A new Act came into operation at this time, and all the Managers of the Royal Infirmary had to retire from the Board unless re-elected. Now was the time to get in members favourable to the admission of the women, if this could be done. One can imagine the canvassing that took place on both sides.

Here are some characteristic “thumb-nails” from the diary:

“Littlejohn at Police Court,—very uncomfortable talk; he so very candid and honest, but believing he ought to vote against us in Infirmary, because ‘by hook or by crook’ they’d got up such a spirit among the students (L. was ‘ashamed of his sex’) that he was afraid persistence would injure the School.

M.,—£1000 subscriber. Quiet, simple, not narrow or hard,—only not interested previously. Said he ‘must think of it now,’ though his prejudices were against women doctors. I showed him that that was only a detail,—the question of justice lay beyond.

L. R.,—Had nothing to do with it, etc.,—but thought it all improper.

‘The young men in female wards?’... ‘Oh, it was their business’!!”

At the Annual Meeting of Contributors on January 2nd, 1871, the hall at the Council Chambers was crowded long before the advertised hour, though that hour was one o’clock. Proceedings began with a hot dispute among the civic magnates as to the propriety of adjourning to the High Church (St. Giles’ Cathedral) which would seat a larger number of people,—the representative of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners declaring that the Police Court would be a more suitable place, but allowing himself to be over-ruled on a point of law by Mr. Duncan M‘Laren, M.P. for Edinburgh. By the time the move to the church had been effected, everyone was “rubbed up the wrong way,” and there was a good deal of squabbling and noisy interruption before the main question at issue came on at all.

The Lord Provost himself proposed the election of six men known to be in favour of the women students, and an amended list was proposed by one of the Infirmary Medical Staff. Warm language was used on both sides, and interruptions were frequent. This was the atmosphere in which S. J.-B.—in the capacity of a subscriber—asked leave to speak.[[74]]

She was, as has been said, one of the finest women speakers of her time; but, even in her maturity, she was wont to suffer beforehand from an access of nervousness, of which, happily, no trace was obvious when the crucial moment arrived. What she must have suffered on this first occasion in Edinburgh we can imagine. We know that she was over-worked and tired, and that her honest resentment had been raised to the highest pitch by the way in which some of those in authority were inciting the students to make trouble. It was deliberately said later by certain grave and responsible Edinburgh citizens that she had suffered “unexampled provocation.” She wished the contributors to know the real truth of the situation, and she was resolved that the presence of her adversaries should not deter her from giving a plain, unvarnished account of what had taken place. She had realized the danger of failing from cowardice; but, in her inexperience, she had not realized the danger of going to the other extreme: and that was what she did. Part of her speech might quite justly be described as a direct personal attack on one or two individuals.

She spoke well, of course, but she owed her gift to Nature, in no way to Art: and she was confronted by those—double her age and more—who had learned the full value of outward calmness and urbanity in debate.