It then voted (16 to 10) for the following motion which was proposed by the President:
That in the opinion of the Board of Overseers it is expedient that, under suitable restrictions, women be instructed by Harvard University in its Medical School.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Opening of the Massachusetts Medical Society to women—Letter on the subject to Dr. Zakrzewska from Dr. Henry I. Bowditch—She declines to present herself for examination for admission, having already twice prepared herself and been refused examination because she was a woman—Dr. Zakrzewska’s reply to the question “whether to enforce obedience medicines should be administered to refractory prisoners in reformatories and prisons.” (1879-1884.)
It was in this same year of 1879, however, that the cause was heartened by the beginning of the tardy capitulation of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the council of which following in the wake of ten or a dozen of the other State medical societies, finally voted to admit women to membership on equal terms with men.
This society differs from most of the other State medical societies in that its membership does not consist, as does theirs, of delegates from the constituent county societies. Members join the Massachusetts Medical Society as individuals, and it aims to include all reputable members of the profession.
It had previously refused to recognize homeopathic and eclectic physicians, holding these latter as “irregular” practitioners of medicine, even though their diplomas were legalized by the same authority as that which had legalized those of its own members.
Its refusal to admit women to membership showed its intention to classify women also as “irregulars,” even women who had received their diplomas as regular classmates of men who were acceptable.
The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, of October 9, 1879, expressed itself characteristically in an editorial:
We regret to be obliged to announce that at a meeting of the councilors, held on October 1, it was voted to admit women to the Massachusetts Medical Society.... Enshrouded in her mantle of science, woman is supposed to be endowed with power to descend from that high pedestal upon which we men have always placed her, and to mingle with us unscathed in scenes from which her own modesty and the esteem of the other sex has hitherto protected her.