Hearing much of the tolerance and liberality of the University of London, she applied to it for admission as a student, but was informed at once that the charter of the institution "had purposely been so worded as to exclude the possibility of examining women for medical degrees."
After this rebuff she made application to the University of Edinburgh, which, like the other Scotch universities, had always boasted of its broad-mindedness and freedom from educational trammels. She was received provisionally, and was, after a while, joined by six other women who had in view the same object as herself. For a time, notwithstanding opposition from certain quarters, everything was quiet and apparently satisfactory. But the gathering storm soon broke, and the seven young women, as they were one day entering the university gates, were actually mobbed by a ruffianly band of students who had all along been opposed to the presence of women in the class and lecture rooms. They pelted the helpless females with street mud and hurled at them all the vile epithets and heaped upon them all the abuse that their foul tongues could command. These outrageous proceedings on the part of the rabble of rowdies were allowed to continue for several days, and, had it not been for a brave band of chivalrous young Irishmen among the students, who formed themselves into a bodyguard for the protection of their fair classmates, and were, in consequence, known as "The Irish Brigade," the hapless women students would not have escaped bodily harm. What a marked contrast between the conduct toward Miss Blackwell of the gallant students of the modest little American town and that of the cowardly ruffians of the vaunted "Athens of the North!"
But this was not all. The seven young women in question had matriculated as students of the university with the understanding that they were to have all the rights and privileges of the male students. But after the disgraceful conduct of the mob just referred to, they discovered that the authorities of the university were prepared to break faith with them, and prevent them from getting their coveted degrees, and thus debar them from all chance of medical practice.
The reason why the university was induced to annul its contract, after the women on their part had fully complied with all its stipulations, soon became apparent. It was purely and simply to make it impossible for women to secure a license as medical practitioners. Both in and outside of Edinburgh the conviction daily grew stronger that women doctors were a menace to the monopoly so long enjoyed by the medical fraternity, and that the movement in their favor should be crushed by fair means or foul before it got beyond control. The Spectator made this clear by stating at the time of the controversy that "every profession in this country"—England—"is more or less of a trades union," and yet the members of these professions "would shake their heads and prate about the necessity of stamping out trades unionism among workmen." "Women," whined one of the doctors, "would snatch the bread from the mouths of poor practitioners." Another doctor who had championed the cause of women physicians, when commenting on the hypocritical objection that it was unbecoming for women to practice medicine or surgery, expressed the same idea in other words. "It appears," he declared, "that it is most becoming and proper for a woman to discharge all the duties which are incidental to our profession for thirty shillings a week; but, if she is to have three or four guineas a day for discharging the same duties, then they are immoral and immodest and unsuited to the soft nature that should characterize a lady."
After Miss Jex-Blake and her companions learned that the university was determined to refuse them the degrees to which they were entitled, they brought suit against it for breach of contract. But, after a long and expensive trial, the judge rendered a decision against them. They then appealed to Parliament, and, after a protracted and strenuous campaign on the part of friends whom they had enlisted in their cause, they saw their opponents not only dragged at the chariot wheels of progress but forced to help to turn them; for, in 1878, after nearly ten years of a persistent, continuous struggle such as had rarely been witnessed in woman's long battle for things of the mind—a struggle in which the intrepid, dauntless Miss Jex-Blake "made the greatest of all the contributions to the end attained"—the women of Great Britain had the supreme satisfaction of winning what was probably the most glorious victory which their sex had ever won.[214] The war was over and henceforward they were free—as were their sisters in other parts of the world—as the women in Italy had been for a thousand years—to devote themselves at will to the study and practice of the healing art without let or hindrance.
What a wonderful change has taken place in the medical world almost within the space of a single generation! The tiny grain of mustard that was sown by two lone women, the Misses Blackwell and Jex-Blake, in their chosen field of effort has grown and "waxed a great tree." Women doctors are now found in all parts of the civilized world and are numbered by thousands. And so great has been their professional success, so widespread is the desire to secure their services, especially in countries like America and England, where opposition was in the beginning especially bitter, that the proportion of women practitioners in medicine and surgery is now regarded as the best index of a nation's enlightenment.
The healing art of Greece and Rome has broadened out into the noble sciences of medicine and surgery of to-day. For, based as they now are on the sciences of chemistry, botany, biology, hygiene, physiology, anatomy and bacteriology, which have all witnessed such extraordinary developments during the last half century, they both deserve a preëminent place in the history of the sciences. And the success which has crowned woman's efforts in surgery and medicine is not only a conclusive indication of her capacity, so long denied by her self-interested opponents, but also the most convincing indication that she is at last properly occupied in a field of activity from which she was too long excluded. Her contributions as writer and investigator toward the progress of both sciences, even during the short time in which she has been able to give proof of her ability, have been notable and augur well for the share she will have in their future advancement. But more important still is the refining influence she has already exerted on both professions, and the relief she has been able to afford to countless thousands of her own sex who would otherwise have been the voluntary victims of untold misery. Women doctors are, indeed, not only worthy representatives of Æsculapia Victrix and of the two sciences which they have so elevated and so ennobled, but are also ministering angels to poor, suffering humanity comparable only with the heroic Sisters of Charity and the devoted nurses of the Red Cross.
FOOTNOTES:
[182] Quoted in Medical Women, p. 11, by Sophia Jex-Blake, M. D., Edinburgh, 1886. Cf. Hyginus, Fabularum Liber, No. 274.
[183] Charles Daremberg, who, at the time of his death in 1872, was professor of the history of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, had the intention of publishing this work Περι των γυναιων ταζων.—On the Diseases of Women—but his premature death prevented him from executing his project. It is to be hoped that some one else, interested in woman's medical work, may at an early date give this production to the public with an appropriate commentary.