WOMEN MEDICAL STUDENTS 117 



In a letter giving good reasons for declining to accede 

 to this request, he expresses his sympathy with the 

 aspirations of women in the direction of medicine, but 

 adds : — 



" I as completely sympathize with those Professors of Anatomy, 

 Physiology, and Obstetrics, who object to teach such subjects to 

 mixed classes of young men and women brought together with- 

 out any further evidence of moral and mental fitness for such 

 association than the payment of their fees. In fact, with rare 

 exceptions, I have refused to admit women to my own lectures 

 on Comparative Anatomy for many years past. But I should not 

 hesitate to teach anything I know to a class composed of 

 women. . . " (Life, i, p. 387). 



It greatly redounds to the credit of Scotland that 

 Huxley was very early recognized and appreciated there. 

 Of the four honorary doctorates conferred on him by 

 British Universities, the order was — Edinburgh, 1866; 

 Dublin, 1878; Cambridge, 1879; Oxford, 1885. In 

 1872, the students of Aberdeen elected him Lord Rector 

 of their University. His address in that capacity was 

 delivered in 1874, ^^'^ '^'^^ ^^ dealt with later. 



The only scientific memoir that appeared in 1872 was 

 in completion of his monumental work on fossil fishes, 

 " British Fossils. Illustrations of the Structure of Cross- 

 opterygian Ganoids "(Mem. Geol. Survey, U.K., Decade 

 XIII, 1872 ; Sci. Mem., Supply. Vol., iii, p. 68). It 

 deals with Holophagus gulo. 



1873. 



In 1873 Huxley's health was fortunately pretty well 

 established, largely as a result of a summer holiday spent 

 in the Auvergne district. This included not only exer- 

 cise and change of scene, but also change of work in the 



