpreted by decision of the Courts), delegated to, or
- conferred upon, the magistrates and Town Council the character of
- patron and founder of this new seminary of education. The powers
- of superintendence and control thus conferred upon the Magistrates
- and Council remained with them till the Act of 1858 was passed, by
- which the more important powers were transferred to the University
- Court. The Magistrates and Council never conferred upon the College
- any independent constitution, so as to enable the members of it to
- exercise any power of internal government. As founders, patrons, and
- delegates intrusted by the royal grant, the Magistrates and Council
- remained in the full right of management, regulation, and tutelage of
- their own institution.
-
- “An Act of Parliament was passed in 1621 (c. 79), which may be
- considered as the charter of erection of the University. It narrates
- the charter of 1582, and the licence thereby given to found a College
- and choose Professors, and sets forth the King’s zeal for the growth
- of learning, and his purpose to grant the College all immunities
- enjoyed by other colleges. The statute then confirms the erection of
- the College, and ratifies all the mortifications made to the town by
- the King or others towards its support. It bestows on the College
- the name of ‘King James’ College,’ and grants to the Magistrates ‘in
- favour of the said burgh of Edinburgh, patrons of the said College,
- and of the College, and of rectors, regents, bursars, and _students_
- within the same, all liberties, freedoms, immunities, and privileges
- pertaining to a free College, and that in as ample a form and large
- manner as any College has or bruickis within His Majesty’s realm.’
-
- “The statute concludes with ordaining a new charter to issue, if need
- be, for erecting the College, with all such privileges and immunities.
- No such charter was ever issued; but the statute itself may be held
- equivalent to a charter. It was a charter in favour of the Magistrates
- and Council as founders and patrons, and in no way prejudiced, but on
- the contrary confirmed their power of superintendence, control, and
- regulation of all matters concerning the internal government of the
- University.
-
- “We are of opinion that, in virtue of the powers they thus possessed,
- the Magistrates and Town Council could at any time, during their 266
- years of University rule, have done what the University Court did in
- 1869--grant permission to women to be educated at the University.
-
- “On examining the records, we find that the superintendence of the
- patrons was active and constant. They made, at various times during
- the two centuries and a half while their jurisdiction lasted, sets
- of laws and regulations for the College, which embrace all things
- connected with the duties and rights of professors and students, the
- series and order of studies, the days and hours of lecture, the books
- to be read, the conduct of students in and out of College hours, the
- modes of trial and graduation, the attendance of the professors at
- their classes, attendance at church, dress to be worn by students,
- fees to be paid, &c., &c. “All these regulations proceed on the
- footing that only male students attended the University; many of them
- were inapplicable to females, and we cannot find any trace of its
- being contemplated by the patrons that females might be students. And
- we do not find any evidence of a female having attended the University.
-
- “Therefore, while we are of opinion that the Magistrates and Council
- had the power to pass a regulation authorising the attendance of women
- at the University, and to compel the professors to teach them, yet as
- they never passed any such regulation, no women could have insisted
- upon admission to University education as a legal right prior to 1869.
-
- “The University Court, by sec. 12 (2), are now vested with all the
- powers of internal management and regulation formerly possessed by
- the Magistrates and Council; they have done what the latter never
- did, although they lawfully might. They have, by their resolution of
- November 1869, given to women the right to demand, equally with male
- students, admission to the University.”
-
-
-NOTE R, p. 111,
-
- “The extraordinary history of the vicissitudes endured by the lady
- students seems at last to have reached its most extraordinary phase.
- It appears, as stated in our columns of yesterday, that on Saturday
- last the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh--a body which,
- collectively, forms one of the law-makers of the College--passed a
- vote by a majority whereby they instructed their Dean deliberately
- to break a law of the University, or rather expressly ‘interdicted’
- him from complying with it. What makes the matter the more remarkable
- is that this special law was in the first instance inaugurated by
- themselves, and subsequently approved by the Senatus and other
- authorities, and incorporated in the official regulations published
- in the ‘Calendar.’ ... It would seem clear enough that a decision
- which had been deliberately confirmed by each university authority
- successively, and which had thus become law, could not be disturbed
- by any one except after an equally formal process of revocation.
