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.

NOTE C, p. 46.

The statement in the text was made the subject of a newspaper controversy; and I append the following very valuable evidence which was thus elicited in support of my assertion:—

“Sir,—Permit me to bear my testimony to the state of the facts on this question as far as English convents are concerned. I was for some years medical attendant to a Franciscan convent, and was frequently consulted by the nuns. They were examined and treated like other patients, except where certain maladies were concerned, and then they suffered in silence, or with such relief as could be given by medicines, after a diagnosis founded on questions and general symptoms only. I especially remember two cases.... In neither of these any examination was permitted, or any surgical treatment regarded as a possibility, in spite of all the representations I could make, and although, I believe, I possessed the full confidence of the patients and of the Superior. Whether a female surgeon would have been allowed to examine and operate I cannot say.—I am, Sir, yours, &c., F.R.C.S.”

Lancet, May 18, 1872.

“Sir,—Kindly permit me to say a few words with regard to Miss Jex-Blake’s statement, that very many women, and in particular, nuns, would certainly show a preference for the medical and surgical aid of one of their own sex, were any choice possible to them. As being myself a Catholic, and having many near relatives nuns, I can most confidently confirm this assertion. “I have known, for many years, and in the closest intimacy, ladies, members of various religious orders, in this country and in France, and I am quite aware that recourse to male medical advice, in peculiar cases, is looked upon in religious houses as something much more painful than any physical suffering, or even death.

“My father was medical attendant to a convent of English nuns, and I think I may safely say that any advice given to nuns in such cases was entirely at second hand, the doctor’s wife being the favourite resource in these emergencies....

“Then, again, how can any man, medical or not, know what agonies of shame and outraged modesty women can and do undergo, when submitting to male medical and surgical treatment? How many women cannot overcome their repugnance, and die with their special ailments unsuspected, or discovered too late? On the other hand, how many women are at great pains to conceal the shrinking which they feel when exposing their peculiar ailments to even a long-known and valued medical man? Why should we have these added to our other unavoidable sufferings? The reality of these feelings is, I am certain, within the personal knowledge of every one of your female readers. No one wishes to deny modesty to the stronger sex; but let us suppose them compelled to reveal all their physical ills to women—how would they feel?—I am, &c., A Catholic Wife and Mother.”

Scotsman, May 27, 1872.

NOTE D, p. 49.

While reviewing the above for the press (May 1872), the following lines came under my notice, and I think them the more suitable to quote as they are from the pen of a woman who has never herself shown the least inclination for the study of medicine, and who, therefore, speaks entirely from the abstract point of view:—

“Nothing will ever make me believe that God meant men to be the ordinary physicians of women and babies. A few masculine experts might be tolerated in special institutions, so that cases of peculiar danger and difficulty might not be left, as they are now, to the necessarily one-sided treatment of a single sex; but, in general, if ever a created being was conspicuously and intolerably out of his natural sphere, it is in my opinion, the male doctor in the apartment of the lying-in woman; and I think our sex is really guilty, in the first place, that it ever allowed man to appear there; and, in the second, that it does not insist upon educating women of character and intelligence and social position for that post.

“Indeed, common delicacy would seem to demand that all the special diseases of women should be treated principally by women; but this aside, and speaking from common sense only, men may be as scientific as they please,—it is plain that thoroughly to know the women’s organism, what is good for it and what evil, and how it can best be cured when it is disordered, one must be one’s self a woman. It only proves how much unworthy passion and prejudice the great doctors allow to intrude into their adoration of ‘pure science’ and boasted love of humanity, that, instead of being eager to enlist the feminine intuitions and investigations in this great cause, as their best chance of arriving at truth, they are actually enacting the ignoble part of churls and misers, if not of quacks. For are they not well enough aware that often their women patients are so utterly beyond them that they do not know what to do with them! The diseases of the age are nervous diseases, and women are growing more nervously high-strung and uncontrollable every day, yet the doctors stand helplessly by and cannot stop it. When, however, there shall be a school of doctresses of high culture and thorough medical education going in and out among the sex with the proper medical authority, they will see, and will be able to prevent, much of the moral and physical neglect and imprudence which, now unchecked in school and home, make such havoc of the vital forces of the present generation.”

