366 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



But more, and in a yet more serious way, the 

 doctors have, I conceive, failed, not only as guar- 

 dians of the health of women, but as having (as 

 a body) opposed with determined and acrimo- 

 nious resistance an innovation which — if medical 

 science be good for anything — they could scarcely 

 doubt would have been of immense benefit to 

 them. 



No one is ignorant how often the most ago- 

 nizing diseases to which female nature is liable 

 follow from the neglect of early premonitory 

 symptoms, and how often, likewise, life-long inva- 

 lidism results from disregard of the ailments of 

 youth. It is almost equally notorious how often 

 these deplorable catastrophes are traceable di- 

 rectly to the poor victim's modest shrinking from 

 disclosing her troubles to a male adviser. When 

 such events are spoken of with bated breath 

 among friends, it is sometimes said that it was 

 the sufferer's own fault— that she ought not to 

 have felt any shyness about consulting a doctor 

 — and that it is proper for everybody to " look 

 on a doctor as an old woman." I confess I do 

 not understand precisely such playing fast and 

 loose with any genuine sentiment of modesty. 

 The members of the Royal College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons, and of the Society of Apotheca- 

 ries, are not " old women." They are not even 

 all old, nor all good men. A few months before 

 they begin to practise — while they are in the 

 " Bob Sawyer " stage — they are commonly sup- 

 posed to be among the least steady or well-con- 

 ducted of youths ; and where a number of them 

 congregate together — as in Edinburgh, for exam- 

 ple — they are apt to obtain an unenviable noto- 

 riety for " rowdyism." I have more than once 

 myself witnessed conduct on the part of these 

 lads at public meetings which every man on the 

 platform denounced as disgraceful. I could not 

 but reflect as I watched them : " And these youths 

 a year hence will be called to the bedsides of la- 

 dies to minister at hours of uttermost trial when 

 the extremest refinement of tact and delicacy must 

 scarcely make the presence of a man endurable ! 

 Nay, they now attend in crowds the clinical in- 

 structions in the female wards of the hospitals, 

 and are invited to inspect miseries of disease and 

 horrible operations on women, who, if of humbler 

 class, are often as sensitive and modest as the 

 noblest lady in the land ! " 



The feelings of Englishwomen on all matters 

 of delicacy are probably keener than those of 

 the women of any other Western country, and in 

 some particulars may possibly be now and then 

 overstrained. But who could wish them to be 



changed ? Who questions their almost infinite 

 value ? In every instance, except the one we are 

 discussing, they receive from Englishmen the re- 

 spect which they deserve. To propose deliberate- 

 ly to teach girls to set those sacred feelings aside 

 on one point, and that point the one where they 

 are necessarily touched immeasurably more close- 

 ly than anywhere else, is simply absurd. They 

 could not do it if they would, and they ought not 

 to do it if they could. A girl who would willing- 

 ly go to a man-doctor and consult him freely 

 about one of the many ills to which female flesh 

 is heir, would be an odious young woman. Vio- 

 lence must be done to her natural instincts, either 

 by the pressure of the mother's persuasion (who 

 has undergone the same peine forte et dure before 

 her), or else by unendurable anguish, before she 

 will have recourse to aid which she thinks worse 

 than disease, or even death. And so the time 

 when health and life might be saved is lost by 

 delay, and when the sacrifice is made at last, the 

 doctor observes compassionately, " If you had 

 come to me long ago I might have restored you to 

 health — or an operation could have been per- 

 formed which might have saved your life. Now, 

 I grieve to say, it is too late." 



That the admission of qualified women to 

 practise medicine is the proper and only effectual 

 remedy for this evil is of course obvious to all. 

 In opposing such admission relentlessly, as they 

 have generally done, medical men have incurred 

 a responsibility which to me seems nothing short 

 of tremendous. Whatever motive we may be 

 willing to assign to them above mere pitiful rival- 

 ry for practice and profit, it is scarcely possible to 

 suggest one which is not grossly injurious and 

 insulting to women, or which ought for a moment 

 to weigh in the balance against the cruel woes to 

 which I have referred, or the just claim of all 

 women to receive, if they prefer them, the minis- 

 trations of their own sex in their hours of suffer- 

 ing and weakness. 



Doctors are wont to speak — apparently with 

 profound feeling — of the sympathy they entertain 

 for their patients, and to express their readiness 

 (in a phrase which has passed into cant) " to 

 sacrifice a hecatomb of brutes to relieve the small- 

 est pain of a human being." May not women 

 justly challenge them to sacrifice something a 

 little nearer to themselves — their professional 

 pride, their trades-unionism, and a certain frac- 

 tion of their practice — to relieve their entire sex 

 of enormous pain, mental and physical ? 



I rejoice to believe that the long contest draws 

 to a close, and that, thanks to men like Mr. Stans- 