- It is, however, well known that, though all the bodies enumerated
- passed the above regulations by a majority, there was in most cases
- a dissatisfied minority, who wished that all privileges should be
- withheld from the lady students. It would have surprised no one to
- hear that a formal attempt had been made to obtain the withdrawal of
- the privileges conferred; but the public were probably sufficiently
- astonished to learn yesterday that, though no such open and honourable
- attempt had been made, a secret _coup d’état_ was planned, by which it
- was apparently hoped, at the very last moment, when no appeal to the
- Senatus, or other authorities was possible, to crush the hopes of the
- medical ladies, at least for the present year. At the Faculty meeting
- to which we have referred, a vote was actually passed to ‘interdict’
- the Dean, whose friendliness to the ladies was well known, from giving
- to any women who were about to join the medical class the papers
- necessary to enable them to pass the preliminary examination in Arts,
- which is indispensable before registration--this examination having
- been not only previously allowed, but actually passed by numerous
- ladies on no less than four occasions! At this same notable meeting,
- a vote was also passed that the Medical Faculty should disregard
- alike their own previous resolutions, the official regulations of the
- ‘Calendar,’ and the tickets of admission already paid for and obtained
- by those other ladies who are now ready to proceed to their first
- professional examination; and, accordingly, a letter was sent to each
- of these three ladies, informing them that their tickets had been
- granted ‘in error,’ and that they could not be examined ‘without the
- sanction of the Senatus Academicus,’ as if that sanction had not been
- already given in the most emphatic manner!
-
- “The story is not a pleasant one. That a minority, obliged to
- acquiesce in an act of liberality on the part of the majority,
- should, when unable to prevail by fair means, endeavour to compass
- their end by a side-wind and in an underhand manner, is sufficiently
- discreditable; but that, rather than relinquish their own dogged
- resolution to obstruct the ladies, these Professors should
- deliberately abstain from all previous warning of the means they
- intended to employ--should allow many months of severe study to
- be passed with a definite aim and hope, and should then silently
- dig a pitfall at the very threshold of the door through which the
- ladies must pass, and hope, by an arbitrary exercise of authority
- against a few wholly unprepared women, completely to destroy their
- prospects, for the present year at least--is something almost too
- monstrous to be believed, did the circumstances admit of any doubt
- in the matter. Whether these medical gentlemen really supposed that,
- by their unsupported fiat, they could set aside all the existing
- regulations of the University, or whether they trusted to the ladies’
- want of knowledge in legal matters not to challenge their authority,
- it is of course impossible to say, but one would rather believe in
- the ignorance of law implied by the former alternative, than in the
- lamentable want of honourable feeling that would be conveyed in the
- latter. Be this as it may, it is not easy to exaggerate the damaging
- effect that a story of this kind is likely to have on the minds of the
- public. That such a line of conduct _could_ be planned and carried out
- by a body of men claiming the name of gentlemen, and belonging to a
- profession that calls itself ‘liberal’ and ‘learned,’ is perhaps as
- striking a proof as could be given of the fatally blinding influence
- of professional prejudice and unreasoning trades-unionism.”
-   _Scotsman_, Oct. 20, 1872.
-
-
- “We confess that the conduct of the medical faculty amazes us. Can
- they suppose that such obstructions are calculated to stop the
- movement? Why should they not show a little practical sense, and
- choose their fighting-ground with reasonable judgment? A single
- Professor, whose classes must be attended according to present
- regulations, might have hoped successfully to resist the demand that
- he should teach mixed classes. There are many people who do not look
- with particular complacency upon the efforts of a few ladies to obtain
- a place in the medical profession; but paltry persecutions like these,
- and little dodges sprung upon them suddenly, will assuredly turn the
- popular tide in their favour. The medical profession seem to think
- that they have only got to get behind these too devoted students,
- and shout ‘bo!’ loud enough to frighten them out of their five wits.
