The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-11-06 00:00:00

PLMALE PHYSICIANS.

A meeting of the General Council of the University
of Edinburgh was held on Friday in last week, the
Right Hon. John Inglis, Chancellor, presiding. The
first subject taken up was with reference to the
admission of ladies to medical study. '1 he Rev. Dr.
Phin, Galaehiels, moved,----" Teat Pie t3emelt! Council
thsapprorc of the resoretiens er the Unictrsit g Court to
admit fadits to Medical study in the University of
FdinGurgh." He objected to the proposal in the first
place because he believed there was no need for the
admission of ladies into the medical profession. He
did not believe in the stories which were so often told
about women losing their health because they conld not
make up their minds to consult medical men. Ile he-
lieved that the women who lost their health in the way
to winch he bed referred lost it because they would
not divulge their condition to their mothers, or their
sisters, or elder relatives or friends. Thinea were
going on well, and why should they not let well alone?
They had no women coming forward and saying that
they desired the services of female practltionete.
He was convinced that the demand for them did not
exist, and if there VFee no demand why should they
furnish tht supply? He also objected to the proposal
because there was great risk of practitioners of the
female sex appearing who would enter upon very im-
proper practices. That was a very delicate enbject ; but
the details wnich were given of it in the rniversity
Court, when the matter was pleaded there, were of the
most alarming, he would add even of the most hors
rible, description. Speaking of females generally, he
held them to be both physically and mentally
idled from acting as surgeons or even as physicians
in these fierye trying c ems which doctors must con-
stantly anticipate. If ladies were to be admitted Into
the medical profession he did not see thy they could
object to them becoming clergymen, barristers,
latlse, Or soldiers.
Dr. Andrew Wood, in seconding the motion, said
that the competition in the medical profession had
arrived at such a pitch that many medical men were
actually starving for want of employment; and were
they to improve that state 14 matters by bringing
ladies out of their proper sphere Mtn a sphere that
had hitherto been occupied by men? There was no flee
of being mealy-mouthed on the subject, and he must
say that he could not look with any degree of comfort
upon any lady whom he saw coming out of the dissects
hg-room. He did not think the ladies knew what they
were going to encounter. Were they going to attend
all the operations in the operating theatre? Were they
to sit for hours in the dissecting-room cutting tip
human bodies? These were not places for ladies.
The law was a cleanly profession, let them go to the
law; or if they did not like the law, let them go to
divinity.
Professor Mason moved as an amendment—" That
the General Council approve of the resolution oe' the
University Court respecting the admission or Momen to
the study of medicine in the University of kdinburgh."
He said that five women had come to Edinburgh, and
had taken the necessary steps forqualifying themselves
for studying medicine. They had passed the pre.
liminary examination, to which 152 candidates in all
had come forward. The results of the examination were
that not one of the five women were " plucked " and
four of them were among the very first in all or most of
the subjects. As to the objections to the admission of
ladies to medical study, there was a phrase which was
a summary of the whole, namely, " the sphere of
women." That phrase was not only a phrase which
was meaningless, but localise it was meaningless it was
most hurtlul and prejudicial. The sphere of women,
who could tell what it was? The sphere of men, who
could tell what it was? The sphere of man or woman
was the whole round of space, any position they
could fill honourably or usefully by their Mlllll or their
ability. The mode of argumentation ailoleteti on the
other side summed itself up in a rampagious niyisticistn,
dashed with drivel from Anacresai. He must say that
when he employed his fancy to the uttermost in realiz-
ing the most disagreeable details that belonged to the
medical profession, he could not see that women would
be called upon to do very much that women had not
been doing from the beginning of the world. He sup-
posed that from the begioning of the world women had
attended sick beds, and nursed, and laid out corpses.
He not only supposed, but he knew, that women whose
names wouldlbeimmortal—one woman, in particular,who
was thought of acid spoken of as the ministering angel
of our time, and other women who attended her— went
to the East during the Crimean War. There was no
talk then in this country about the disgusting nature
of the occupation they undertook. On the contrmy,
there was not a man worthy of the name of a man who
siid not have in his fancy all the disgust to its utmost
minutim, and who did not melt these down into lb..
purest gold of honour that he could put on the heads
of those women.
Professor Bennett, in seconding the amendment,
said that the effect of refusing to admit ladies would

legis-