[NOTES.]
[NOTE A], [p. 11].
The following are a few only out of many indications of the existence of the painful feeling alluded to in the text. The reader will hardly need to be reminded that this is especially a subject respecting which a maximum of feeling may well exist with a minimum of expression, for hardly anything but a sense of duty would make a woman write on such a question to the newspapers.
... “But there remains to be considered the modesty and delicacy of the patients,—a question hardly yet mooted; these poor women having, I suppose, too much of the reality to raise the point. It cannot be denied that at least one-half of the patients of medical men are women, or that usually (from natural causes) they require medical services more certainly and frequently than men; and operations delicate or indelicate, so called, must be performed, questions, delicate or indelicate, must be asked, and answered too, if not by the patient herself, by the nurse, who, I believe, is usually a woman.
“There is much reason to believe that many women, either owing to the nature of their malady, or from constitutional nervousness or reserve, never avail themselves of the services of a medical man without reluctance. To them it is always a painful effort—the twentieth time as much as the first. It would, I think, be odd if something of this kind were not felt very strongly by every woman on some occasions, and I have seen very experienced mothers quite distressed, if by any chance, they were deprived of the assistance of ‘the doctor they were used to.’ The wives of medical men have told me that it was their one comfort to feel that in their hour of suffering only their own husband and a good nurse need be with them. I think this is not unnatural.”—Letter by “Medicus,”
Pall Mall Gazette, May 11, 1870.
“I happened to be speaking to a young shopwoman—a total stranger to me—and in the course of conversation advised her to seek medical advice, when she replied, with a sudden gush of tears in her eyes, that she had been in the Infirmary, in Dr Matthews Duncan’s wards for a fortnight, and had during that time suffered so much from the constant presence of crowds of male students during certain inevitable but most unpleasant examinations of her person, that, as she herself forcibly expressed it, ‘it almost drove me mad.’”
Daily Review, Nov. 18, 1870.
“Sir,—A new obstacle has been thrown in the way of women acquiring a knowledge of the medical profession. The special obstacle at present is injury to the delicacy of mind of the male students. This delicacy, if real, must be a serious drawback to the proper exercise of their profession in after life. That it is so, many a suffering woman knows.
“The question, however, arises—which evil is the greater,—that five hundred youths, in full health and vigour, should be made a little uncomfortable by the presence of seven women, or that seven times five hundred women, unnerved by suffering, should be subjected to the very trial they shrink from.
“That women do truly shrink from this trial, the number of wretched, broken-down sufferers from chronic disease but too clearly proves. It is only when racked by constant pain that a woman’s natural delicacy at last gives way, often only to hear said the words (how bitter they are!) ‘too late.’
“The returns of the Registrar-General could easily prove the vast sacrifice of life, did delicacy not again step in with ‘consumption and liver complaints,’ as more euphonious terms for the real disorders of which these are the mere after-results.
“This objection, looked at fairly, is a case of the delicacy of five hundred men versus that of all suffering women.
“I leave the fathers and husbands of Edinburgh to judge righteous judgment thereon.—I am, &c., A Sufferer.”
Scotsman, November 21, 1680.
“I think most thoughtful women will bear testimony to the amount of preventible suffering that passes unaided, because the natural sensibilities of women prevent their resorting with comfort to treatment by medical men for certain diseases. I can count almost by dozens the cases which have come under my personal observation of health ruined, and life’s pleasures and usefulness alike lost with it, because young girls (and sometimes older women too) will not submit to receive from a man, however respected, the personal examination and treatment necessary for their restoration, and because no woman’s skill has been at their command. Let your readers divest themselves for a moment of conventional habits of thought, and inquire what would then be their instinctive opinion of the existing custom which compels one sex to be dependent on the other for medical treatment of the most delicate kind. Imagine the case reversed. If henceforth women alone were to attend on men, what would the world say to that? At any rate, is it not time that women should at least be allowed a choice in this matter? And if this be so, it is clear that some women must be thoroughly educated for the medical profession....—I am, &c., A Woman.”
Manchester Examiner and Times, November 30, 1870.
“Mention is rarely made of the many women who are waiting longingly for the time when it will be possible for them to consult doctors of their own sex—when they will no longer be forced, at the risk of their health, and perhaps life, to consult men in circumstances under which their natural feelings of delicacy revolt; but I am sure that the number of these is not small, and long suffering as they have hitherto been, their voice in time will make itself heard, if all other monitions are disregarded. I am, &c., A Woman who desires a Woman Doctor.”
Daily Review, Dec. 22, 1870.