- They might surely have known Miss Jex-Blake better by this time. Are
- the Edinburgh Medical Faculty really afraid of the competition of
- the ladies? Do they look upon them as ‘knobsticks,’ against whom the
- doors must be closed in spite of law, reason, and liberty? They are
- welcome to their fears--narrow as they are--and to their opinions on
- the question of lady doctors; but we trust that the University of
- Edinburgh will see that its regulations are maintained. Having given
- permission to females to study medicine under conditions which are
- strict enough, and even somewhat hard, the University must prevent
- any combination of Professors from taking the matter into their
- own hands, and debarring the ladies from the privileges for which
- they have so gallantly fought. In the meantime, we congratulate the
- five ladies on the prompt spirit in which they have repelled the
- insidious attempt of a majority of the medical faculty--we believe
- only a very small majority--to cut their studies short. We need not
- urge them to persevere, for they seem to have that ‘faculty’ in
- predominance, but we think we can assure them that every victory that
- they gain, and every defeat that they suffer, adds to the number of
- their sympathisers, and breaks down no inconsiderable portion of
- the mountain of prejudice that they had to face when they commenced
- their career as students. If the Medical Professors want to defeat
- them, they must get better advisers, and not court humiliation. Their
- present counsellor is like Adversity, ugly and venomous in appearance
- only. Without the ‘precious jewel,’ the treasure of ill-judged and
- unreasonable persecutions, which he carries in his head, the little
- forlorn hope of courageous ladies, whose ranks are thinned from time
- to time by marriage and other maladies, would hardly be so likely to
- plant their triumphant flag on the top of the Castle rock at last.”
-
-   _Glasgow Herald_, October 20, 1871.
-
-
-NOTE S, p. 119.
-
-The following verses are no bad indication of the popular feeling
-respecting the incidents narrated above, and this is rendered the more
-characteristic by the national form in which it finds expression:--
-
-THE BARRIN’ O’ OOR DOOR.
-
-(_A New Version o’ an Auld Sang_,)
-
-_Dedicated without special permission to Sir Robert Christison, Bart.,
-and intended to be sung at the next convivial meeting of the “Infirmary
-Ring.”_
-
-BY GAMALIEL GOWKGRANDIOSE, M.D.
-
-      It fell aboot the New-Year time,
-        And a gay time it was then, oh!
-      That the lady students in oor auld toon
-        Had a fecht wi’ us medical men oh!
-    _Chorus_--Aboot the barrin’ o’ oor door weel, weel, weel,
-                The barrin’ o’ oor door weel.
-
-    When first they cam’ tae learn oor craft
-      We laughed at them in oor sleeve oh!
-    That women could e’er gang on wi’ sic wark,
-      What medical man could believe oh!
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’, &c.
-
-    So we pouched a’ the fees they gied tae us
-      For lecture or for Exam. oh!
-    We fleeced them a’ as clean and as bare
-      As was ever a sheep or a lamb oh!
-        _Chorus_--A’ for the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    But when we found they meant to use
-      The knowledge for which they had paid oh!
-    And on the trade o’ us medical men
-      Micht mak’ a furious raid oh!
-        _Chorus_--We began the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Hech, sirs, tae drive thae women awa’
-      Was a job baith sair and teuch, sirs;
-    It gied Sir Robert and Andrew Wood
-      Vexation and bother eneuch, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--Did the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Oor students got up a bonny bit mob
-      To gie the ladies a fright, sirs;
-    Wi’ physical force, Young Physic did wark,
-      Tae get us oot o’ oor plight, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--And help the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    We frightened the douce Infirmary folks
-      W’ stories o’ classes mixed, sirs;
-    They werena just true--but what o’ that?
