At a meeting convened November 15 at the University of Pennsylvania, to consider the subject of-clinical instruction to mixed classes the following remonstrance was unanimously adopted:
I. Clinical instruction in practical medicine demands an examination of all the organs and parts of the body, as far as practicable; hence, personal exposure becomes for this purpose often a matter of absolute necessity. It cannot be assumed, by any right-minded person, that male patients should be subjected to inspection before a class of females, although this inspection may, without impropriety, be submitted to before those of their own sex. A thorough investigation, as well as demonstration, in these cases—so necessary to render instruction complete and effective—is, by a mixed audience, precluded; while the clinical lecturer is restrained and embarrassed in his inquiries, and must therefore fall short in the conclusions which he may draw, and in the instruction which he communicates.
II. In many operations upon male patients exposure of the body is inevitable, and demonstrations must be made which are unfitted for the observation of students of the opposite sex. These expositions, when made under the eye of such a conjoined assemblage, are shocking to the sense of decency, and entail the risk of unmanning the surgeon—of distracting his mind, and endangering the life of his patient. Besides this, a large class of surgical diseases of the male is of so delicate a nature as altogether to forbid inspection by female students. Yet a complete understanding of this particular class of diseases is of preëminent importance to the community. Moreover, such affections can be thoroughly studied only in the clinics of the large cities, and the opportunity for studying them, so far from being curtailed, should be extended to the utmost possible degree. To those who are familiar with such cases as are here alluded to, it is inconceivable that females should ever be called to their treatment.
III. By the joint participation, on the part of male and female students, in the instruction and in the demonstrations which properly belong to the clinical lecture-room, the barrier of respect is broken down, and that high estimation of womanly qualities, which should always be sustained and cherished, and which has its origin in domestic and social associations, is lost, by an inevitable and positive demoralization of the individuals concerned, thereby entailing most serious detriment to the morals of society. In view of the above considerations, the undersigned[1] do earnestly and sol-
- ↑ University of Pennsylvania—Joseph Carson, Robert E. Rogers, Joseph Leidy, Henry H. Smith, Francis G. Smith, R. A. T. Penrose, Alfred Stille, George B. Wood, Samuel Jackson, Hugh L. Hodge, R. La Roche, George W. Norris. Jefferson Medical College—Joseph Pancoast, S. D. Gross, Samuel Henry Dickson, Ellerslie Wallace, B. Howard Rand, John B. Biddle, James Aitken Meigs. Pennsylvania Hospital—J. Forsyth Meigs, James H. Hutchinson, J. M. Da Costa, Addinell Hewson, William Hunt, D. Hayes Agnew. Philadelphia Hospital—R. J. Levis, William H. Pancoast, F. F. Maury, Alfred Stille, J. L. Ludlow, Edward Rhodes, D. D. Richardson, E. L. Duer, E. Scholfield, R. M. Girvin, John S. Parry, William Pepper, James Tyson. Medical Staff of Episcopal Hospital— John H. Packard, John Ashhurst, jr.,Samuel Ashhurst, Alfred M. Slocum, Edward A. Smith, William