"A LADY DOCTOR."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11872, 25 January 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

"A LADY DOCTOR."

I-J THE WHY AND THE WHEREFOE OF. " THE DISPUTE AT MACCLESFIELD.- V >1 Women* physicians all over England liavei j been watching with keen interest the recent | ami curious happenings in Macclesfield] y : j Infirmary. A lady doctor —Miss Murdock —waa| one month ago installed at tho infirmary} as junior house-surgeon. The governors ofi the institution not only urged the young ' ■:! lady to accept the post, but made her pro« mis© to hold it for. at least twelve months. I With Miss Clark's installation the troubles :10, of; the infirmary authorities began, The. honorary medical, staff resigned in a body, | and gave two reasons for so doing. Thai; - physicians said first that the governors ofthe infirmary had been guilty of a breach of] v etiquette in appointing a woman to the postJ 'i[M knowing that the medical men did not de*. "£ J sire a feminine colleague. Secondly, theso '• / gentlemen stated in cmphatic terms: "Decency demands that a house-surgeon in at general, charity hospital be a man." . The governors were informed that thej| i doctors could not, and would not, to the patients in the Macclesfield Infirmary* ;•••/ so long as the lady remained junior house-!. surgeon. ' -V! -} • Miss Clark has refused to resign. Th&, governors have refused to dismiss her. Thai doctors have refused to visit the sick people, And thus the position stands at the presents'% moment. y This case presents some remarkable com-i • : plications, and should direct the attention! Ifl of all thinking people to several important'! . ' phases of the medical profession an an em* ployment for women, t RESULT OF HASTK. . In the meantime Macclesfield Infirmary, ' is suffering materially from the hasty action:': of tho physicians. They have ceased taj treat their own patients at the infirmary,*; and have caused so many cases to be with-* drawn that only about twenty-five sick peo-' .1 plo remain in the infirmary to be treated'. at all. A more serious complication is the; clamour which the young women who art* training in the ..infirmary as nurses arq raising over the loss of their lectures. The: doctors have refused to lecture. The train-i ing school, as well as the regular * threaten to depart if order is not soon re*! stored. They are consulting solicitors. J The governors have certainly done allj r ; they could. They have promised "never to! do it. again" it the doctors will. merely be.' amicable, and quietly await Miss Clark's departure. She has been released from herj year's contract, and one governor expresses; y the hope that she will now have the com-j mon-senso to leave without ' making anyj more trouble. "Miss Clark," the governor said, " is too* clever a woman to have created all this', disturbance if she hadn't been convinced') • that an 'aggrieved sisterhood' was ;behind _ her demanding that she fight out the battle; . as a test case for medical women. ! , The doctors declare that the governor^ : have been very stupid if they haven't known . how strongly all right-minded medical men disapprove of women .as resident housephysicians. They say emphatically that thaj • males of Macclesfield' who have been obliged yi to go to the infirmary have been in deathlyl ;; terror lest the young women should attend them. The doctors are of opinion that alt men object to being taken care of by a ladjl i doctor. ■

THE CHIEF QUESTION'S. . : " - x The two questions which this most conn plicated deadlock at Macclesfield have put tot the rront are the two which I had in mind,' ' . - when I remarked that the controversy, r , should direct the attention of all thinking! ?- / people to certain phases of woman's work} as a medical practitioner. , First, is the question of sex to be com ; v sidered in medicine? . . Second, are women, in seeking to served, both sexes, departing from their original' ' ■■■■■■■' purpose in entering the profession providing women physicians for women7 : ||M|^ If the Macclesfield doctors have resigned* at this late day, when women have been sou generally accepted in the profession, merely,' out of pique that a woman has proved her-' 1 self capable of holding the affections 08 . Macclesfield in the past, and may aeain (this - is accused), then the women of England have* a right to feel the indignation they have sot freely expressed. ;V: . *, If, on the other hand, the doctors have! ? resigned for the reason they offer— V' that they wish to arouse public sentimenti against women tending men in general* hospitals; to kill at the start any possibility of this becoming a commonly accepted stata of things, as it is in America— cause( r.j may be more just than it at first appears. The division among women doctors '• and* nurses on this point is as great as among ; 0 men. Mrs. Bedford Fenwick,' in "The. Nursing Record and Hospital Ward,'* strongly affirms that there is "no sex iaf medicine." j •'< Others, for instance, Dr. Arabella Ke ; • nealy, believe that women as doctors have* no place in a hospital where men are tended J y ' Dr. Kenealy said : —"If that is the reasons the physicians have resigned from the Mftc-*! clesfield Infirmary I think they are rights , I cannot understand a woman who seeks af ! position involving the serving of men any*, more than I can understand the women what think such an action is in keeping with tha| . | motives which, primarily led our sex into the practice of medicine." •