-      We a’ hae oor ain trade tricks, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Scandals we spread owre a’ the toon
-      Against the ladies’ guid fame, sirs;
-    We drove them frae the Infirmary gate,
-      Though some citizen fools cried “Shame,” sirs.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    But they lived a’ scurrilous scandals doon
-      Wi’ true feminine perversity--
-    They roused the folk owre a’ oor town
-      ’Gainst oor clique in the University.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    A year gaed by, and then they tried
-      Again tae force their way, sirs,
-    Into the wards we’ve sworn maun be oors
-      Until oor dying day, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Sir Robert bullied and cracked his big whip,
-      And Turner put on the screw, sirs;
-    Yet we a’ got beaten that New-Year’s Day,
-      For the ladies’ friends stood true, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--Oh! the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Sir Robert looked blue when he heard o’ the vote,
-      And Turner he tore his hair, sirs;
-    He forgot there wasna muckle to tear,
-      Sae deep was his despair, sirs,
-        _Chorus_--Aboot the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    And Andrew Wood fell into the airms
-      O’ twa o’ his “five fair sons,” sirs;
-    “Puir bairns,” quo’ he, “we’ll a’ starve noo,
-      For oor craft will be over-run, sirs.”
-        _Chorus_--Oh! the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    And Nicholson whimpered wi’ clerical whine,
-      And Muirhead shook his fist, sirs,
-    As he thocht o’ how the Scotsman wad chaff
-      O’ the class he had that day missed, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--And the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Lister wept owre his petulant speech,
-      When he swore he’d resign his chair, sirs,
-    If women entered the hospital wards--
-      Eh! noo he repented him sair, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    But when we cam to oor senses a’,
-      We planned a bonny bit plan, sirs,
-    Tae quash the votes o’ thae merchant firms
-      That supported the ladies’ men, sir.
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    The firms may leave us--we carena a straw--
-      The Infirmary may sink, sirs,
-    If we may but keep females aff oor preserve,
-      We carena what folk think, sirs.
-        _Chorus_--O’ the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    The Infirmary meeting against us gaed,
-      But the Court o’ Session befriends us;
-    Oot o’ the hospital managing board
-      Neither women nor traders shall send us!
-        _Chorus_--For the barrin’ o’ oor door, &c.
-
-    Confusion, then, let each man drink
-      To the ladies and their supporters, sirs;
-    For Monopoly’s rights let us a’ fecht or fa’,
-      Or be brayed up small in oor mortars, sirs!
-        _Chorus_--Ho! for the barrin’ o’ oor door weel! weel! weel!
-              The barrin’ o’ oor door weel!
-
-    _Scotsman_, Feb. 13, 1872.
-
-
-NOTE T, p. 125.
-
-This correspondence is so remarkable that I subjoin it entire.
-
-
-(1) _To the University Court._
-
-   “15 Buccleuch Place, November 21, 1871.
-
- “GENTLEMEN,--It is now two years since you passed a series of
- resolutions, dated 12th November 1869, to the effect that ‘women shall
- be admitted to the study of medicine in the University.’
-
- “In the time that has since elapsed, I and those ladies who
- matriculated with me at that date, have completed one-half of the
- studies necessary for graduation in the University of Edinburgh.
- Nearly five months ago, I ventured to point out to the Senatus
- Academicus that, unless further arrangements were made, it would be
- impossible for us to complete the studies which we have begun with
- your express sanction. After pointing out the existing difficulties, I
- ventured further to make two suggestions, either of which, if adopted,
- might enable us to complete our education in the University. In reply,
- however, I was informed that the Senatus, ‘having taken the opinion of
- counsel with reference to the proposals contained in the memorial of
- date 26th June 1871, find themselves unable to comply with either of
- those proposals.’
-
- “I understand, however, that since the date referred to, another legal
- opinion has been obtained from the Lord Advocate and Sheriff Fraser,
- and has been laid before the Senatus, and by them forwarded to your
- honourable Court. As, however, the Senatus still appear unwilling to
- initiate any measure by which we may be relieved from our present
- difficulties, I feel constrained now to appeal to you, in my own name
- and that of my fellow-students, to take such action as shall enable us
- to complete our studies.
-
- “I beg to represent to you that we have all paid matriculation fees
- for the present year, and are by our tickets declared to be ‘Cives
- Academiæ Edinensis,’ and that yet we, who commenced our studies in
- 1869, are unable during the present session to obtain any further
- classes whatever towards completing our required course of study.
