LADY DOCTORS.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 31, 3 February 1877, Page 3

LADY DOCTORS.

The " Medical Times " has the following — "The first fruits of Mr Russell Gurney's bill of last session, which afforded all licensing bodies the option of admitting women to their degrees, if they see fit, have been already reaped, and wo may look upon the woman doctors' controversy as finally settled by the recent decision of the College of Physicians of Dublin. The Fellows of that body have deliberately determined to admit Miss Edith Pechey to the examination for 1.K.Q.C.P.1., and have thus thrown open the portals of the profession to all comers, whether they be " persons " of the male or female sex. However pregnant of results this decision may be, it does not seem to us that any other conclusion was possible, and we expect to see a similar ingress allowed to the ladies by all other bodies. The Queen's University, it is anticipated, will be the next to follow suit, and these fortresses having surrendered at discretion, it is impossible that others can long sustain the siege. The only barrier now across the path of the lady doctors is the difficulty of producing the same hospital, lecture, and dissection certificates as are required from male students, but this they no doubt will readily surmount when the schools understand that their status is required by the colleges. We congratulate our fair consceurs on their success, for though we are ungallant enough to entertain doubts of their ultimate position as practitioners, we deprecate strongly the exercise of any exclusiveness towards them. They are certainly entitled to "a clear stage and no favour " both as students and as doctors, and if they have the energy or talent to shoulder aside male competitors, they are entitled to our best wishes."