This resignation was accepted with great regret when after consultation it was found to be irrevocable.
This letter having brought the subject of consulting physicians to the attention of the directors, after much thought and inquiry the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously passed at their regular meeting on August 13:
Whereas, the confidence of the public in the management of the Hospital rests not only on the character of the medical attendants having its immediate charge but also on the high reputation of its Consulting Physicians and Surgeons, and
Whereas, we cannot allow them to be responsible for cases over which they have no control, therefore,
Resolved, that in all unusual or difficult cases in medicine, or where a capital operation in surgery is proposed, the Attending and Resident Physicians and Surgeons shall hold mutual consultation, and if any one of them shall have doubt as to the propriety of the proposed treatment or operation, one or more of the Consulting Physicians or Surgeons shall be invited to examine and decide upon the case.
Voted, that a copy of this resolve be sent to all medical officers connected with this Hospital
On September 10, the board of directors received from Dr. Storer a letter containing his resignation as attending surgeon, and on this letter the report comments, “Its tenor left the Board no alternative but its acceptance, which was unanimously voted.”
The report then continues,
The Directors would, however, take this first public occasion to express their sense of the value of Dr. Storer’s professional services and of the aid which he has rendered to the Treasury of the Hospital. Cheerfully bearing witness to his talent and active zeal in his profession, they offer him their best wishes for his future success.
Dr. Storer’s letter containing his resignation was remarkable for its expressions of misunderstanding of the resolutions quoted above and for its misrepresentation of the general charitable policy of the Hospital. But it was chiefly remarkable for the needlessly offensive manner in which the writer revealed his personal disapproval of the study of medicine by women. Yet he condescended on second thought to qualify the latter statement, by adding:
For certain of the professional ladies whom I have met, I have personally the highest respect and esteem. Miss Zakrzewska, the beauty and purity of whose life as already published to the world I have long seen verified, may well challenge comparison in practice with a certain percentage of my own sex. Miss Tyng, now for two years my assistant in private practice, has such natural tastes and inclinations as fit her, more than I should have supposed any woman could have become fitted, for the anxieties, the nervous strain and the shocks of the practice of surgery. And there are others not now officially connected with the Hospital whose names I would mention in terms of similar commendation.
Such are, however, at the best, but very exceptional cases, and I am driven back to my old belief, the same that is entertained by the mass of mankind, that in claiming this especial work of medicine women have mistaken their calling.
An interesting by-action of the writer was his concurrent sending of this extraordinary letter of resignation to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal for publication. This journal has already been quoted as being opposed to the entrance of women into the medical profession, and at this time and for many subsequent years, it still continued its attitude of opposition.
It is of a certain interest to note here that Dr. Storer once more emerged in public to express his sex-peculiar views regarding women physicians. This was in San Francisco in 1871, when, at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, the question of women as delegates and members was brought into the debate upon a related subject. In the discussion, Dr. Storer spoke in opposition, saying: