14 firms,
2 ladies,
37 doctors.
It was now claimed that the votes of firms were incompetent, at the majority really lay on the other side.
“It mattered nothing,” said the Scotsman,[[96]] “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.”
An appeal to law, however, is a slow affair, and on this occasion there was obviously no inducement for the law to bestir itself unduly. It was not till July 23rd that Lord Jerviswoode pronounced the votes of firms to be perfectly valid.
The case was appealed to a higher court, where it did not come on for trial till the end of October: it was then again postponed and judgment was not given till December.
“Dec. 7th. Saturday. Judgment from Second Division in our favour on all points.”
The Annual Meeting was now once more at hand, however, when new managers might be elected who were unfriendly to the women. Needless to say the woman’s party lost no time. A Contributors’ meeting was called for December 16th, and another for December 23rd, when a vote was passed admitting the women to the Infirmary on condition that their visits were to be separate from those of the men, and that they were to go only to those wards where their presence was invited by the physicians.
So at last they got their tickets, and began an attendance which was to “qualify” for graduation.