“There are very varying opinions abroad in the medical profession and among the public, as to the advisability of allowing women to practise medicine. There are still more serious and widely-spread doubts as to the possibility of educating ladies in the same lecture rooms and dissecting rooms with male students. But, until last week, we were not aware that any one in the profession, or out of it, held that the mere fact of ladies wishing to be educated in common with men, in order that they might make sure of receiving the highest and most thorough scientific training, justified those who held contrary opinions in loading them with abuse and vulgar insult. It has been reserved for Dr Laycock, professor in the famous University of Edinburgh, to set an example which, we trust, even the least courteous and gentlemanly of first-year’s students will hesitate to follow.... We shall only remark that if the coarsest of those few students who still keep alive the bad traditions of the Bob Sawyer period had given utterance to the insinuations which were used by this distinguished Professor, we should simply have shrugged our shoulders, and concluded that the delinquent would be at once expelled with ignominy from his school. Unfortunately there are no such punishments for highly-placed men like Dr Laycock, but at the least we can express the deep indignation and disgust which we are certain every gentleman in the profession must feel at the outrage of which he has been guilty.”
Lancet, April 30, 1870.
[NOTE K], [p. 101].
The following are the papers referred to in the text:—
(1.)—Letter from the Lady Students.
“My Lord and Gentlemen,—We, the undersigned registered students of medicine, beg to lay before you the following facts, and to request your kind attention to them:—
“On applying in the usual course for students’ tickets of admission to attend the practice of the Royal Infirmary, we were informed by the clerk that the Managers were not prepared to issue tickets to female medical students. We earnestly request you to reconsider this decision on the following grounds:—
“1. That the authorities of the University of Edinburgh and of the School of the College of Physicians and Surgeons have admitted our right to study medicine with a view to graduation.
“2. That an important and indispensable part of medical education consists in attending the practice of a medical and surgical hospital, and that the regulations of the Licensing Boards require, as part of the curriculum of study, two years’ attendance at a ‘general hospital which accommodates not fewer than eighty patients, and possesses a distinct staff of physicians and surgeons.’
“3. That the only hospital in Edinburgh possessing the required qualifications is the Royal Infirmary, and that exclusion from that institution would therefore preclude the possibility of our continuing our course of medical study in this city.
“4. That, in the present state of divided opinion on the subject, it is possible that such a consummation may give satisfaction to some; but we cannot suppose that your honourable Board would wish to put yourselves in the attitude of rendering null and void the decisions of the authorities of the University of which we are matriculated students, and of the School of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where we are now attending the classes of anatomy and surgery.
“5. That it has been the invariable custom of the Managers to grant tickets of admission to students of the University and of Surgeons’ Hall, and that, as far as we are aware, no statute of the Infirmary limits such admission to students of one sex only.
“6. That the advertised terms on which the wards of the Infirmary are open to all registered and matriculated students were such as to leave no doubt on our minds that we should be admitted; if, therefore, our exclusion should be finally determined, we shall suffer great pecuniary loss and damage by this departure of the Managers from their advertised regulations.
“7. That if we are granted admission to the Infirmary by your honourable Board, there are physicians and surgeons on the hospital staff who will gladly afford us the necessary clinical instruction, and find no difficulty in doing so. In support of the above assertion, we beg to enclose the accompanying papers, marked A. and B.
“8. That we are fellow-students of systematic and theoretical surgery with the rest of Dr Watson’s class in Surgeons’ Hall, and are therefore unable to see what legitimate objection can be raised to our also attending with them his hospital visit.
“9. That a large proportion of the patients in the Infirmary being women, and women being present in all the wards as nurses, there can be nothing exceptional in our presence there as students.
“10. That in our opinion no objection can be raised to our attending clinical teaching, even in the male wards, which does not apply with at least equal force to the present instruction of male students in the female wards.
“11. That we are unable to believe it to be in consonance with the wishes of the majority of the subscribers and donors to the Infirmary (among whom are perhaps as many women as men) that its educational advantages should be restricted to students of one sex only, when students of the other sex also form part of the regular medical classes.
