Objections to the proposed statute for admitting women to the examinations for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine.

  • Case, Thomas, 1844-1925.
Date:
[1890]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Objections to the proposed statute for admitting women to the examinations for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    a Classical Examination in Responsions, further takes care to give those selected men a fairly- general education, and to bring them under the moral influence of Alma Mater by a residence of 12 terms (cf. Statt. Tit. vi. Sect. i. § i), in order that they may graduate in Arts, before they proceed to the special and profoundly responsible dep-ree in Medicine. The very first words of the Statute of the Times and Exercises required for Degrees in Medicine are inapplicable to a woman, because she is inad- missible to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. What, then, has she to do with an Examination the whole aim of which is to raise a selected and developed man from one degree to another degree ? Being in- admissible to either degree, she would escape the safeguards which control the ascent of a man from the Deofree of Bachelor of Arts to the Degfree of Bachelor of Medicine. She needs no Latin and Greek, she need not reside, she need not pass both a First and a Second Public Examination. Consequently, there is nothing in the proposed Statute to prevent a strange woman, coming from the Collegiate Alumnae of the United States to Oxford, escaping Responsions, evading all residence except a few days to pass the preliminary examinations (which will be found in the Examination Statutes, p. 148 and note, ed. 1889), ^^^^ then, at once and without delay, proceeding to the examinations for the Degree of Bachelor of Medicine. Is a man so inferior to a woman, that he requires 3 years, and she no residence at all, to become qualified for the special study of Medicine ? If Congregation should pass this Statute, it will commit the University to