WOMEN AND MEDICINE

Shannon News, 2 December 1927, Page 2

WOMEN AND MEDICINE

DOCTOR'S HIGH CALLING

Lady Barrett. Dean of the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women, in opening the winter session of tne school said that las; year there were 62 first-year stu-

dents; the figures of this year's entries were not complete but they hoped they would equal those of the previous year. At present there were 294 students in the school. The last 12 were finishing their course at St. Mary's, and in future all their students would be at the Royal Free Hospital. Mr Robert G. -Hozarth. senior surgeon, General Hospital, Nottingham, and ex-president of the British Medical Association, gave an address on "The Doctor's High Calling." There were some people, he said,, whose zeal'for the equality of the sexes disdained any recognition within the profession of the differences of sex. That might be, good logic, but we did not live, by logic alone, and he preferred ei.her the masculine or the feminine to the neuter gender. It

was no use pretending that men were

not men and that women were not women, and the more he thought about .it the more h e was appalled at viae wast e that. th-s world for so long had made of its women. ,

Sex equality had to be stressed

when sex equality was denied, but in the future the debate should rather lie as to what men could do best and what women could do best, apart from the larg e common field of endeavour which was open to both. It was the division of function, according to special capacity, which made, for good organisation and efficient service. The widening ranges 6f the special diseases of women and the special ailments of children seemed to belong naturally to women. But these divisions would not be settled by reason alone. The idiosyncrasies, the instincts, the jealousies of human nature was no less powerful arbiters/ Every woman was at heart a leech. It did not matter whether her knowledge Avas of simples and herbs, , or hot bottles and poultices, of patent medicines and soothing, comforting drinks, and of what Avas good to wear next to the skin; whatever the favourite nostrum of her sophisticated or unsophisticated devotion, she had the wish to serve, the desire to help, the readiness to give, and were enduring qualities which had made women loved, even by those learned fools who professed to doubt whether women had* l either brains or souls.

[ Those who Avere neAvcomers to those ' halls had made their crucial choice of a career, and he congratulated them on having chosen medicine. What WodsAvorth said of creative art was no less true to the art of healing: "High is our calling', Friend!" And not only high, but hard. They would find no soft options in the study of medicine. It A\ r as not e nough for the woman doctor to be distinguished in the streets by her spectacles, by her shoes, or by her attache case in which she carried her instruments. Apait from her professional skill, she should be knoAvn by her culture, her judgment and discernment, her greater detachment from the idols of the market place, and by (hat sure way of approaching- a question at issue which. ■vas the hall-mark of the trained and. balanced mind.