“We beg respectfully to submit the above considerations to the notice of your honourable Board, and trust that you will reconsider your recent decision, which threatens to do us so great an injury, and that you will issue directions that we, who are bona fide medical students, registered in the Government register by authority of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, be henceforth admitted to your wards on the same terms as other students.—We are, my Lord and Gentlemen, yours obediently,
“Sophia Jex-Blake, Mary Edith Pechey, Isabel J. Thorne, Matilda C. Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary A. Anderson, Emily Bovell.”
“November 5, 1870, 15 Buccleuch Place.”
November 5, 1870.
Paper A.—“We, the undersigned physicians and surgeons of the Royal Infirmary, desire to signify our willingness to allow female students of medicine to attend the practice of our wards, and to express our opinion that such attendance would in no way interfere with the full discharge of our duties towards our patients and other students.—J. Hughes Bennett, George W. Balfour, Patrick Heron Watson.”
In paper B, Dr Matthews Duncan and Dr Joseph Bell expressed their readiness, if suitable arrangements could be made, to teach the female students in the wards separately.
(2.)—Letter from, Dr Handyside and Dr Watson.
November 5, 1870.
“My Lord and Gentlemen,—As lecturers in the Edinburgh Medical School, we beg most respectfully to approach your honourable Board, on behalf of the eight female students of this school whom, we understand, you object to admit to the practice of the Royal Infirmary. On their behalf we beg to state:—
“1. That they are regularly registered students of medicine in this school.
“2. That they are at present attending, along with the other students, our courses of anatomy, practical anatomy, demonstrations of anatomy, and systematic surgery, in the school at Surgeons’ Hall.
“3. That as teachers of anatomy and surgery respectively, we find no difficulty in conducting our courses to such mixed classes composed of male and female students, sitting together on the same benches; and that the presence of those eight female students has not led us to alter or modify our course of instruction in any way.
“4. That the presence of the female students, so far from diminishing the numbers entering our classes, we find both the attendance and the actual numbers already enrolled are larger than in previous sessions.
“5. That in our experience in these mixed classes the demeanour of the students is more orderly and quiet, and their application to study more diligent and earnest, than during former sessions, when male students alone were present.
“6. That, in our opinion, if practical bedside instruction in the examination and treatment of cases is withheld from the female pupils by the refusal to them of access as medical students to the practice of the Infirmary, we must regard the value of any systematic surgical course thus rendered devoid of daily practical illustration, as infinitely less than the same course attended by male pupils, who have the additional advantage of the hospital instruction under the same teacher.
“7. That the surgical instruction, being deprived of its practical aspect by the exclusion of the female pupils from the Infirmary, and therefore from the wards of their systematic surgical teacher, the knowledge of these female students may very reasonably be expected to suffer, not only in class-room examinations, but in their capacity to practise their profession in after life.
“8. That our experience of mixed classes leads us to the conviction that the attendance of the female students at the ordinary hospital visit, along with the male students, cannot certainly be more objectionable to the male students and the male patients than the presence of the ward nurses, or to the female patients than the presence of the male students.
“9. That the class of society to which these eight female students belong, together with the reserve of manner, and the serious and reverent spirit in which they devote themselves to the study of medicine, make it impossible that any impropriety could arise out of their attendance upon the wards as regards either patients or male pupils.
“In conclusion, we trust that your honourable Board may see fit, on considering these statements, to resolve not to exclude these female students from the practice of, at all events, those physicians and surgeons who do not object to their presence at the ordinary visit along with the other students.
“Such an absolute exclusion of female pupils from the wards of the Royal Infirmary as such a decision of your honourable Board would determine, we could not but regard as an act of practical injustice to pupils who, having been admitted to the study of the medical profession, must have their further progress in their studies barred if hospital attendance is refused them.—We are, my Lord and Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
“P. D. Handyside, Patrick Heron Watson.”
At a meeting of the lecturers of the Extra-mural School, held in Surgeons’ Hall, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the following resolution was proposed and carried, a corresponding communication being laid before the Managers at their meeting on Saturday, Nov. 12, 1870:—
“That the extra-mural lecturers in the Edinburgh Medical School do respectfully approach the Managers of the Royal Infirmary, petitioning them not to offer any opposition to the admission of the female students of medicine to the practice of the institution.”