Page:The Medical School of the Melbourne University - an address delivered on the twenty fifth anniversary of the opening of the Medical School, in the Wilson Hall, March 23, 1887 (IA b22293346).pdf/15

15 classes of this school. Six applications from young women have been made to be so admitted, and the Council have resolved that the applications shall be allowed. I do not propose, therefore, at this moment to discuss, at any length, the principle of women engaging in medical practice. It has for many years been a debatable question, and it is by no means settled yet, for all that some women in Europe and America have graduated in Medicine, and are understood to be engaged in the successful practice of it. On the expediency of women studying Medicine, there are, as I need hardly say, very diverse opinions, and these opinions have, from time to time, been expressed with much unnecessary warmth on both sides. Nobody in these days of social change will deny the perfect right of a young woman to study anything she pleases, but when we are told by the strong advocates of this right, that medical women are an absolute necessity, I take leave to enter my dissent from such an assumption. It is contended that a certain class of diseases to which women are liable, can be properly dealt with only by women, and that women so suffering will prefer to suffer rather than consult a medical man. Against this assertion I offer the replies I have received to questions I have put to women, as to their preference of their own sex or otherwise, and they have all told me that they have more confidence in a medical man than a medical woman. I am aware of the possible objection to this statement, that my own experience may represent only a small proportion of the general preference. I give it, however, for what it is worth, but with a strong belief, nevertheless, that it samples the average feminine opinion on the subject. It is not, however, to this part of the question that I am now addressing myself. I will assume it as proved, that there exists a necessity for medical women, and that, therefore, the demand necessitates a supply. It has then to be considered in what way the education of medical women is to be conducted, and, at once, I insist that, if we are to regard women as equal in intelligence and intellectual capacity to men—and I for one do so regard them—then there is no escape from the necessity of their going through exactly the same educational process as men do. Any attempt to admit women to the medical profession by the side-door of less exacting conditions, could result only in procuring for them a