“Co-operative Housekeeping,” by Mrs C. F. Pierce.

NOTE E, p. 53.

For the edification of the next generation, to whom all this bigotry will probably appear almost incredible, I subjoin the passage alluded to in the text. I am sorry to say it is by no means the worst I might have quoted from the same paper.

“For ourselves, we hold that the admission of women into the ranks of medicine is an egregious blunder, derogatory to the status and character of the female sex, and likely to be injurious, in the highest degree, to the interests and public estimation of the profession which they seek to invade.

“By insisting on the attendance of all students at the public-class delivery of anatomical lectures, and in the public-class dissecting-room, the only possible guarantee of uniformity of teaching will be obtained, and, at the same time, a difficulty will be placed in the way of female intrusion which it will not be easy for women of character, and clearly none else are eligible, to surmount. We hope, however, that the Court of Examiners will not stop with the erection of the barrier we suggest, but that they will distinctly refuse to admit any female candidate to examination unless compelled by a legal decision from the bench; and we also hope that they will be supported in such refusal by the Master and Wardens of the Society, as well as by the profession out of doors.”

Medical Times and Gazette, Feb. 27, 1867.

NOTE F, p. 56.

Since the first admission of women to the University of Zurich in 1867, five women have taken degrees there in Medicine, but none at present in any other Faculty. During the present year (1872) there are at Zurich no less than 51 women studying in the Medical Faculty, and 12 in that of Arts.

NOTE G, p. 62.

“Now at last the vexed question of mixed classes will be solved, and there can be no doubt in the minds of those who have ever been engaged in scientific study of the favourable result to be expected. It is curious to note in the history of the present movement how, one after another, old objections have vanished, and old arguments have become no longer available. It is pretty certain that this last, and perhaps greatest, stumbling-block to the minds of many will also disappear when it is seen with what beneficial results the system of mixed education is attended. And one great advantage to be expected is the benefit that will accrue from the higher reverence for science that must necessarily result from such a system. Once admit the impropriety of teaching men and women together, and you tax science with impurity; and while such a feeling is entertained (and it surely must be lurking in the minds of those who oppose mixed classes), the study of science, if not absolutely injurious, must be robbed of great part of its power to elevate the mind and heart.... Science has had to fight many a hard battle. For a long time it was asserted that science and religion were antagonistic to each other, but a Faraday has shown us how the two may go hand in hand, each helping and supporting the other. Last April we were told that the study of science was linked with impurity of thought, and we look upon the present action of the Lecturers of Surgeons’ Hall as a result of the indignant protest which every pure-minded man of science must have longed to utter against such a wholly false and calumnious statement. It is as the champions of science rather than of medical women that these gentlemen must be regarded. In any case science would have passed through this last attack, as she has ever done through all similar attacks, victorious and unscathed and unrestrained in her power to bless and help mankind; but the lecturers of our city have the no small honour of having publicly testified their unqualified conviction of the entire purity of all scientific knowledge and research.... Now that the Lecturers of Surgeons’ Hall have come forward as a body to affirm the same principle, we may indeed hail the beginning of the end, and may trust soon to see the day when the man who condemns the teaching of science to classes of both men and women will simply stand self-convicted as wanting alike in true scientific spirit and in genuine purity of mind.”

Daily Review, July 11, 1870.

“It seems that two ladies have this week applied for admission as students to St Thomas’s Hospital in London, and a medical contemporary makes this fact the excuse for a fresh onslaught on all women who may, for the sake of a thorough medical education, wish to enter the existing schools which at present possess a legal monopoly of that education. The editorial delicacy declares—‘that any women should be found who desire such fellowship in study is to us inexplicable.’ This ill-bred sneer directed against ladies as medical students is peculiarly ill-timed at a moment when the medical profession are loudly calling on women to come to their aid in the military hospitals of the Continent, teeming, as we know them to be, with horrors which certainly far surpass any that ladies are likely to encounter in their ordinary course of study, and which must inevitably be witnessed in company ‘with persons of the opposite sex.’ Certainly no reasons of delicacy at least can justify women’s co-operation in the one case, and yet demand their exclusion in the other.

