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.