-
- “We understand from those friends who have taken legal opinion on
- the subject--and doubtless such opinion will be laid before you
- simultaneously with this letter--that we are entitled to demand from
- the University the means of completing our studies, and that, failing
- any other alternative measures, we can claim the instruction of the
- Medical Professors to the extent needed to complete our curriculum.
-
- “We beg, therefore, most respectfully to request that, unless any
- other mode of supplying our needs seems preferable to you, you will
- vouchsafe to ordain that the Professors, whose courses we are bound
- by the University regulations to attend, shall give us the requisite
- instruction.--I beg to subscribe myself, Gentlemen, your obedient
- servant,
-
-   “SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
-
-
-(2.) _Minute of University Court of January 8, 1872._
-
- “The University Court have had under consideration the letters of Miss
- Jex-Blake and Miss Louisa Stevenson, of 21st November, 1871, and other
- relative documents laid before them on behalf of the women who have
- been admitted by the regulations of the Court of November 10th, 1869,
- to study medicine in the University.
-
- “In these papers it is stated that certain Professors of the Faculty
- of Medicine have declined to give separate classes of instruction to
- women; and the Court are asked either (1) to extend, in the case of
- female medical students, the privilege granted by ordinance by the
- Universities’ Commissioners, to lecturers, not being Professors in
- a university, of qualifying for graduation by their lectures, which
- privilege is now restricted to four of the prescribed subjects of
- study; or (2) To authorise the appointment of special lecturers to
- give, in the University, qualifying courses of instruction in place
- of those Professors who decline to do so; or (3.) To ordain that the
- Professors referred to shall themselves give the necessary courses of
- instruction to women.
-
- “The second course suggested it is not in the power of the Court, or
- other University authorities, singly or jointly to adopt.
-
- “The third course is equally beyond the power of the Court. The Act of
- 1858 vests in the Court plenary powers to deal with any Professor who
- shall fail to discharge his duties, but no Professor can be compelled
- to give courses of instruction other than those which, by the use and
- wont of the University, it has been the duty of the holders of his
- chair to deliver.
-
- “The first of the proposed measures would imply an alteration in one
- of the ordinances for graduation in medicine (No. 8, clause vi.,
- 4). Such alteration could be made by the University Court only with
- the consent, expressed in writing, of the Chancellor, and with the
- approval of Her Majesty in Council.
-
- “But to alter, in favour of female students, rules laid down for the
- regulation of graduation in medicine would imply an assumption on the
- part of the Court, that the University of Edinburgh has the power of
- granting degrees to women. It seems to the Court impossible to them to
- assume the existence of a power that is questioned in many quarters,
- and which is both affirmed and denied by eminent counsel. So long
- as these doubts remain, it would, in the opinion of the Court, be
- premature to consider the expediency of taking steps to obtain, in
- favour of female students, an alteration of an ordinance which may be
- held not to apply to women.
-
- “Though the Court are unable to comply with any of the specific
- requests referred to, they are at the same time desirous to remove,
- so far as possible, any present obstacle in the way of a complete
- medical education being given to women,--provided always that medical
- instruction to women be imparted in strictly separate classes.
-
- “The Court are of opinion that the question under reference has been
- complicated by the introduction of the subject of graduation, which is
- not essential to the completion of a medical or other education. The
- University of London, which has a special charter for the examination
- of women, does not confer degrees upon women, but only grants them
- ‘certificates of proficiency.’ If the applicants in the present case
- would be content to seek the examination of women by the University
- for certificates of proficiency in medicine, instead of University
- degrees, the Court believe that arrangements for accomplishing this
- object would fall within the scope of the powers given to them by
- section 12 of the Universities’ (Scotland) Act. The Court would be
- willing to consider any such arrangements which might be submitted to
- them.”
-
-
-(3.) _To the University Court._
-
-   “15 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, January 18, 1872.
