FOOTNOTES:
- [1] See [Note A].
- [2] Athenæum, Sept. 28, 1867.
- [3] In his “Essai sur les Femmes,” Thomas points out that “Chez la plupart des sauvages ... la médecine et la magie sont entre les mains des femmes.”
- [4] The passage is thus rendered by Professor Blackie:—
- “His eldest born, hight Agamede, with golden hair,
- A leech was she, and well she knew all herbs on ground that grew.”
- (Iliad, xi. 739).
- In his Notes the translator remarks that “it seems undeniable that women have a natural vocation for exercising certain branches of the medical profession with dexterity and tact.... It is gratifying therefore to find that a field of activity which has been recently claimed for the sex ... finds a precedent in the venerable pages of the Iliad.... In fact, nothing was more common in ancient times than medical skill possessed by females,” in proof of which assertion he mentions Œnone and others. (Professor Blackie’s “Homer and the Iliad.” Edmonston & Douglas.)
- [5] Odyssey, iv. 227.
- [6] Hippolytus, 293–7.
- [7] Finauer’s “Allgemeines Verzeichniss gelehrten Frauenzimmer.”
- [8] I subjoin as a curiosity the quaint version of this story that is given in a letter from Mrs Celleor (a fashionable midwife of the reign of James II.), published in 1687, and now to be found in the British Museum. After saying that “Among the subtile Athenians a law at one time forbade women to study or practise medicine or physick on pain of death, which law continued some time, during which many women perished, both in child-bearing and by private diseases, their modesty not permitting them to admit of men either to deliver or cure them,” she continues, “Till God stirred up the spirit of Agnodice, a noble maid, to pity the miserable condition of her own sex, and hazard her life to help them; which to enable herself to do, she apparelled her like a man, and became the scholar of Hierophilos, the most learned physician of the time; and having learned the art, she found out a woman that had long languished under private diseases, and made proffer of her service to cure her, which the sick person refused, thinking her to be a man; but, when Agnodice discovered that she was a maid, the woman committed herself into her hands, who cured her perfectly; and after her many others, with the like skill and industry, so that in a short time she became the successful and beloved physician of the whole sex.” When her sex became known to the public, “she was like to be condemned to death for transgressing the law ... which, coming to the ears of the noble women, they ran before the Areopagites, and the house being encompassed by most women of the city, the ladies entered before the judges, and told them they would no longer account them for husbands and friends, but for cruel enemies that condemned her to death who restored to them their health, protesting they would all die with her if she were put to death.... This caused the magistrates to disannul the law, and make another, which gave gentlewomen leave to study and practise all parts of physick to their own sex, giving large stipends to those that did it well and carefully. And there were many noble women who studied that practice, and taught it publicly in their schools as long as Athens flourished in learning.”
- [9] “Thornton Romances,” Camden Society.
- [10] “Ivanhoe,” chap. xxviii.
- [11] “Nuovo Dizionario Istorico;” Bassano, 1796.
- [12] Fachini’s “Prospetto Biografico delle Donne Italiane,” Venezia, 1824.
- [13] Medici’s “Scuola Anatomica di Bologna.”
- [14] Finauer.
- [15] New York Medical Gazette, April 24, 1869.
- [16] 34 Henry VIII. 8.
- [17] Maitland, in giving an account of the foundation of the Edinburgh College of Physicians in 1681, begins by saying that “the Practice of Physick had been greatly abused in Edinburgh by foreign Impostors, Quacks, Empirics, and illiterate Persons, both men and women.”—Maitland’s History of Edinburgh, 1753.
- [18] The statutes of 1268 ordained that “les matrones ou sages femmes sont aussi, de la dite confrairie et subjects ausdits deux chirurgiens jurez du Roy au Chastelet, qui ont dressé certains statuts et ordonnances tant pour les droicts de la confrairie que pour leur estat de sage femme, qu’elles doivent observer et garder.”—Du Breul’s “Antiquités de Paris,” pub. 1639.
- [19] “The Midwive’s Deputie ... composed for the use of my wife (a sworne Midwife), by Edward Poeton, Petworth, Licentiate in Physick and Chyrurgery.”
- [20] “Letter to Dr——” written by Elizabeth Celleor, “from my house in Arundel Street, Strand, Jan. 16, 1687–8.”
- [21] “A Short Account of the State of Midwifery in London. By John Douglas, Surgeon. Dedicated to the Right Hon. Lady Walpole.”
- [22] It may be interesting to give the following quotation on this subject from a popular magazine of thirty years ago:—“The accoucheur’s is a profession nearly altogether wrested out of the hands of women, for which Nature has surely fitted them, if opinion permitted education to finish Nature’s work. But women are held in the bonds of ignorance, and then pronounced of deficient capacity, or blamed for wanting the knowledge they are sternly prevented from acquiring.”—Tait’s Magazine, June, 1841.
- [23] Lancet, April 13th and 20th; May 4th; June 1st; 1872.
- [24] It will be remembered that an attempt was made to throw doubt on the birth of this prince, but Dr Aveling remarks that “Dr Chamberlen, in his letter to the Princess Sophia, showed the absurdity of this hypothesis”—(i.e., of the charge of conspiracy).
- [25] “Delicacy had in those days so far the ascendancy, that the obstetrical art was principally practised by females, and on this occasion the Queen was delivered by Mrs Stephen, Dr Hunter being in attendance among the ladies of the bedchamber, in case of his professional assistance being required.”—Huish’s “Life of George IV.”
