Medical Women: Two Essays - Sophia Jex-Blake

The following are the names of the six Professors who have taken this memorable stand:—John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Professor of Institutes of Medicine; David Masson, M.A., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature; Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy; James Lorimer, M.A., Professor of Public Law; Archibald H. Charteris, D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities; and William Ballantine Hodgson, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy.[113]

And so I have brought down as clearly and as briefly as I have been able the history of this great struggle to the present moment, for that it is a great struggle, and one that will astound most of those who may read these lines some thirty years hence I think no thoughtful person will deny.

I should like in conclusion to say a very few words on two only of the general questions which are bound up with the final solution of the problem of the Medical Education of Women.

And, first, as to the difficulties which are, or are not, inherent in the admission of women to a University, and especially in them studying in mixed classes. I believe most firmly that if, when we first applied for admission in Edinburgh, we had simply been given the ordinary tickets, and, if either no notice had been taken of our entering the classes, or the other students had been invited, as they were by Dr Alleyne Nicholson, to join in welcoming us to their midst, no difficulties would ever have arisen at all; or at least no difficulties but might have been most easily smoothed away by any manly teacher with a real reverence for his subject, and a belief in the profound purity of Science.[114] I am sure that in theory it is both possible and right for ladies and gentlemen to study in the same classes any and every subject which they need to learn, and I have very little doubt that this will ultimately be the usual arrangement as civilization advances. But I am equally certain that boys of a low social class, of small mental calibre, and no moral training, are utterly unfit to be admitted to a mixed class, and I confess that I was most painfully surprised in Edinburgh to find how large a number there are of medical students who come under this description. I had honestly supposed, as I wrote three years ago, that ladies need fear no discomfort in an ordinary medical class, as “the majority of the students would always be gentlemen.”[115] I regret that on this point I have been compelled somewhat to modify my opinion, though I would fain hope that the circumstances which obliged me to do so were to a great extent exceptional and local.[116] Nor do I think it possible that a mixed class can be satisfactorily conducted by any man who is not capable of inspiring his students with a reverence for purity, or who does not naturally teach them alike by example and precept, that the fear of competition is essentially low and mean, and that the acme of degradation is reached when strength of any kind is used for the injury or annoyance of the weaker or less protected; and, this being so, I acquiesce very heartily in the decision that, at present, wherever professors and students think it necessary, women shall be taught medicine only in separate classes, though I hope, even in my life-time, to see the day when such regulations are no longer required, because students and teachers alike have risen to a higher moral level.[117] In the meantime, let us but be granted permission to acquire our knowledge in separate classes, at whatever cost, and the authorities may be very sure that we shall not trouble them with requests again to be subjected to the unsavoury companionship of which we had such full experience in 1870–71.[118]

And, lastly, with regard to future legislation respecting medical practice, I would say but one word. It is clearly right that, for the protection of the helpless and ignorant, the State should take means to distinguish between competent and incompetent practitioners of medicine, and I hope that women as well as men will always be required very thoroughly to prove their fitness for practice before they are allowed to undertake it, at least under national sanction. But it is not in the least for the good of the nation that any monopoly should be encouraged, whether in matters of teaching, examination, or practice. Is it not simply shameful that all that I have now been relating should be possible in this country, and possible because of a law which appoints but one door to the medical profession,—that of Registration,—limits Registration to those who have passed through certain definite Schools, and satisfied certain definite Boards, and yet allows those Schools and Boards absolute power to shut their doors on one-half of the human race, and that even in the case of Universities largely subsidised from public funds, and at a time when the public are positively clamouring for women doctors for women? We can see plainly enough why it is (in the lowest sense) the interest of medical men to exclude women from their profession,—though, thank God, there are hundreds of medical men who would scorn to put their interests in one scale when justice weighed down the other,—but it is not the interest of the public or of the nation to sanction any such monopoly;[119]—it is their interest to throw open the gates of competition as widely as possible, insisting only on a uniform standard of attainment for all, of either sex, who would enter them; for, by thus increasing the supply of really competent doctors, they give themselves the best possible opportunities of selection; and, as I have pointed out elsewhere, they double the chances of growth and advance in the fields of medical science.

When this momentous question again comes before Parliament, I trust that the issues involved will be fully realised; and that, while providing for the most stringent examination of every candidate, no arbitrary barrier will be placed in the way of any, and no regulations be allowed to stand which militate against the good old English motto for all,—a Fair Field and no Favour!

