The men begin to stand up, reaching for their cloaks and gathering their cases and papers and all talking at full volume. I feel Higgins behind me, closing in to make good on that yet. He actually gets his bony little fingers around my arm this time, but I shake him off before he can get a good grip. I take a few steps forward and say as loudly as I can without shouting, “You haven’t heard my case.”
The chairman tosses his cloak over his shoulders and gives me a smile that he likely thinks is kind, but is, in fact, the smirk of a man about to explain something to a woman that she already knows. “There’s nothing more to hear. Your case is contained within that single statement. You are a woman, Miss Montague, and women are not permitted to study at the hospital. It’s our policy.”
I take another step toward the bench. “That policy is antiquated and foolish, sir.”
“Antiquated is quite a large word, madam,” he says.
So is patronizing, I think, but bite my tongue.
Most of the board is listening again now. I have a sense that, more than anything, they’re hoping to have a good story to share at the pub, but I’ll take any attention I’m offered.
“Have you previously studied medicine at a hospital or academic institution?” the chairman asks.
“No, sir.”
“Have you had any kind of formal schooling?”
He’s baiting the water again, and the best I can do is sidestep. “I was educated at home. And I’ve read quite a lot of books.”
“That isn’t healthy for you,” one of the other men interrupts. “Reading in excess causes the female brain to shrink.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I burst out, my temper snatching the reins. “You can’t actually believe that.”
The man leans backward, as though I’ve frightened him, but another leans in to add, “If you’ve read so many books, why do you need a hospital education?”
“Because a hospital education is required in order to obtain licensure and establish a practice,” I say. “And because reading Alexander Platt’s treaties on human bones is not adequate preparation for setting a broken leg when the wound is bloody and the bone has splintered under the skin and already starting to fester with gangrene.”
I had hoped Dr. Platt’s name would conjure something closer to adoration among the men, but instead, a low murmur ripples through them. A man on the end with a pointed chin and tufts of coarse blond hair sticking out from under his wig raises his eyebrows.
“Then let a man set that bone and let the woman see the injured has a good meal and a bed,” the chops man murmurs, loud enough for everyone to hear. There’s a smattering of laughter from these men with clean fingernails who hardly know the color of blood.
The chairman flicks his gaze in their direction but does nothing to silence them. “Miss Montague,” he says, his eyes returning to mine, “I have no doubt that you are very bright for a young lady. But even if we were to consider admitting a female to our student ranks, the cost of necessary arrangements for her—”
“What arrangements, sir?” I demand.
“Well, to begin, she would be unable to attend anatomy dissections.”
“Why? Do you think my nerves so weak and fragile that I could not handle the sight? The women on the streets of London witness more death and dying in a single day than you likely have in your lifetime.”
“I have yet to meet a woman with a stomach for the sort of dissections we undertake,” he says, “not to mention the nakedness of the male form, which would be inappropriate for you to see outside the bonds of marriage.”
He glances over my shoulder at Monty, who raises his hand and says, “Brother,” as though that’s the most important matter to set straight here.
I resist throwing something over my head and hoping it catches him in the nose, and instead remain focused on the chairman. “I can assure you, sir, I would not become hysterical.”
“You seem hysterical now.”
“I’m not,” I say, annoyed that my voice pitches on the second word. “I’m speaking passionately.”
“Not to mention the concessions that would have to be made so the male students would not be distracted by the presence of a woman,” one of the other men adds, and the rest of the board nods in support of what an excellent, nonsense point he has made.
It takes every ounce of strength in me not to roll my eyes. “Well then, you might consider covering up table legs lest the mere reminder of the existence of the female form send your students into an erotic frenzy.”
“Madam—” the chairman begins, and I can feel Higgins right over my shoulder again, but I press on, using my argument as a plow this time.
“Women make up more than half the population of this city, this country, and the world. Their intelligence and ideas are an untapped resource, particularly in a field that claims such a commitment to progress. There is no proof women are unequipped to study medicine—quite the contrary, women have been practicing medicine for hundreds of years and have only been excluded in recent history as surgery became regulated by institutions run by men. Institutions that are now so bogged down in bureaucracy that they have ceased to serve even their most basic functions for those in need.” I hadn’t planned to say that, but the stink of the hospital wards is still in the back of my throat. The chairman’s eyebrows have risen so high they’re about to disappear under his wig, but I press on. “You make money off the poor and the sick. You charge them to take up space in your hospital wards. You make them work to earn their keep so less salaried staff is required. You charge absurd amounts for treatments you know don’t work so that you can fund research you refuse to share with those who need it.”
It is perhaps not the wisest thing to insult the institution in which I’m standing, but I’ve so much rage bottled up inside me about so many things, and it’s all pouring from me in a spurt, like shaken champagne violently uncorked.
“In addition,” I say, “there are elements of feminine health that male physicians are not equipped to address and have made no attempt to understand or improve treatments for. Would you deny your mothers and sisters and daughters the most effective medical care?”
“There are no treatments women are denied because of their sex,” the chairman interrupts. “We treat female patients here, the same as we treat men.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a lack of any research to provide relief from the debilitating pain that regularly restricts the most basic tasks of daily life for women.”
“I don’t know what you’re referencing, madam,” the chairman says, his voice raised over mine.
“I’m talking about menstruation, sir!” I shout in return.
It’s like I set the hall on fire, manifested a venomous snake from thin air, also set that snake on fire, and then threw it at the board. The men all erupt into protestations and a fair number of horrified gasps. I swear one of them actually swoons at the mention of womanly bleeding. Higgins snatches his hand back from my shoulder.
The chairman has gone bright red. He slams a book against the desk, trying to cram a lid over the Pandora’s box I have flung open. “Miss Montague, we’ll hear no more protestations from you. Based on your insubstantial and, frankly, hysterical case made before us today, I could not in good conscience allow you to enroll as a student here. You can see yourself out, or I’ll have Higgins escort you.”