“The truth is, that of course a certain conventional standard of propriety exists, which it is well and desirable to maintain under ordinary circumstances, as between persons of opposite sexes; and this rule forbids the casual discussion of most medical and some scientific subjects in chance audiences composed of ladies and gentlemen. But a higher law remains behind—Salus populi suprema Lex. If perishing humanity cries aloud for help, as during the present fearful struggle, we should think little of the pretended delicacy which could hinder either men or women from flocking to the rescue, and bid them pause, ‘in the name of modesty,’ to consider whether, under these circumstances, drawing-room proprieties would always be observed. So, too, when the question really at stake is whether all women are to be deprived of the medical services of their own sex, for fear some men’s ‘delicacy’ should be shocked by the idea of their studying in the ordinary class-rooms, it is time to protest that, true science being of necessity impersonal, is absolutely pure. We remember that, when an attack was made on Dr Alleyne Nicholson a month or two ago, for admitting women to his classes, he replied in a letter to one of the medical papers, that he laid ‘small stress on the purity or modesty of those who find themselves able to extract food for improper feelings from a purely scientific subject,’ and we confess that we are inclined to share his opinion, which we suspect will be that of all the noblest and most enlightened men of science.

“A great deal of nonsense has been talked with reference to ‘mixed classes,’ and as it is probable that the subject may come up again in a practical shape before long, it is as well to say a few plain words about the question at issue. First of all, let it be clearly established that medicine cannot be taught advantageously, nor indeed legally, in holes and corners to half-a-dozen or even a dozen students. In the very paper in which appeared the offensive paragraph to which we have alluded, we find a plea for the consolidation of the London Medical Schools into a smaller number, because ‘there are not students enough’ to support them all in perfection, and because two or three well-paid lecturers with abundant apparatus could teach to far greater advantage than twice or thrice that number under present circumstances. If this is true where there are at least several hundred students to be divided among the eleven existing schools, how palpably absurd it is to recommend our countrywomen to ‘have separate places of medical education and examination,’ when the whole number of ladies desiring to study medicine in England may perhaps number a score! Our own University professors tell us plainly that separate classes for half-a-dozen ladies are an impossibility, and the practical experience of Surgeons’ Hall, pointing in the same direction, evidently guided its lecturers in their recent vote. The broad fact, therefore, must be accepted, that either the door must be shut in the face of all women, and that at a moment when some of them are proving to a demonstration their remarkable fitness to enter it, or they must be allowed, as they long ago requested, to enter quietly and without remark, and take their places with other students, to learn the common lessons equally necessary for all.

“And, after all, what are the arguments on the other side? We are told oracularly that what is proposed is contra bonos mores, and are warned with equal solemnity of the imminent downfall of any school that dares to break loose from the bondage of Medical Trades-Unionism and afford to women exactly the same advantages as to other students. We do not wish to speak solely, or even chiefly, in the interests of women; we wish to look at the question broadly and with a view to the possible moral results to the public at large; and from this point of view we cannot but feel that the more general association of the sexes in earnest labour, and especially in scientific and medical study, may be of the greatest importance to the community. Though the traditions of the Bob Sawyer period are happily passing away, there yet seems to linger an idea that medical students as a rule adopt a lower moral standard and are of a more generally reckless character than those studying for other professions. If this is so, may not the explanation be found in the sort of half-expressed idea that seems prevalent in so many people’s minds that there is in medical study something which, if not actually improper and indelicate, certainly tends that way, and had better be ignored as much as possible—something at least which the average public would probably sum up as ‘rather nasty.’ We believe that it is on this popular idea—which every true physician would indignantly disclaim—that the opponents of women’s education trade when they try to enlist public feeling against mixed classes. They talk in a vague and very offensive way about certain studies which form a necessary part of medical education, and not being themselves capable of seeing the true dignity and profound purity of all science, especially when pursued with the aim of succouring pain and combating disease, they manage too often to impress the general public with the idea that by sanctioning the joint study of medicine by men and women the said public would commit itself to some shocking impropriety, all the more awful for being quite indefinite—omne ignotum pro magnifico. It is probable that this sort of vague terror is, in fact, the best weapon yet forged against women students, but, like many another terror, it is one that vanishes in the clear daylight. Let it once be broadly understood that science has no hidden horrors, that the study of God’s works can never be otherwise than healthful and beautiful to every student who brings to their contemplation a clear eye and a clean hand, and this weapon of darkness will be shivered for ever. We believe, indeed, that nothing could be more desirable for the average young medical student than to find himself associated in daily study with women whom he cannot but respect; nothing more calculated to give him an earnest sense alike of the dignity and of the purity of his vocation than to labour in it side by side with ladies whose character and whose motives are to him a daily reminder that he and they alike are set apart both as the votaries of science and the ministers of suffering humanity.”

