Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1869-12-01
The War of the Students.

While there is and can be no justification
Tor the recent ungentlemanly and outrageous
conduct Of the male students in the Philadel-
phia Hospital toward their female associates,
it is nevertheless proper that the whole case
should be stated
For two or three years the Philadelphia
Womeu's Medical College has been in sue
eessful operation. The faculty consists of
educated competent female physicians, who
have passed through the regular courses of
study, and been in practice, and who instruct
the students under their charge after the
manner Of the other medical schools In
this hospital clinical demonstrations of spe-
cial diseases arc made by lady professors be-
fore lady pupils alone. To these the young
women in question had access, and could wit
ness there the actual treatment of such cases
as their future practice would chiefly cover.
Not content with this, however, they demand
ed and obtained admission to the clinical lee
lures at the Pennsylvania Hospital, where
patients of both sexes were treated for all
ailments by male professors before classes Of
male students. Thereupon many of the young
gentlemen absented themselves and of those
who remained some were brutal enough to
jecr and groan when operations were perform.
ed which they considered it immodest for the
young women to witness Several Of tn,
male patients refused to submit to treatment
while women were present As for the young
ladies themselves, they sat unmoved through
out and gave the closest attention to all tina
was going on.
This affair has caused considerable excite
ment and controversy in Philadelphia an,
New York. The faculty Of the Women
College publish a card in which they say the
have never encouraged their students to at
tend clinical lectures where any cases wer
to be treated which modest woman coul
not witness and at the same time they ca
attention to the fact that from time immemC
rial all sorts of operations have been pei
formed upon female patients" often sens
@ tive and shrinking albeit poor beroi
T. large classes Of male students.
Since the foregoing was written we lear
. that The faculties of the various colleges au
/ hospitals, aud the practicing physicians
y Philadelphia, have had a conference to tai
r over the question Of women pursuing medic
studies with men, owing to the late occurre
I ees there, and publish statement IN VIII,
1t they express the opinion that male and iema
is students should not minglo in the same class
a for clinical instruction. They say that Il
81 exposures often necessarily made in the i
struetion of those classes are such as shou
not be witnessed by women the cases a
L sometimes of such nature that they won
never be called to treat them aud that
rs the joint participation of male and fema
IN students in the lessons and demonstrations
le the clinical lecture ROOM the barrier of I
81 speet is broken down, and that high estin
nj ton Of womanly qualities, which should
,y ways be sustained and cherished, aud viii
d. has its origin in domestic and social associ
VI tons, is lost, by an inevitable ard positi,
81 81 Generalization Of the individuals concerne
n. thereby entaiing most serious detrimont
ID the morals of society. They therefore S,
It, emily protest against the admixture Of t
!. sexes at clinical instruction in medicine a
e surgery.