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SPECULUM 35 it seemed to the medical faculty born <strong>of</strong> despair, nevertheless improved clinical teaching. The responsibility for clinical lectures reverted to the hospital; medical <strong>of</strong>ficers to in-patients were to be ex <strong>of</strong>ficio lecturers, and <strong>of</strong>ficers to out-patients ex <strong>of</strong>ficio tutors. This was not merely a return to the chaos <strong>of</strong> earlier years, for it was accompanied by a revision <strong>of</strong> the whole medical curriculum which defined, more clearly than ever before, the requirements <strong>of</strong> hospital practice and the conditions on which certificates <strong>of</strong> attendance at the hospital would be awarded. The financial terms suggested by the university, moreover, were acceptable to the medical staff. In June, 1888, E. M. James, physician to the hospital, delivered the inaugural lecture <strong>of</strong> a new clinical course which, it was hoped, would raise the value <strong>of</strong> a <strong>Melbourne</strong> degree. At the same time a clinical school was opened <strong>of</strong>ficially at the Alfred Hospital. Female medical students were allowed to enter the university for the first time in 1887, and because their presence at the <strong>Melbourne</strong> Hospital was not encouraged the young ladies attended the new school. Of the first seven students at the Alfred Hospital, six were women. But they found the teaching so poor that in the fourth year <strong>of</strong> their course most <strong>of</strong> the ladies transferred to the <strong>Melbourne</strong> Hospital. There were many doctors who wanted neither their pr<strong>of</strong>ession nor their womenfolk sullied by the admission <strong>of</strong> ladies into medical courses. In 1865, when the demand for female medical education was stirring in Europe and America, the Australian Medical Journal wrote: "A woman who dissects, who makes post mortem examinations, who tests urine, who perhaps carries diseased specimens in her dress pockets . . . is not a person in whom you would look for the tender domestic qualities." But the Journal had no fear that medical training for women would be taken up in any British community. Although female doctors might be imported occasionally, and goggled at like dancing dogs and bearded ladies, the editor was certain that they would never become a British institution. By 1890, however, ladies were not only admitted to the medical school, but had invaded the <strong>Melbourne</strong> Hospital, to disconcert the surgeon as he operated and to interfere with the view <strong>of</strong> the young men whose seats in the front row <strong>of</strong> the theatre they had stolen. The ladies were not to be intimidated by the frigidity and sarcasm <strong>of</strong> their contemporaries or by the hostility <strong>of</strong> their teachers. They were well equipped to deal with opposition, for the struggle to gain entry to the university in 1887 had welded them into an efficient fighting force. The committee <strong>of</strong> management might disapprove <strong>of</strong> them, but no rule <strong>of</strong> the hospital or the university excluded ladies so long as they paid their clinical fees. "Is there no indelicacy," one <strong>of</strong> them asked, "in male students attending special operations on women?" Although the university and the clinical school at the Hospital had been stormed by ladies, one last line for the defence <strong>of</strong> male rights remained. Female graduates could be denied appointment to the hospital as resident medical <strong>of</strong>ficers. It was customary for these positions to be awarded to the students who scored the highest marks in their final examinations, but several members <strong>of</strong> the committee <strong>of</strong> management, including a vice-president, John Grice, were quite ready to waive the custom in order to keep women out. When Margaret Whyte graduated with high honours in 1892 and announced that she would be a candidate for appointment to the hospital, Grice declared that her presence would be a barrier to that unconstrained consideration <strong>of</strong> medical subjects which did so much to complete the education <strong>of</strong> young graduates. Before her application could be discussed, however, Dr. Whyte accepted a resident position at the Women's Hospital, and a trial <strong>of</strong> strength was postponed. In 1894 Clara Stone applied for appointment to the <strong>Melbourne</strong> Hospital after getting second place on the final honours list in medicine. The committee <strong>of</strong> management was nimble enough to get rid <strong>of</strong> her without exposing themselves directly to a charge <strong>of</strong> sex prejudice. Because she was one <strong>of</strong> the few young ladies who had studied at the Alfred Hospital clinical school throughout her course, she was declared ineligible for a resident position at the <strong>Melbourne</strong> Hospital. But the men who ruled the hospital could not put <strong>of</strong>f much longer the day when they must yield to women or reveal themselves as enemies <strong>of</strong> female
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