Daughters for Harvard

Resolved: That no woman of true delicacy would be willing in the presence of men to listen to the discussion of the subjects that necessarily come under the consideration of the student of medicine.

Resolved: That we are not opposed to allowing woman her rights, but do protest against her appearing in places where her presence is calculated to destroy our respect for the modesty and delicacy of her sex.

That was what Boston medical men thought about women medical students in 1850. The faculty of Harvard decided nevertheless to admit a woman, but in the face of the doctors' resolutions she withdrew her application.

Last week the faculty, with the approval of the Harvard Board of Overseers and the more arcane Harvard Corporation, renewed its invitation to women, added no frowning resolutions. In 1945, the medical school will break the traditions of 163 years.

Women Unwanted. The question of admitting women was first discussed at Harvard in 1847, when Elizabeth Blackwell, later the first U.S. woman doctor, was knocking at medical-school doors. (She never applied at Harvard, because Geneva Medical College took her.) The question arose again in 1872, when Dr. Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, a former associate of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily at their New York Infirmary for Women & Children, proposed that the Boston Female Medical School, where she had taught, merge with Harvard. On Harvard's refusal, her school joined Boston University School of Medicine.

U.S. prejudice against women in medicine is still evident. The percentage of women doctors in the U.S. is 5%, as against 17% in Britain. A Senate committee heard last week that 1) only 6% of the students at U.S. medical schools are women, compared with 21% in Britain and 85% in Russia, 2) there are only 75 women doctors in the U.S. armed services, 3) enrollment of women in medical schools (which had been expected to relieve the manpower shortage) is disappointing, partly because women students are not subsidized by the Government, as men currently are.

Women Wanted. Next year, unless girls fill the gaps, U.S. medical schools will suffer a 23% reduction in enrollment because of the curtailed medical programs of the Army & Navy.

But for those who still agree with Boston's 1850 medical men, there are still four all-male medical strongholds: Georgetown, St. Louis, Dartmouth, Jefferson.

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