Dr. Elsie Inglis. Lady Frances Balfour

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СКАЧАТЬ his house are the chosen instruments of “our supreme Lord,” and anybody who does not approve of what he does had better clear out of Germany. As you say, Makomet and Luther and all the great epoch-makers had a great belief in themselves and their mission, but the German Emperor will have to give some further proof of his divine commission (beyond a supreme belief in himself) before I, for one, will give in my submission. I never read such a speech. I think it was perfectly blasphemous.

      ‘The Herald has an article about wild women. It evidently thinks St. Andrews has opened the flood-gates, and now there is the deluge. St. Andrews has done very well – degrees and mixed classes from next October. Don’t you think our Court might send a memorial to the University Court about medical degrees? It is splendid having Sir William Muir on our side, and I believe the bulk of the Senators are all right – they only want a little shove.’

      In Glasgow the women students had to encounter the opposition to ‘mixed classes,’ and the fight centred in the Infirmary. It would have been more honest to have promulgated the decision of the Managers before the women students had paid their fees for the full course of medical tuition.

      Elsie, in her letters, describes the toughly fought contest, and the final victory won by the help of the just and enlightened leaders in the medical world. ‘So here is another fight,’ writes the student, with a sigh of only a half regret! It was too good a fight, and the backers were too strong for the women students not to win their undoubted rights. Through all the chaffing and laughter, one perceives the thread of a resolute purpose, and Elsie’s great gift, the unconquerable facing of ‘the Hill Difficulty.’ True, the baffled and puzzled enemy often played into their hands, as when Dr. T., driven to extremity in a weak moment, threatened to prevent their attendance by ‘physical force.’ The threat armed the students with yet another legal grievance. Elsie describes on one occasion in her haste going into a ward where Dr. Gemmel, one of the ‘mixed’ objectors, was demonstrating. She perceived her mistake, and retreated, not before receiving a smile from her enemy. The now Sir William MacEwan enjoyed the fight quite as much as his women students; and if to-day he notes the achievements of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, he may count as his own some of their success in the profession in which he has achieved so worthy a name. The dispute went on until at length an exhausted foe laid down its weapons, and the redoubtable Dr. T. conveyed the intimation that the women students might go to any of the classes – and a benison on them!

      The faction fight, like many another in the brave days of old, roared and clattered down the paved causeways of Glasgow. Dr. T., in his gate-house, must have wished his petticoat foes many times away and above the pass. If he, or any of the obstructionists of that day survive, we know that they belong to a sect that needs no repentance. They may, however, note with self-complacency that their action trained on a generation skilled in the contest of fighting for democratic rights in the realm of knowledge. It is a birthright to enter into that gateway, and the keys are given to all who possess the understanding mind and reverent attitude towards all truth.

‘Nov. 1891.

      ‘Those old wretches, the Infirmary Managers, have reared their heads again, and now have decided that we are not to go to mixed classes, and we have been tearing all over the wards seeing all sorts of people about it. I went to Dr. K.’s this morning – all right. Crossing the quadrangle, a porter rushed at me and said, “Dr. T. wants to see all the lady students at the gate-house.” I remarked to Miss M., “I am certainly not going to trot after Dr. T. for casual messages like that. He can put up a notice if he wants me.” We were going upstairs to Dr. R. when another porter ran up and said, “Dr. T. is in his office. He would be much obliged if you would speak to him.” So we laughed, and said that was more polite anyhow, and went into the office. So he hummed and hawed, looked everywhere except at us, and then said the Infirmary Managers said we were not to go to mixed classes. So I promptly said, “Then I shall come for my fees to-morrow,” and walked out of the room. I was angry. I went straight back to Dr. K., who said he was awfuly sorry and angry, and he would see Dr. T., but he was afraid he could do nothing.

      ‘So here is another fight. But you see we cannot be beat here, for the same reason that we cannot beat them in Edinburgh. Were the managers, managers a hundred times over, they cannot turn Mr. MacEwan off.

      ‘The Glasgow Herald had an article the other day, saying there was a radical change in the country, and that no one was taking any notice of it, and no one knew where it was to land us. This was the draft ordinance of the Commissioners which actually put the education of women on the same footing as that of men, and, worse still, seemed to countenance mixed classes. The G. H. seems to think this is the beginning of the end, and will necessarily lead to woman’s suffrage, and it will probably land them in the pulpit; because if they are ordinary University students they may compete for any of the bursaries, and many bursaries can only be held on condition that the holder means to enter the Church! You never read such an article, and it was not the least a joke but sober earnest.

      ‘I saw Dr. P. about my surgery. The chief reason I tried to get that prize was to pay for those things and not worry you about them. I want to pass awfully well, as it tells all one’s life through, and I mean to be very successful!

      ‘Dr. B. has the most absurd way of agreeing with everything you say. He asked me what I would do with a finger. I thought it was past all mending and said, “Amputate it.” “Quite so, quite so,” he said solemnly, “but we’ll dress it to-day with such and such a thing.” There were two or three other cases in which I recommended desperate measures, in which he agreed, but did not follow. Finally, he asked Mr. B. what he would do with a swelling. Mr. B. hesitated. I said, “Open it.” Whereupon he went off into fits of laughter, and proclaimed to the whole room my prescriptions, and said I would make a first-rate surgeon for I was afraid of nothing.

      ‘It is one thing to recommend treatment to another person and another to do it yourself.

      ‘Queen Margaret is to be taken into the University, not affiliated, but made an integral part of the University and the lecturers appointed again by the Senators. That means that the Glasgow degrees in everything are to be given from October, Arts, Medicine, Science, and Theology. The “decrees of the primordial protoplasm,” that Sir James Crichton-Browne knows all about, are being reversed right and left, and not only by the Senatus Academicus of St. Andrews!’

      The remaining letters are filled with all the hopes and fears of the examined. Mr. MacEwan tells her she will pass ‘with one hand,’ and Elsie has the usual moan over a defective memory, and the certainties that she will be asked all the questions to which she has no answering key. The evidences of hard and conscientious study abound, and, after she had counted the days and rejoined her father, she found she had passed through the heavy ordeal with great success, and, having thus qualified, could pass on to yet unconquered realms of experience and service.

      CHAPTER V

      LONDON

      THE NEW HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN

      DUBLIN

      THE ROTUNDA

      1892–1894

‘We take up the task eternal and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers, O Pioneers.’ – Walt Whitman

      After completing her clinical work in Glasgow, and passing the examination for the Triple Qualification in 1892, it was decided that Elsie should go to London and work as house-surgeon in the new Hospital for Women in the Euston Road. In 1916 that hospital kept its jubilee year, and when Elsie went to work there it had been established for nearly thirty years. Its story contains the record of the leading names among women doctors. In the commemorative prayer of Bishop Paget, an especial thanksgiving was made ‘for the good example of those now at rest, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Sophia Jex Blake, of good work done by women doctors throughout the whole world, and now especially of the high trust and great responsibility committed СКАЧАТЬ