Daily Review, October 11, 1870.

NOTE H, p. 78.

The following extracts will show the position and opportunities of study enjoyed by lady probationers and nurses at London hospitals. The first is taken from a letter written by a lady who was herself trained as a surgical nurse in a hospital. She writes:—

“In the ordinary course of the day’s work, I went round the wards with the visiting surgeons, and at the same time as the students, and, in fact, I should think, enjoyed exactly the same opportunities that people profess to be so much shocked at your desiring to obtain in Edinburgh. Part of my time was spent in study in the female and part in the male wards; and I never found either students or patients see anything at all exceptional in my presence in the latter, though I often had to perform services for the male patients which would never be expected of you as students. When any patients from my wards went into the theatre, for operation, I, as a matter of course, accompanied them, and was present during the operation, standing often quite near the surgeon, however many students might be there at the time. I was, therefore, constantly associated with the students in the hospital work, as were all the other ladies studying in the same capacity, and I never saw any difficulty in this arrangement, nor had any reason to suppose that the students did.”

Thinking that a lady’s evidence might be challenged on this matter, I wrote to one of the principal surgeons of the Middlesex Hospital for confirmation of her statement, and received the following reply:—

“Nurses and lady probationers are present in the wards, and attend the surgeons in their visits, and are present at operations. The students never, so far as I observed, took any notice of the question as to whether the female attendants in the wards were ladies or ordinary nurses—never, in short, troubled themselves about them.”

While on the subject, I will quote an extract from a letter received from Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, the first Englishwoman who ever received a medical degree. She says:—

“I walked St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the years 1850–51. I received permission to do so from the Governors, and was received by the medical faculty with a friendly courtesy for which I shall always be grateful. I always went round with the class of students during the physician’s visits. The medical class numbered about thirty students. I spent between five and six hours daily in recording and studying cases. During the visits, I never received anything but courtesy from the students. When studying in the wards, I received much kind assistance from the clinical clerks and dressers. While leaving the hospital the treasurer said to me—‘When we gave you permission to enter, we thought we were doing something so unusual that we were rather anxious about the result, but, really, everything has gone on so quietly, so exactly as usual, that we had almost forgotten you were here.’ ... My observation of mixed study is, that a small select number of women may join an ordinary school with little difficulty, and that there is even less trouble in arranging hospital visiting than class-room instruction.”

The last case that I will cite with reference to hospital instruction is that of Mrs Leggett, who is now attending as a regular student in Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin, and who writes:—

“I had the unanimous consent of the Board to pursue my medical studies in Steevens’ Hospital. As to the medical students, they are always civil. Dr Macnamara, President of the College of Physicians of Ireland, said it was his opinion that the presence of ladies would refine the classes.”

With reference to the attendance of this lady, Dr Hamilton, Medical Secretary of Steevens’ Hospital, writes—

“So far as we have gone, we find the education of mixed classes in one hospital to work very well.”

NOTE I, p. 93.

