An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday 10th January. The President was in the chair. The minutes were taken as read. The President then introduced the speaker, Professor James Drife, of the University of Leeds, who spoke to the title “Medical Women – then and now.”

Professor Drife first introduced us to Hildegard of Bingen, who wrote treatises on medical matters, and Trotula of Salerno, Salerno being the leading medical school of Europe at that time, who wrote the book The Trotula on women’s diseases. They both practised in the 12th century. This he said proved women could practice medicine 900 years ago.

He said Universities were under control of the church which was male dominated and reminded us that Paris, Oxford and Cambridge didn’t allow women until the 19th C.

He then introduced us to Mary Wollstonecraft –the world’s first feminist and described as a “hyena in petticoats”, who was most concerned by the tragedy of childbed fever. He also introduced us to Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Blackwell the first woman to be given a medical degree in the USA in 1849, James Miranda Barry, who pretended to be a man and became a celebrated doctor treating the poor, May Putnam Jacobi, Sophia Jex-Blake whose enrolment to Edinburgh university caused a riot and who founded the Royal Free Hospital, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson who was the first woman to join the BMA in 1873 and which organisation then voted not to have women members and who then went on to found the EGA hospital, and Elsie Ingles who founded the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital. They all had to fight the system to become qualified doctors. These pioneering women produced profound changes in the attitudes to women in medicine and advanced the way it was delivered to patients. He felt their contribution at least equalled the scientific discoveries of the same period.

There being no other business the meeting was closed at 10.30 pm.