FOOTNOTES:

[71] By this Act a Court of Examiners was appointed and declared to be “authorised and required to examine all person or persons applying to them, for the purpose of ascertaining the skill or abilities of such person or persons in the science of medicine, and his or their fitness and qualification to practise as Apothecaries;”—it being, however, stipulated that all candidates, so applying, should have gone through certain preliminary studies and apprenticeship.
[72] The classes attended by Miss Garrett, in common with the other students, were as follows:—Chemistry, Practical Chemistry, Materia Medica, Botany, Zoology, and Natural Philosophy.
[73] See [Note H].
[74] “A woman must have uncommon sweetness of disposition and manners to be forgiven for possessing superior talents and acquirements.”—Miss Elizabeth Smith (Memoir, by H. M. Bowdler).
[75] In the year 1870 the question was formally asked of the Italian Government whether women were legally entitled to study in the Universities, and the answer was in the affirmative.
[76] The University Court consists of the Rector, the Principal, and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh; with five others appointed respectively by the Chancellor, the Rector, the Senatus, the Town-Council of Edinburgh, and the General Council of the University.
[77] On this point I may quote the following passage from the Scotsman, whose great influence has always been most nobly exerted in this question on the side of justice and liberality, and to whose help in arousing the moral sense of the community, we owe a debt that we can never hope to pay. The words quoted occur in a leading article referring to a meeting of the General Council, of which mention will be found elsewhere:—“Even Dr Christison, who is well known to be in truth the very soul and centre of the opposition, and whose personal influence alone has probably prevailed to carry it on so long in the teeth of public opinion, thought it advisable to say at the Council meeting, that ‘if anything could be done to get the ladies out of their difficulty, he should be glad to be one to give them assistance.’ This expression sounds somewhat farcical to those who are aware that the present dead-lock arises simply from the fact that the ladies’ studies have now brought them to that point at which Dr Christison’s class comes next in turn to be attended, and that the Professor, in spite of his verbal gallantry, has flatly refused either to instruct them himself or facilitate arrangements by which any one can do so in his place.”—Scotsman, October 31, 1871.
[78] As some attempts have been lately made to throw doubt on the validity of the regulations just quoted, and, in fact, on the legality of the matriculation of women, I think it well to specify distinctly certain of the persons who were most immediately concerned in the University action just described. The University Court which drew up the above regulations, contained among its members Mr Moncreiff, then Lord Advocate of Scotland, and Mr Gordon, who had held the same office under a previous Government, besides two other legal members. The Chancellor who gave his express sanction to all the measures taken, was Lord Glencorse, (Inglis,) the Lord Justice-General of Scotland. I leave the public to judge how far it is probable that these gentlemen conjoined to do an illegal and invalid act on behalf of the University.
[79] I fully agree in the following remarks made by a local paper when the results of the next summer term were declared:—“The whole number of gentlemen who appear in the prize-lists (in Botany) are 32, out of 140 competitors,—i.e., about 23 per cent.; of the ladies, all. We believe that these results prove, not that women’s capacities are better than those of men—a thing that few people would assert—but that these women who are devoting themselves to obtain, in spite of all difficulties, a thorough knowledge of their profession, are far more thoroughly in earnest than most of the men are, and that their ultimate success is certain in proportion. Nor would we omit the inference that, this being so, those who wantonly throw obstacles in the way of this gallant little band incur a proportionately heavy responsibility, as wanting not only in the spirit of chivalry, but even in the love of fair play, which we should be sorry to think wanting in any Briton.”—Daily Review, August 5, 1870.
[80] Compare Miss Garrett’s experience, [p. 78].
[81] I am told that on this occasion the obstructives of the day actually shut the College gates on the ladies, but that the gallant old Professor, nothing daunted, admitted them through a ground-floor window in South College Street!
[82] See [Note I].
[83] The following passage occurs in a leading article on the riot got up in Philadelphia by male medical students, when in 1869 ladies were first admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital:—“Their riotous procedure is just a manifestation of the same trades-union spirit that will stoop to any meanness, join in any tyranny, be guilty of any cruelty, rather than allow interference with what is considered as its ‘vested rights.’ In last week’s Lancet we find a letter from a medical man, who asks with naïve surprise whether the advocates of female physicians can possibly be aware that there are hundreds of medical men not able to make a comfortable living! We know not which most to admire—the cool assumption that the medical profession exists only or mainly to fill the pockets of its members, or the serene assurance that takes it for granted that no woman has a right to expect to be allowed the chance of earning a living, till all male competitors are safely and sufficiently provided for! It is rather amusing to contrast the evidently keen dread of successful competition which degrades a man thus to plead in formâ pauperis, with the voluble assurances, in this and other medical papers, that nature has clearly interdicted to women the practice of medicine, and that here at least they cannot but utterly fail.”—Scotsman, Dec. 4, 1869.