The following are a few only out of very many expressions of public indignation at this episode:—

“One of the most singular of University ‘scandals’ comes to us from decorous Edinburgh. True, it is the very antithesis of cases—such as are only too familiar on this side the Border—of debauchery at night, and a scene in court next morning, but it is not a whit the less discreditable. The transgressor, however, is not a college student, but a college professor. The case admits of, we might say demands, historic treatment. Some years ago, Dr Hope, then Professor of Chemistry in the University, gave a course of lectures to ladies—at that time quite an experiment—and was so much gratified, we are told, at their popularity, that he devoted the proceeds, amounting to about a thousand pounds, to found what have since been termed Hope Scholarships. We now get to a very modern period indeed. The Chemistry class during last winter numbered no less than 236 students, of whom six were ladies, who had been admitted to study in the medical classes, ‘in accordance with the decision of the University authorities at the beginning of the session.’ A few days ago the results of the examination were made known, when it appeared that one lady, Miss Mary Edith Pechey, was in the proud position of third in the list of honours, and another lady, Miss Sophia Jex-Blake, tenth. Miss Pechey’s success is the more gratifying, inasmuch as she is a fresh student, while the two gentlemen who stood above her on the list have attended a previous course of lectures. Dr Crum Brown, the Professor of Chemistry, in announcing the results, took upon himself to say that he should pass over Miss Pechey and award one of the Hope Scholarships to the next male on the list. This is directly in the teeth of the regulations made and provided for his guidance; according to which these scholarships are to be awarded to ‘the four students whose names stand highest in the chemistry class for the session.’ We understand that Professor Crum Brown justifies his action on the ignoble plea ‘that the women now studying in the University class do not form part of the University class, on account of their meeting at a different hour.’ Great indignation has very naturally been excited in Edinburgh by this incident, and the question has been referred to the Senate of the University, who, though a corporate body, will, we hope, act as honourable men.”

Manchester Examiner and Times, April 6, 1870.

“The inferior sex has always been a nuisance and a bore. A wise old Sultan of Turkey used to ask, whenever anything went wrong, ‘Who was she?’ One day while the Sultan was making an addition to his palace (as is the habit of Sultans), a labourer fell from the scaffold and was killed. ‘Who was she?’ said the Sultan at once. The inferior sex is always plaguing the superior sex in one way or another, and now it seems that the inferior sex are winning our scholarships over our most sacred heads. This is a matter which must be looked to. We will stand a great deal, but this is going a little too far; we must agitate; members must pledge themselves on the hustings to a bill providing that any one of the inferior sex who gains a scholarship must not have it at any price whatever, or we shall all be undone. We must have an Act for the repression of women; we are very sorry to say such terrible words, but the thing must be done: it had better be done at once while the nation is in a mood for repression. Particular cases thrust themselves prominently on the national mind, and cause legislation: the Coercion Bill for Ireland was thrust on to an unwilling Government by a very few of the later agrarian outrages: the last ounce breaks the camel’s back. If Miss Edith Pechey chooses to come in facile princeps at the head of the Chemistry Class of her year, we of the superior sex must really look to ourselves. We have the power of legislation still left in our hands, and we warn such ladies as Miss Edith Pechey and Miss Jex-Blake that we shall use it. We must have a bill for the protection of the superior sex.