- [26] “It is a curious coincidence, considering the future connection of the children, that Madame Siebold, the accoucheuse spoken of above as attending the Duchess of Coburg at the birth of Prince Albert (August 1819), had only three months before attended the Duchess of Kent at the birth of the Princess Victoria.”—Early Years of the Prince Consort.
- [27] “Rites and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church,” by Madame Romanoff. Rivingtons, 1868.
- [28] Ballard’s “Memoirs of several Ladies of Great Britain.” Oxford, 1752.
- [29] “An Account of the Life and Death of Mrs Elizabeth Bury.” Bristol, 1721.
- [30] “Scuola Anatomica di Bologna,” by Medici.
- [31] Fachini.
- [32] Ibid.
- [33] Ibid.
- [34] Fachini.
- [35] “Gazette Medicale,” du 10 Janvier 1846.
- [36] Klemm, “Die Frauen.”
- [37] Athenæum, July 1859.
- [38] Arnault’s “Biographie nouvelle des contemporains.”
- [39] Quérard’s “Littérature Française.”
- [40] “The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes,” by Christine Du Castel, 1521.
- [41] See [Note B].
- [42] “There is one subject in which I have long felt a deep, and deepening concern. I refer to man-midwifery.... Nature tells us with her own voice what is fitting in these cases; and nothing but the omnipotence of custom, or the urgent cry of peril, terror, and agony—what Luther calls miserrima miseria—would make her ask for the presence of a man on such an occasion, when she hides herself and is in travail. And, as in all such cases, the evil reacts on the men as a special class, and on the profession itself.”—“Locke and Sydenham,” by Dr John Brown.
- “Nothing probably but the deadening force of habit, combined with the apparent necessity of the case, has induced us to endure that anomalous person against whose existence our language itself bears a perpetual protest—the man-midwife. And this single instance suggests a whole class of others in which the intervention of a man is scarcely less inappropriate.”—Guardian, Nov. 3, 1869.
- [43] Delhi Gazette, 1866.
- [44] “In many parts of India—I think I may say most parts—native ladies are entirely shut out from any medical assistance, however great may be their need, because no man who is not one of the family can enter their apartments or see them; and though thousands thus die from neglect and want of timely help, yet nothing can be done to assist them until we have ladies willing and able to act in a medical capacity.”—The Queen, June 8, 1872.
- [45] Treasurer, T. B. Winter, Esq., 28 Montpelier Road, Brighton.
- [46] Scotsman, Oct. 26, 1870.
- [47] Brit. Med. Journal, May 25, 1872.
- [48] Macmillan’s Magazine, September 1868.
- [49] Spectator, April 13, 1867.
- [50] See [Note C].
- [51] “Theologia Moralis,” by St Alphonsus.
- [52] A curious coincidence recently occurred which may illustrate this feeling. Not long ago I was attacked in the newspapers for having alluded to this subject, and a certain doctor published three letters in one week to prove that “ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishwomen suffering from female diseases freely consulted medical men.” During that very week no less than three women, in different classes of society, appealed to me for advice and treatment for sufferings about which they “did not like to ask a gentleman.” In each case I advised them to consult a medical man, as I was not yet myself in practice, and there were no women doctors in Edinburgh; but in each case I found that their feeling in the matter was too strong to allow them to do so.
- [53] “Concerning her death, it was magnanimous and answerable to the courage of heroes,” &c.—Gallerie of Heroick Women, written in French by Pierre le Moyne, and translated by the Marquess of Winchester, 1652.
- [54] See [Note D].
- [55] “Handbook of Uterine Therapeutics,” by Edward John Tilt, M.D.
- [56] See [Note E].
- [57] Besides these we have, at Bologna,—Maddalena Buonsignori, Professor of Laws, 1380; Laura Bassi, Professor of Philosophy, 1733; Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Professor of Mathematics, 1750; Clothilde Tambroni, Professor of Greek, 1794; and also other instances in various Italian Universities.
- [58] Ghirardacci, “Historia Bologna,” Bologna, 1605.
- [59] Lancet, June 18, 1870.
- [60] Lancet, August 26, 1871.
- [61] See [Note F].
- [62] Scotsman, March 22, 1870.
- [63] Pall Mall Gazette, August 1870.
- [64] Medical Gazette, New York, February 27, 1869.
- [65] British Medical Journal, October 1871.
- [66] British Medical Journal, May 18, 1872.
- [67] For a reductio ad absurdum of the whole question, let me refer to Dr Henry Bennet’s letter, containing the above words, in the Lancet of June 18, 1870. An answer to it occurs in the Lancet of July 9, 1870, and is referred to in [Note B].
- [68] See [Note G].
- [69] Medical Times and Gazette, Feb. 23, 1867, and April 24, 1869.
- [70] It would have been perfectly easy in Edinburgh, during 1871–72, to make complete arrangements for instruction, partly inside and partly outside the walls of the University, if only the authorities would have authorised the lady students to organize the necessary classes for themselves at their own expense. But the obstructive party took refuge behind the traditional non-possumus, and could not be driven from their position, though the Lord Advocate of Scotland gave a distinct opinion to the effect that any needful arrangements might legally be made, and though the more far-sighted Professors strongly deprecated such an abnegation of University power for the purpose of subserving a merely temporary object. In point of fact, the whole history of this struggle is one long illustration of the good old proverb,—“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
[II.]
Medical Education of Women,
THE SUBSTANCE OF A LECTURE
DELIVERED ON APRIL 26TH, 1872, IN ST GEORGE’S HALL, LONDON,
THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY IN THE CHAIR.
“You misconceive the question like a man,
Who sees a woman as the complement
Of his sex merely. You forget too much
That every creature, female as the male,