LONDON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5251, 22 January 1878, Page 3

LONDON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN.

On the occasion of the opening of the fourth winter session of the London School of Medicine for Women, 30, Henrietta-street, Bruns-wick-square, which is now allied with the Eoyal Free Hospital, an inaugural address was delivered by Mrs. Anderson, M.D., who {The Times states) after giving the students some excellent advice respecting the best and most methodical arrangement of their studies, proceeded to remark that this was the first time an inaugural address had been delivered to female medical students in Loudon. Anything she had to say in defence of admitting women to the medical profession would be very short, f or two reasons—first, because arguments were useless against a matter of feeling or prejudice; and, secondly, because, in her opinion, the real answer to objectors must be sought in experience and not in argument. Whether women could be trained into: firstrate doctors or not, and whether it was a solid advantage to society to have them so trained, were questions which could only be answered by experience on a somewhat largo scalo. A good many of the objections might possibly bo dismissed as imaginary. Women could certainly do as well as men as, students, while in examinations they were ,also quite equal physically to what was needed of them. But, on the other hand, some of the advantages sometimes claimed by the advocates of the change would not he found to exist. The argument that women would understand women’s ailments much bettor than men, was, in her judgment, misleading. Women would understand disease in proportion to their knowledge and intelligence, and not through any occult

or mysterious sympathy with its subject They would, however, understand better than men the conditions of life which underlay much chronic disease and disability among women She admitted that probably a good many medical women would marry and have children, and that that would undoubtedly restrict their work to a considerable extent. The distractions of domestic life would limit the amount of practice a woman could take, and would usually prevent her from combining with it other departments of professional work, such as writing and research. Society, however, was concerned only with the quality of medical work, and not with the quantity any one parson could undertake. Much of the experience gained as a wife and mother tended to make a medical woman of more use to her patients than she could have been without it. In conclusion, Mrs. Anderson begged her hearers to remember how ranch depended upon the judgment, moderation, and good taste of the earliest supporters of a new cause, and how necessary it was, especially in England, that they should carry the feeling of the community with them. She also urged the students not to forget that from that day forth they were not merely women who desired to help the best interests of all other women, but members of a noble profession, aud that they had the responsibility which was linked with comradeship towards every other medical person, man or woman. Thev ought to free themselves from petty jealousies, to ignore everything which was opposed to comradeship on the part of others, and to seek in all things to promote the highest aims of the profession and to add to its honor.