“We feel sure that the ladies will forgive joking about a very absurd matter. Ladies should surely understand the power of ridicule. We think that the ‘reductio ad absurdum’ in this matter is the proper line of argument. The facts of the case seem to be simply these:—After protracted delays and much discussion, the University authorities last autumn vouchsafed to ladies the permission to enter the College as matriculated medical students, with the single restriction that their instruction should be conducted in separate classes. On referring to the minutes of the University Court, we find the following definition of the position to be taken by the new students:—‘All women attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations now, or at any future time, in force in the University as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, examination, or otherwise.’ We turn to the Calendar to see what are the ‘regulations in force in the University’ as to examination in chemistry, and we find at page 84 the following:—‘The class honours are determined by means of written examinations held during the session. The four students who have received the highest marks are entitled to have the Hope Scholarships to the laboratory of the University.’ The ladies accepted in good faith the regulations of the University, and, fired by a laudable ambition to prove themselves worthy of the privileges now accorded for the first time to women, worked with an assiduity that may be guessed when it is found that one of them, Miss Pechey, actually gained the highest number of marks awarded during the session to any student attending chemistry for the first time, though she was excelled (by one and two marks respectively) by two gentlemen who had gone through a previous course of lectures. But when the day arrived which was to reward all this work, the Professor announced, without, as it seemed to us, a shadow of justification, that the four scholarships would be given, not according to the University regulations to the four students ‘entitled to them,’ but to the three gentlemen who had won the first, second, and fourth places, and to the one who stood fifth on the list, this last having earned a most honourable place by his talents and industry, but not the Hope Scholarship, though now he has, of course, the right to claim free admission to the laboratory as it has been promised to him. This, then, is a University episode. Six students are admitted on the distinct understanding that, with one exception (dictated, as we think, by a whimsical propriety), they are to be ‘subject to the regulations of the University;’ no hint is given to them that this statement is analogous to the one which pithily describes women’s political condition in England—‘He means she when it’s a question of hanging; he doesn’t mean she when it’s a question of voting.’ The ladies are encouraged to exert their utmost power for work; when the rewards are to come, and it is found that one of them has earned one of the highest honours attainable by the class, she is calmly informed that that honour has been given to somebody else! A neater instance of generosity with other people’s property it has never been our lot to witness, and we don’t care how long it is before we repeat the experience.

“The only excuse that we can with the utmost stretch of charity imagine in this case would be that Dr Crum Brown thought some difficulty might arise respecting Miss Pechey’s use of the scholarship (which gives free admittance to the laboratory), under the restrictions now imposed on women by the University Court—for we will not suppose for a moment that the Professor could himself wish to impede the further progress of a student of such merit. But if such difficulty occurred it might be an excellent reason for relaxing those restrictions, when they are seen to deprive a student of the full reward of her past work, and at the same time to prevent her prosecuting further the study in which she has so distinguished herself; but we are quite at a loss to see how any legitimate argument can be drawn thence to justify Dr Brown in laying violent hands on a scholarship which has been fairly earned by one person for the purpose of presenting it to another. It is possible that A’s circumstances may prevent his deriving full benefit from some of his possessions, but the law would hardly consider this fact a valid reason for B’s ‘annexing’ the said possession for the benefit of C. If Dr Brown chooses to admit a fifth student to the laboratory he can of course do so, but unless we are greatly mistaken he will probably be informed by the Law Faculty (whom he might previously have consulted with advantage) that neither he nor any other person can alter the fact that Miss Pechey and no one else is third Hope Scholar.”

Daily Review, April 1, 1870.

“A very odd and very gross injustice appears to have been attempted in the University of Edinburgh. In that University the lady medical students are taught in a separate class,—not from any wish of their own, but through the delicacy of the professors. In the chemical class, Miss Edith Pechey gained the third place, and was first of the first year’s students, the two men who surpassed her having attended the class before. The four students who get the highest marks receive four Hope Scholarships,—scholarships founded by Dr Hope some years ago out of the proceeds of a very popular ladies’ class of chemistry, with the success of which he had been much gratified. Yet Miss Edith Pechey was held by the professor not to be entitled to the third scholarship, and omitting her name, he included two men whom she had beaten, and who stood fourth and fifth in the examination, his excuse being that the women are not part of the University class, because they are separately taught. Yet Dr Crum Brown awards Miss Pechey a bronze medal, to which only members of the University class are said to be entitled! It is quite clear that such a decision cannot stand. To make women attend a separate class, for which they have to pay, we believe, much higher fees than usual, and then argue that they are out of the pale of competition because they do so, is, indeed, too like the captious schoolmaster who first sent a boy into the corner and then whipped him for not being in his seat.”

Spectator, April 9, 1870.