-
- “GENTLEMEN,--I have received from your Secretary a copy
- of your minute of the 8th instant, and I beg you to allow me most
- respectfully, but at the same time most emphatically, to protest
- against the decision therein contained, on the following grounds:--
-
- “1. That when women were admitted to study ‘for the profession of
- medicine’ in the University of Edinburgh, and were required to pay the
- ordinary matriculation fees as _Cives Academiæ Edinensis_, in addition
- to those for instruction, it was believed to be involved that, subject
- only to the restrictions laid down in the regulations of November 12,
- 1869, we should be allowed to complete our education, and should,
- as a matter of course, proceed to the degree of M.D., no official
- intimation to the contrary being given to us at the time, nor indeed
- until now, when we have half completed our University curriculum. You
- will allow me to remind you further, that we have very high legal
- authority for believing that these expectations were well founded,
- and that matriculation does involve necessarily all the privileges of
- studentship, including graduation, as was indeed recently admitted
- by a legal Professor, who has always been one of our most determined
- opponents, when addressing your honourable Court in favour of
- rescinding the present regulations.
-
- “2. That, except with a view to ultimate graduation, it was quite
- meaningless to require us to pass, as we did, the preliminary
- examination in Arts, which has not any necessary connection with the
- study of medicine itself, but is expressly stated to be ‘the first
- examination _for the medical degree_.’
-
- “3. That we have all along pursued our studies with a view to the
- further professional examinations; that, in the resolutions passed
- by the Medical Faculty on July 1, 1869, it was distinctly stated
- that ‘ladies be allowed to attend medical classes and to receive
- certificates of attendance qualifying for examination;’ that,
- further, on April 9, 1870, the Senatus Academicus expressly ordained
- that exactly the same University certificates of attendance should
- be issued to students of both sexes, for the special purpose of
- qualifying for professional examination.
-
- “4. That no kind of official notice was ever given to us that a
- doubt existed respecting our admission to the ordinary professional
- examinations, until certain of our number had completed their
- preparations for the first professional examination, and had paid
- their fees for, and received tickets of admission to, the same; and
- that, when the matter was brought before the Senatus, it was by
- them decided that ladies should be admitted to the examination, and
- accordingly the ladies in question were examined in the ordinary
- course and passed the examination successfully.
-
- “5. That under the existing Act of Parliament it is impossible for any
- person to practise medicine under legal sanction, without a distinct
- ‘qualification’ as defined by the said Act of Parliament.
-
- “6. That the only ‘qualification’ which it is in the power of the
- University of Edinburgh to grant, is the ordinary medical degree, and
- that no ‘certificates of proficiency’ would possess the slightest
- legal value unless a special Act of Parliament was passed making such
- certificates registrable qualifications.
-
- “7. That the difficulty and expense of procuring such a special Act
- of Parliament would be very much greater than that of obtaining the
- sanction of the Queen in Council to such minor alterations in the
- University Ordinances as are alone necessary to enable us to complete
- our education by means of additional extra-mural classes; even if your
- honourable Court declines to make the necessary arrangements _within_
- the University.
-
- “8. That we are informed on high authority that it is at present
- within the power of your honourable Court, in conjunction with the
- Senatus, to make the necessary arrangements within the University,
- without any external sanction; either by ordaining that the present
- Professors shall instruct women in separate classes, or by appointing
- special lecturers for that purpose. As regards the former course,
- I venture to remark that several Professors in the Faculty of Arts
- are already delivering two or more lectures daily, and that, as I
- presume it was always contemplated that each Professor should instruct
- all matriculated students desiring to study his subject, it is
- quite conceivable that it might become necessary from the number of
- students, or otherwise, for the medical Professors also to be required
- to deliver two courses; and that, therefore, it could hardly be
- considered a hardship if they should be required to deliver a second
- course, with proper remuneration for the same, to those matriculated
- students who are forbidden by the University to attend in the ordinary
- classes. As regards the second alternative, I believe that it has
- never been doubted that the Senatus and University Court, conjointly,
- have the power of appointing any number of assistants or special
- lecturers in any faculty, if they are required for the efficient
- performance of the teaching of the University.