[84] Times, April 25, 1870.
[85] See [Note J].
[86] “In answer to an incorrect statement which appeared in one of the medical papers respecting his class, Dr Alleyne Nicholson has forwarded to its editor a letter, from which we extract the following passage:— ... “The course of lectures on Zoology, which I am now delivering to a mixed class, is identically the same as the course which I delivered last winter to my ordinary class of male students. I have not hitherto emasculated my lectures in any way whatsoever, nor have I the smallest intention of so doing. In so acting, I am guided by the firm conviction that little stress is to be laid on the purity and modesty of those who find themselves able to extract food for improper feelings from such a purely scientific subject as zoology, however freely handled. ‘To the pure all things are pure.’” In the moral courage and manly purity of the above letter we find fresh cause to congratulate the ladies on the teacher they have secured on a subject which might easily have been made offensive by a man of prurient mind. As teachers of truly scientific spirit become more common, we shall, doubtless, hear less and less of the difficulties of giving instruction to classes composed of medical students of both sexes.”—Daily Review, June 14, 1870.
[87] I am sorry to say that hardly a year later a majority of these lecturers were so overborne by the prevailing medical influence, that they rescinded the above regulations, merely permissive as they were, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the gentlemen whose classes we had attended, passed a resolution forbidding any of their number to instruct lady students, either in mixed or separate classes, in Surgeons’ Hall. That no doubt whatever might remain as to the animus which dictated this resolution, they distinctly confined the prohibition to the case of ladies who were registered students of medicine,—expressly allowing the continued instruction of midwives! I wish that space would permit of my quoting the remarks made on this occasion by the Scotsman of July 19, 1871, and by other papers.
[88] See [Note K].
[89] See [Note L].
[90] This mob was not wholly or mainly composed of our fellow-students at Surgeons’ Hall, though a few of them were present. The larger number, however, belonged to the lowest class of University students, who had been summoned together by an anonymous missive circulated in the class-rooms the same morning.
[91] See [Note M].
[92] It is worth remark that, for the first time within memory, lady contributors used their right of voting on this occasion, and it is tolerably significant that more than a dozen voted on our behalf, and not one against us. The number of doctors who voted for us was three or four; against us, more than twenty.
[93] The text of the petition was as follows:—
“To the Court of Contributors to the Royal Infirmary.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—We, the undersigned Women of Edinburgh, not being able to attend the Meeting at which the admission of Female Medical Students to the Infirmary will be discussed, desire hereby to express our great interest in the issues involved, and our earnest hope that full facilities for Hospital study will be afforded by the Managers to all women who desire to enter the Medical Profession.”
[94] See [Note N].
[95] Several of the principal citizens, including the senior member for Edinburgh, had spoken strongly on our behalf at the meetings just mentioned; indeed it has been remarkable throughout how strongly the municipal element has been on our side, while the leaders of the opposition have, with hardly an exception, been medical men, and their immediate friends and followers.
[96] See [Note O].
[97] See [Note P].
[98] See [Note Q].
[99] See [Note R].
[100] On a subsequent very similar occasion the Scotsman remarked:—“It may be noticed that this is the third time that startling announcements have been fired at the lady students on the very eve of important examinations, possibly with the professional view of testing the soundness of their nerves.”—Scotsman, March 21, 1872.
[101] The text of the resolution was as follows:—“That in the opinion of this Council, the University authorities have, by published resolutions, induced women to commence the study of medicine at the University; that these women, having prosecuted their studies to a certain length, are prevented from completing them from want of adequate provision being made for their instruction; that this Council, without again pronouncing any opinion on the advisability of women studying medicine, do represent to the University Court that, after what the Senatus and Court have already done, they are at least bound in honour and justice, to render it possible for those women who have already commenced their studies to complete them.”
[102] Lancet, October 28, 1871.
[103] I am assured by Mrs Henry Kingsley, who kindly acted as Hon. Sec. to this memorial, that the signatures might have been multiplied tenfold, had any organized effort been made to obtain them by means of paid agents taking the papers from house to house.