“The letter Miss Pechey addressed to us the other day was written in an admirable spirit, and must insure her the hearty sympathy of all, whatever their opinions upon the points in question. She has done her sex a service, not only by vindicating their intellectual ability in an open competition with men, but still more by the temper and courtesy with which she meets her disappointments. Under any view of the main question, her case is a hard one, for it is clear both she and the other lady students were led to attend the classes under the misapprehension of the privileges to which they were admissable. If the University intended to exclude ladies from the pecuniary advantages usually attached to successful study, the intention should have been clearly announced. Miss Pechey, in the spirit of a true student, says she is abundantly repaid for her exertions by the knowledge she has acquired; but it is none the less hard that, having been encouraged to labour for a coveted reward, and having fairly won it, she should be disqualified by a restriction of which no warning had been given her.”

Times, April 25, 1870.

“There are probably few persons who did not learn with regret the decision of the Edinburgh Senatus in respect of the Hope Scholarships. It is not pleasant that such a story of, at least, seeming injustice should circulate through foreign universities, to the discredit of our own, for there cannot be much doubt as to the view that will be taken of the case by those nations—now forming the majority in Europe—who have admitted women to their medical colleges on terms of exact fairness and equality with their other students.... A medical contemporary argues that this affair proves how unwise it was to admit women to the University of Edinburgh—such admission being, as is asserted, the natural source of ‘constant squabbles.’ But most unprejudiced people, judging the case at first sight, would surely rather see here the evil of a partial, restricted, and permissive legislation. If women have a claim to medical education at all, they have exactly the same claim as men; if they are to be received as students at all, they must certainly be treated with even-handed justice, and not as social or rather academical pariahs, to whom the bare crumbs of instruction are vouchsafed as a grace and bounty; while all the honours and rewards are to be reserved to their male competitors. Looking at the thing for a moment, merely in the interests of the young men, and as a question of expediency, we cannot imagine anything much worse for their moral guidance than to find that women are indeed to compete with them, but so shackled that they can never win; or rather that, if they do win, the prizes will be snatched from their grasp and given to men whom they have beaten. We have heard that, in both classes where the ladies have this year studied, a very unusual access of zeal and energy has been noticed among the gentlemen in the other section of the class—a happy effect of such competition, which has often been observed in the mixed colleges of America, and which surely need not be neutralised here by the providence of the Senatus.”

Scotsman, April 15, 1870.

“The Senatus has, by a small majority, confirmed Professor Crum Brown’s decision with regard to Miss Pechey and the Hope Scholarship, on the grounds previously presumed by us. But these grounds, if so they may be called, are in our opinion insufficient to deprive Miss Pechey of the Scholarship. Whatever may be our views regarding the advisability of ladies studying medicine, the University of Edinburgh professed to open its gates to them on equal terms with the other students; and unless some better excuse be forthcoming in explanation of the decision of the Senatus, we cannot help thinking that the University has done no less an injustice to itself than to one of its most distinguished students.”

British Medical Journal, April 16, 1870.

NOTE J, p. 96.

For the credit of the profession, I append also the following indignant protest from the chief medical paper:—

“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.”

The following letter was also submitted at the next meeting:—

“15 Buccleuch Place, Nov. 13, 1870.

“My Lord and Gentlemen,—To prevent any possible misconception, I beg leave, in the name of my fellow-students and myself, to state distinctly that, while urgently requesting your honourable Board to issue to us the ordinary students’ tickets for the Infirmary (as they alone will ‘qualify’ for graduation), we have, in the event of their being granted, no intention whatever of attending in the wards of those physicians and surgeons who object to our presence there, both as a matter of courtesy, and because we shall be already provided with sufficient means of instruction in attending the wards of those gentlemen who have expressed their perfect willingness to receive us.—I beg, my Lord and Gentlemen, to subscribe myself your obedient servant, Sophia Jex-Blake.”

“To the Honourable the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.”

NOTE L, p. 102.

As ballads are said to be even more significant than laws of the popular feeling, I do not apologise for appending the following:—

THE CHARGE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED;

A Lay of Modern Athens.

(Suggested by a recent Students’ Song, containing the following verse:—