-
- “9. That as the main difficulty before your honourable Court seems
- to be that regarding graduation, with which we are not immediately
- concerned at this moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims
- to ultimate graduation on the facts as they stand up to the present
- date, and in case your honourable Court will now make arrangements
- whereby we can continue our education, we will undertake not to draw
- any arguments in favour of our right to graduation from such future
- arrangements, so that they may at least be made without prejudice to
- the present legal position of the University.
-
- “10. That we are informed by high legal authorities that we are
- entitled, as matriculated students, to demand from the University
- complete arrangements for our instruction, and that we are further
- entitled to bring an action of declarator to obtain the same from the
- several Professors if no alternative measures are devised, and that
- we shall inevitably be driven to pursue this course, with whatever
- reluctance, if your honourable Court persistently refuses to make, in
- any form whatever, such arrangements as may enable us to complete our
- education, and to obtain a legal qualification to practise.
-
- “Earnestly commending the above considerations to your most favourable
- notice, I have the honour, &c.,
-
-   “SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
-
-
-(4.) _From the Secretary of the University Court._
-
-  “University of Edinburgh, 5th February 1872.
-
- “MADAM,--I am desired by the University Court to inform you
- that your letter, dated the 18th ultimo, has been laid before them and
- considered.
-
- “In reply, I am to say that in several points of your view of the past
- history and present position of the question relative to the medical
- education of women in Edinburgh the Court are unable to concur.
-
- “Without going into the discussions which might be raised on these
- points, it appears to the Court that it is only necessary for them to
- enter upon the subject of your ninth paragraph, in which you say:--
-
- “‘That as the main difficulty before your honourable Court seems to be
- that regarding graduation, with which we are not immediately concerned
- at this moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims to ultimate
- graduation on the facts as they stand up to the present date; and in
- case your honourable Court will now make arrangements whereby we can
- continue our education, we will undertake not to draw any arguments in
- favour of our right to graduation from such future arrangements, so
- that they may at least be made without prejudice to the present legal
- position of the University.’
-
- “On this I am desired to inform you that you appear to ask no more
- than was offered by the Court in their resolution of the 8th ultimo,
- in which it was stated that while the Court were restrained by legal
- doubts as to the power of the University to grant degrees to women,
- from considering ‘the expediency of taking steps to obtain, in favour
- of female students, an alteration of an ordinance which might be
- held not to apply to women,’ they were, ‘at the same time, desirous
- to remove, so far as possible, any present obstacle in the way of a
- complete medical education being given to women: provided always that
- medical instruction to women be imparted in strictly separate classes.’
-
- “On the assumption, therefore, that while you at present decline the
- offer made by the Court with reference to certificates of proficiency,
- you now ask merely that arrangements should be made for completing the
- medical education of yourself and the other ladies on behalf of whom
- you write, I am to state that the Court are quite ready to meet your
- views. If, therefore, the names of extra-academical teachers of the
- required medical subjects be submitted by yourself, or by the Senatus,
- the Court will be prepared to consider the respective fitness of the
- persons so named to be authorised to hold medical classes for women
- who have in this or former sessions been matriculated students of the
- University, and also the conditions and regulations under which such
- classes should be held.
-
- “It is, however, to be distinctly understood that such arrangements
- are not to be founded on as implying any right in women to obtain
- medical degrees, or as conferring any such right upon the students
- referred to.
-
-  “I have, &c.,
-  J. CHRISTISON, Secretary.”
-
-
-(5.) _To the University Court._
-
-   “15 Buccleuch Place, February 9, 1872.
-
- “GENTLEMEN,--I beg to thank you sincerely for the resolution
- to which you came on Monday the 5th inst., and which, if I understand
- it rightly, will, I trust, prove a satisfactory solution of our
- present difficulties.
-
- “We will, if you wish it, very gladly prepare and submit to your
- honourable Court a list of extra-academical lecturers and of gentlemen
- prepared to qualify as such, who may, with your sanction, instruct us
- in the various subjects which we have to study; but before doing so, I
- venture to beg for official confirmation of my interpretation of your
- late resolution in two essential particulars.