[104] “The Edinburgh school has come badly out of its imbroglio with the lady students. The motion of Dr Alexander Wood, to which we made reference last week, was negatived by a majority of ten. As we then pointed out, the issue before the General Council was neither more nor less than this—to keep faith with the female students whom the University had allowed to proceed two years in their medical curriculum. The Council was not asked to commit itself in the slightest degree to any opinion, favourable or unfavourable, to the admission of ladies to a medical career. It had only to concede, in common courtesy, not to say common fairness, the right to which the best legal advice had clearly shown the female students to be entitled,—the right to carry on the studies they had been allowed to prosecute half way towards graduation. Will it be believed? An amendment postponing the settlement of the difficulty till it had been duly considered by the authorities of the University was put and carried; as if there was any more room for “consideration” in the matter! Thus Edinburgh stands convicted of having acted unfairly towards seven ladies whom she first accepted as pupils, and then stopped half-way in their career.”—Lancet, Nov. 4, 1871.
[105] “It mattered nothing that firms had voted ever since the Infirmary was founded; that contributors qualified only as members of firms had, as has now been ascertained, sat over and over again on the Board of Management, and on the Committee of Contributors. It was of equally slight importance that the firms whom it was now sought to disqualify had been among the most generous benefactors of the charity, and that, with the imminent prospect before them of great pecuniary necessity, it would probably be impossible, without their aid, to carry out even the plans for the new building. The firms had voted in favour of the ladies, and the firms must go, if, at least, the law would (as it probably will not) bear out the medical men in their reckless endeavour to expel them.”—Scotsman, January 29, 1872.
[106] At this meeting a Committee of Contributors, previously appointed, reported in favour of the admission of lady students, and against the exclusion of the votes of firms, and this Report was approved by 232 votes to 227. On this occasion there voted for the approval of the Report 41 ladies and 10 doctors; against it, 6 ladies, 44 doctors, and 5 druggists.
[107] See [Note S].
[108] See [Note Q].
[109] In support of this suggestion the Court remarked that the question had been needlessly “complicated by the introduction of the subject of graduation, which is not essential to the completion of a medical or other education.” They forgot, however, to mention that though a degree is “not essential” to a medical education, it is absolutely indispensable to any practical use of it,—that is to say, to any lawful practice of the medical profession.
[110] The correspondence above referred to is given in [Note T].
[111] Scotsman, March 25, 1872.
[112] Scotsman, May 7, 1872.
[113] Though a majority of the Senatus did decide to defend the action, I believe that it is understood that such decision did not imply, on the part of all who acquiesced in it, any moral conviction that we are not entitled to obtain the desired Declarator, since several other Professors appear to have agreed in feeling with the six dissentients, but to have acquiesced in the defence of the action for the sake of having a formal legal decision given on one side or the other.
[114] “I am bold enough to say that there is nothing in the art of healing which may not fitly be spoken of before an audience of both sexes, provided there be a generally good tone prevailing among them, and the lecturer be of a pure and manly spirit. Indeed, I will go farther, and say that his example in treating subjects of the kind incidental to his work with equal purity and courage will be far from the least valuable part of his teaching. It will bring home to the hearts of his hearers, with more force than any other argument, the truth that every creature, every ordinance of God, is good and pure.”—Medical Women, by Rev. Thomas Markby. London: Harrison.
Compare with the above the following statement made by an Edinburgh medical student in the columns of the Scotsman:—“I beg leave to relate what I myself listened to in a lecture-room of the University, during the last summer session. On the occasion to which I refer, the Professor went a long way beyond the requirements of scientific teaching—into the regions of “spicy” but indelicate narrative—in order that he might appropriately introduce remarks to the following effect:—“There, gentlemen, I have minutely described to you those interesting incidents which it would have been impossible for me to notice if women were present; and I hope that we may be long spared the annoyance which their presence here would inflict upon us.” The tempest of applause that followed showed only too well the harmony which existed between teacher and pupils on points that would have been far better left unnoticed.”—Scotsman, December 26, 1870.
[115] See “Medicine as a Profession for Women,” [p. 62].
[116] “The truth is, a class of young men, inferior socially to their predecessors of ten years ago, now resort to the Edinburgh School, which has lost much of its attractiveness now that London and other seats of learning are so well appointed and so efficiently worked.”—Lancet, February 17, 1872.
[117] “Mundis omnia munda! Neither ladies nor lecturers are conscious of ‘indelicacy’ or ‘breach of decorum.’ Can it be that the unruly students are ‘nice’ only upon Dean Swift’s principle, because they are ‘nasty?’”—Globe, Dec. 10, 1870.
[118] See [Note U].
[119] “The wrong done to individuals by denying them the training necessary to the pursuit of a branch of knowledge, and the practice of an art for which they may have a special taste and capacity, is very great; and it involves a wrong not less signal to society, in limiting the sources whence good may come to it.”
Daily News, Nov. 1, 1871.