“We often hear of the possible dislike of male patients to the presence of lady students, but let us also give the weaker sex a little credit for these same much-talked-of feelings of modesty and decency. Many a time have I stood by the bedside of poor girls who seemed ready to sink under the shame of being exposed before a number of young men—a feeling which could not be overcome even by the agony of the operations.... A Medical Student.”
Scotsman, Dec. 26, 1870.
Edinburgh, Dec. 28, 1870.
“Sir,—In the present controversy regarding the extension to women of facilities for obtaining a complete medical education, it is reiterated on one side that there is a no demand among women themselves for doctors of their own sex. In visiting a district of nine families in a poor quarter of the Old Town, inhabited principally by Irish, I found four women seriously out of health; not so seriously, however, but that they might have been cured by timely medical advice. I urged each of them more than once to go to the Dispensary, but all persistently refused, each of them saying in different words that, if ladies were doctors, as they had heard they were in some places, they would have had medical advice long before. The feelings of these poor women were so strong on the subject that I found it was useless to urge them further. It seems only just and reasonable that qualified female medical attendants should be within the reach of those who either have a strong preference for it, or who will not avail themselves of any other.—I am, &c., A District Visitor.”
Scotsman, Dec. 29, 1870.
“As one who, for a short time, was a patient under a late very eminent doctor of Edinburgh, I say that I believe nothing would again induce me to do what I then did, in ignorance of what was before me. The anguish of mind suffered silently by women in such circumstances is not to be described, and is likely seriously to influence the effect of the medical treatment. It is surely time for men to cease to speak of what women feel in this matter. It is impossible for them to know what women will never tell them—the unwillingness, the delay, often too long, which precedes their stammered request for advice. What women need is, that some of their own sex should have the power of qualifying themselves to act as their advisers. Who has a right to say they shall not, when the voice of their countrywomen calls on them to do it?—I am, &c., An Englishwoman.”
Scotsman, June 6, 1872.
[NOTE B], [p. 37].
In answer to the sufficiently arrogant enquiry from Dr Henry Bennet,—“What right have women to claim mental equality with men?”—I addressed the following letter to the Lancet, and as it seems to me to sum up our position fairly enough, I here reprint it.
Edinburgh, June 21st, 1870.
“Sir,—I see in your columns of June 18th a letter on ‘Women as Practitioners of Midwifery,’ and appeal to your sense of fairness to allow me a fourth part of the space it occupied, for a few words in reply.
“It is hardly worth while to discuss the early part of the letter, as the second paragraph sufficiently disposes of the first. After saying that women are ‘sexually, constitutionally, and mentally unfitted for hard and incessant toil,’ Dr Bennet goes on to propose to make over to them, as their sole share of the medical profession, what he himself well describes as its ‘most arduous, most wearing, and most unremunerative duties.’ In the last adjective seems really to lie the whole suitability of the division of labour, according to the writer’s view. He evidently thinks that women’s capabilities are nicely graduated to fit ‘half-guinea or guinea midwifery cases,’ and that all patients paying a larger sum, of necessity need the superior powers of the ‘male mind of the Caucasian race.’ Let whatever is well paid be left to the man, then chivalrously abandon the ‘badly remunerated’ work to the woman. This is the genuine view of a true trades-unionist. It is well for once to hear it candidly stated. As I trust the majority of medical men would be ashamed of avowing such a principle, and as I am sure it would be indignantly disavowed by the general public, I do not care to say more on this point.
“But when Dr Bennet proceeds to dogmatise about what he calls our claim to ‘mental equality,’ he comes to a different and much more important question. I, for one, do not care in the least either to claim or disown such equality, nor do I see that it is at all essential to the real question at issue. Allow me to state in a few words the position that I, and, as I believe, most of my fellow students take. We say to the authorities of the medical profession, ‘State clearly what attainments you consider necessary for a medical practitioner; fix your standard where you please, but define it plainly; put no obstacles in our way; either afford us access to the ordinary means of medical education, or do not exact that we shall use your special methods; in either case subject us ultimately to exactly the ordinary examinations and tests, and, if we fail to acquit ourselves as well as your average students, reject us; if, on the contrary, in spite of all difficulties, we reach your standard, and fulfil all your requirements, the question of ‘mental equality’ is practically settled, so far as it concerns our case; give us then the ordinary medical license or diploma, and leave the question of our ultimate success or failure in practice to be decided by ourselves and the public.’ This is our position, and I appeal, not to the chivalry, but to the justice, of the medical profession, to show us that it is untenable, or else to concede it at once.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Sophia Jex-Blake.”
Lancet, July 9, 1870.