-
- “I trust that I am correct in understanding--
-
- “1. That though you at present give us no pledge respecting our
- ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed
- extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, and that you will
- take such measures as may be necessary to secure that they will be
- accepted if it is subsequently determined that the University has the
- power of granting degrees to women.
-
- “2. That we shall be admitted in due course to the ordinary
- professional examinations on presentation of the proper certificates
- of attendance on the said extra-mural classes.
-
- “You will, I am sure, understand that, while we are quite willing
- to accept present arrangements for instruction without any pledge
- that they will confer a right to graduation, it would be useless for
- us to attend any classes which would be incapable of qualifying for
- graduation, and impossible for us to acquiesce in any agreement which
- might prejudice the claim which we believe ourselves to possess to the
- ultimate attainment of the medical degree.--I am, &c.,
-
-   “SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
-
-
-(6.) _From the Secretary of the University Court._
-
-   “University of Edinburgh, 24th February 1872.
-
- “_Madam_,--Your letter dated 9th instant has been considered by the
- University Court. In it you say:--
-
- “‘I trust that I am correct in understanding---
-
- “‘I. That though you at present give us no pledge respecting our
- ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed
- extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, and that you will
- take such measures as may be necessary to secure that they will be so
- accepted, if it is subsequently determined that the University has the
- power of granting degrees to women.
-
- “‘II. That we shall be admitted in due course to the ordinary
- professional examinations on presentation of the proper certificates
- of attendance on the said extra-mural classes.’
-
- “In reply, I am desired to point out that no extra-mural courses,
- beyond the number of four allowed by the Ordinance of the Universities
- Commissioners, could either qualify for graduation, or for the ordinary
- professional examinations, except under a change in the ordinance;
- which change could be made only by a resolution of the Court sanctioned
- by the Chancellor, and approved by the Queen in Council.
-
- “The Court have already declared, in their resolution of the 8th of
- January last, that they cannot even enter on the consideration of the
- expediency of such a change in the ordinance until the legality of
- female graduation has been determined.
-
- “It would not only be premature for the Court to express at present
- any views or intentions on the points to which you refer, but it would
- be clearly contrary to their duty to do so. For, supposing the legal
- question to be decided in a way favourable to your wishes, those points
- would then doubtless be referred to the Court for their decision, when
- various parties would probably desire to be heard with regard to them.
-
- “I am to add that in your letter of the 18th January, you appeared
- merely to ask that the Court ‘will now make arrangements whereby we
- can continue our education,’ and that the Court offered, as stated in
- my letter of the 5th inst., to meet your views in the only way which
- appeared to lie within their competency. The Court are still of opinion
- that it is quite impossible for them at present to add anything to that
- offer.”--I have the honour, &c.,
-
-   J. CHRISTISON, Secretary.
-
-
-NOTE U, p. 133.
-
-I am anxious to guard myself from being supposed to attribute to
-Scotch nationality the exceptionally bad conduct of certain students
-in Edinburgh, during 1870–71. I cannot but hope that such behaviour
-as I have described would have been impossible in any English Medical
-School, but, in so saying, I do not by any means wish to imply that
-Scotch students have less good feeling than others, when their
-superiors set them an example of courtesy. In point of fact, moreover,
-some of those who took most pains to make themselves obnoxious were
-not Scotchmen at all, but Englishmen of an extremely low class. Some
-Scotch lads no doubt behaved very badly, but, on the other hand, the
-guard of honour (see page 104) was almost wholly composed of Scotch and
-Irish students, who showed the utmost indignation at the conduct of the
-rioters.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note
-
-
-The “Notes” were originally printed in a very compressed format. Some
-citations and signatures have been moved to new lines.
-
-Other changes made by the transcriber are:
-
-  Page    To          From           In
-
-   37  required    re-required     the required examinations
-   54  Il          It              Il est bien entendu
-   90  University  Uni-sity        the University authorities
-  138  at          as              regarded as a possibility
-  140  Times       Tines           Medical Times and Gazette
-
-
-
-
-
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