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,