Medical Women: Two Essays

by Sophia Jex-Blake

I do not know how far the Medical Profession would acknowledge the truth of the above statement; it is probable that they are really less competent to judge about it than women are themselves, for, as an eminent divine remarked that it was considered a point of politeness not to express theological doubts before a clergyman, it may probably be thought still more obligatory not to question the adequacy of the existing medical profession before one of its members. One can hardly imagine a lady sending for a doctor to tell him why she will not consult him; it is sufficient to know that many cases of disease among women go without treatment; it is surely open to any one at least to suggest the above as one of the possible reasons.

And indeed, if no such special suffering were often involved in the idea of consulting a man on all points, it seems self-evident that a woman’s most natural adviser would be one of her own sex, who must surely be most able to understand and sympathise with her in times of sickness as well as of health, and who can often far more fully appreciate her state, both of mind and body, than any medical man would be likely to do.[54]

Nor can I leave the subject without expressing a hope that, when women are once practising medicine in large numbers, great gain may accrue to medical science from the observations and discoveries which their sex will give them double facilities of making among other women. One of the most eminent of the so-called “ladies’ doctors” of the day writes:—“The principal reason why the knowledge of diseases of women has so little advanced, is the hitherto undisturbed belief that one sex only is qualified by education and powers of mind to investigate and to cure what the other sex alone has to suffer.” After alluding to women physicians of both ancient and modern times, Dr Tilt further remarks, that, “if well educated, they may greatly improve our knowledge of the diseases of women.”[55]

Moreover, there is reason to hope that women doctors may do even more for the health of their own sex in the way of prevention than of cure, and surely this is the very noblest province of the true physician. Already it is being proved with what eagerness women will attend lectures on physiology and hygiene when delivered to them by a woman, though perhaps not one in ten would go to the same course of lectures if given by a medical man. I look forward to the day when a competent knowledge of these subjects shall be as general among women as it now is rare; and when that day arrives, I trust that the “poor health” which is now so sadly common in our sex, and which so frequently comes from sheer ignorance of sanitary laws, will become rather the exception than, as now too often, the rule. I hope that then we shall find far fewer instances of life-long illness entailed on herself by a girl’s thoughtless ignorance; I believe we shall see a generation of women far fitter in mind and body to take their share in the work of the world, and that the Registrar will have to record a much lower rate of infantile mortality when mothers themselves have learned to know something at least of the elementary laws of health. It has been well said that the noblest end of education is to make the educator no longer necessary; and I, at least, shall think it the highest proof of success if women doctors can in time succeed in so raising the standard of health among their sister women, that but half the present percentage of medical practitioners are required in comparison to the female population.

Of course I do not expect that every reader will look at this question from my point of view, or will be able to arrive at the same conclusions respecting it. But I think that many who have never before seen the matter in the light in which I have tried to place it, will be ready to admit that there are at any rate primâ facie grounds for my argument, and that allowing even for considerable over-statement on my part, there may still remain subject for serious consideration.

Even if I am wholly mistaken, and if all that needs doing can in England be effectually done by men, we have still, I think, no reason for the exclusion of women from the medical profession;—there is still no ground on which it can be right to refuse to every patient the power of election between a physician of her own sex and of the other, when women as well as men are desirous of qualifying themselves for this work, seeing that it will after all be always a matter of choice; for we cannot suppose that the time will ever come when women will be arbitrarily prevented from employing men, as they now are arbitrarily prevented from employing women, as their medical attendants.

The assertion that women are at present “arbitrarily prevented from employing women as their medical attendants” may sound startling, but it is at this moment practically true in England, in the most literal sense. Since medical practice has, for the protection of the public, been made a matter of legislation, it has been absolutely illegal for any physician or surgeon to practise as such in this country, unless registered by the appointed Medical Board, and that Board is not obliged to register any one who has not a British medical degree. It is evident, then, that to deny all British medical degrees to women,—not only to refuse them instruction, but to refuse to examine them if they have acquired knowledge elsewhere,—is most arbitrarily to prohibit all women, whatever their qualification, from practising medicine in the United Kingdom, except under legal pains and penalties.

Of course no such arbitrary action was even contemplated when the Act of 1858 was passed; and I think that when once the great practical injustice of the present state of things is fully understood by the public, a change is inevitable,—either British medical degrees will be thrown open to women, as is most desirable, or the legal conditions of practice will be modified to meet the case of those to whom such degrees are denied. It is perhaps hardly to be expected, though very much to be desired, that medical men as a body should themselves take the initiative in this matter, and throw open the doors to all women who desire worthily to join their fellowship, for it proverbially “needs very good men to give up their own monopoly;” but the action of the general public in the matter can hardly be doubtful except as a question of time;—no English court could be expected to condemn to legal penalties a succession of highly-educated ladies who may have seized, often with great effort, every opportunity open to them to fit themselves thoroughly for a work which they believe to be especially their own.

The recent action taken in the matter by the authorities at Apothecaries’ Hall is exactly of the kind to outrage an Englishman’s sense of fairness, and therefore is sure before long to bring its own redress. As the facts may not be thoroughly understood in the non-medical world, I will briefly recapitulate them. When Miss Garrett first began to study medicine in 1860, she tried to obtain admittance to one School and University after another, and finally found that Apothecaries’ Hall was the only body which, from its charter, had no power to refuse to examine any candidate complying with its conditions. She accordingly went through the required five years’ apprenticeship, and obtained her diploma in 1865, having gone to very great additional expense in obtaining privately the required lectures by recognised Professors,—sometimes paying fifty guineas for a course when the usual fee, in the classes from which she was debarred, was but three or four. Not content, however, with indirectly imposing this enormous pecuniary tax on women, the authorities now bethought them to pass a rule forbidding students to receive any part of their medical education privately,—this course being publicly advised by one of the leading medical journals as a safe way of evading the obligations of the charter, and yet effectually shutting out the one chance left to the women![56]