Dr. Elsie Inglis

Elsie Inglis took up her work with keen energy and a happy power of combining work with varied interests. In the active months of her residence she resolutely ‘tramped’ London, attended most of the outstanding churches, and was a great sermon taster of ministers ranging from Boyd Carpenter to Father Maturin. Innumerable relatives and friends tempted her to lawn tennis and the theatres. She had a keen eye to all the humours of the staff, and formed her own opinions on patients and doctors with her usual independence of judgment.

Elsie’s letters to her father were detailed and written daily. Only a very small selection can be quoted, but every one of them is instinct with a buoyant outlook, and they are full of the joy of service.

It is interesting to read in these letters her descriptions of the work of Dr. Garrett Anderson, and then to read Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson’s speech on her mother at the jubilee of the hospital. ‘I shall never forget her at Victoria Station on the day when the Women’s Hospital Corps was leaving England for France, early in September 1914. She was quite an old woman, her life’s work done, but the light of battle was in her eyes, and she said, “Had I been twenty years younger I would have been taking you myself.” Just twenty-one years before the war broke down the last of the barriers against women’s work as doctors, Elsie Inglis entered the New Hospital for Women, to learn with that staff of women doctors who had achieved so much under conditions so full of difficulties and discouragements.

‘New Hospital for Women,‘Euston Rd., 1892–3.

‘My own dearest Papa, – Here we begin another long series of letters. The people in the carriage were very quiet, so I slept all right. Of course they shut up all the windows, so I opened all the ventilators, and I also opened the window two or three times. I had breakfast at once, and then a bath, and then came in for a big operation by Mrs. Boyd. Her husband came up to help her. Mrs. Scharlieb and Mrs. de la Cherois were up too – both of them visiting doctors. I have been all round the wards and got a sort of idea of the cases in my head, but I shall have to get them all up properly. The visiting physicians seem to call all over the day, from nine o’clock in the morning till three in the afternoon. Some of the students from the School of Medicine are dressers and clerks. I believe I have to drill them, but of course they are only very senior students, because their real hospital is the Royal Free. There are four wards, two of them round, with two fireplaces back to back in the middle. The other two wards are oblong, and they are all prettily painted, and bright. Then there are two small wards for serious cases. I have not arranged my room yet, as I have not had a minute. I am going out to post this and get a stethescope. Mrs. de la Cherois has been here; she is a nice old lady, and awfully particular. I would much rather work with people like that than people who are anyhow. Mrs. Scharlieb is about forty, very dark and solemn. The nurses seem nice, but they don’t have any special uniform, which I think is a pity; so they are pinks and greys and blues, and twenty different patterns of caps. I think I shall like being here very much. I only hope I shall get on with all my mistresses! And, I hope I shall always remember what to do.

‘The last big operation case died. It was very sad, and very provoking, for she really was doing well, but she had not vitality enough to stand the shock. That was the case whose doctor told her and her husband that she was suffering from hysteria. And that man, you know, can be a fellow of the colleges, and member of any society he likes to apply to, while Mrs. G. Anderson and Mrs. Scharlieb cannot! Is it not ridiculous?

‘Mrs. G. Anderson said she was going to speak to Mrs. M‘Call about my having one of her maternity posts. I shall come home first, however, my own dearest Papa. Mrs. G. A. said she thought I should have a good deal more of that kind of work if I was going to set up in a lonely place like Edinburgh, as I ought never to have to call in a man to help me out of a hole!

‘Mrs. G. Anderson is going to take me to a Cinderella dance to-night in aid of the hospital. I am to meet her at St. James’ Hall. We had an awful morning of it. Mrs. G. A. is taking Mrs. M.’s ward, and turned up 9.30, Mrs. S.’s hour. Then Miss C. came in on the top to consult about two of her cases. Into the bargain, A. slept late, and did not arrive till near ten, so, by the time they had all left, I had a lovely medley of treatment in my head. My fan has arrived, and will come in for to-night. I hope Mrs. G. Anderson will be a nice chaperone and introduce one properly. I am to go early, and her son is to look out for me, and begin the introducing till she comes. Miss Garrett has been to-day painting the hall for the Chicago Exhibition. She is going to the dance to-night. She says Mrs. Fawcett got some more money out of the English Commissioners in a lovely way. These Commissioners have spent £17,000 in building themselves a kiosk in the ground, and they allowed Mrs. Fawcett £500 to represent women’s work in England. Every one is furious about it. Well, Mrs. Fawcett has managed to get an extra £500. She wrote, and said that if she did not get any more she could not mount all the photographs and drawings, but would put up a notice that “the English Commission was too poor to allow for mounting and framing.” This, with the kiosk in the ground!

‘One of the patients here was once upon a time a servant at the Baroness Burdett Coutts’. She certainly was most awfully kind to her, sent her £10 to pay her rent, and has now paid to send her to the Cottage. Miss B. is in hopes she may get her interested in the hospital now, but it seems she does not approve of women doctors and such things. Perhaps, as the old housemaid did so well here, she may change her mind. The Report is out now. I shall send them to some of the doctors in Edinburgh. I see in it that Mr. Robertson left £1000 in memory of his wife to the hospital, and that is how that bed comes to be called the “Caroline Croom Robertson bed.”

‘We had two big operations to-day. We had the usual round in the morning, and then we had to prepare. I did one lovely thing! This morning, I pointed out to Mrs. Scharlieb with indignation that our galvanic battery had run out. I said that it really was disgraceful of C., for it had only been used once for a quarter of an hour since the last time he had charged it. Mrs. S. agreed, and said she would go in and speak to him and tell him to send her battery, which was with him being charged. We wanted a battery for the galvanic cautery. Well, Mrs. Scharlieb’s battery arrived. I tried it, and found it would not heat the cautery properly. So I was very angry, and I sat down and wrote C. a peppery letter. I told him to send some competent person at once to look at the battery, and to be prepared to lend us one, if this competent person saw it was necessary. M. flew off, and in twenty minutes a man from C. arrived, very humble. I turned on the batteries, and showed him that they would not heat up properly. Sister said I talked to him like a mother. He departed very humbly to bring another battery. In about half an hour Sister whistled up, C.’s man would like to see me. Down I went. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “You had not taken the resistance off, Miss,” and held one of the cautery red-hot attached to our own battery. Was not I sold! I had humbly to apologise. And the amount of nervous energy I had wasted on that battery!

‘We began to-day with a big operation. It went perfectly splendidly. The chloroform was given by a Dr. B., some special friend of the patient, so, I hoped there would be no hitch, and there was none. He had the cheek afterwards to say to Dr. S., that no one could have done it better! Mrs. S. seemed rather pleased, but I thought it awfully patronising, was it not?

‘Did I tell you that Mrs. S. and Miss Walker were talking the other morning of the time when they would make this a qualifying hospital? Miss C. said it would certainly come some day, and of course, to make it a qualifying hospital, they must have men’s beds, and that will mean a mixed staff. However, all that is in the future. Then, we will show the old-fashioned hospitals, with their retrograde managers, etc., how a mixed staff can work. I wonder if they will have mixed classes too!

‘I enjoyed King Lear very much. The scenery was magnificent. King Lear was not a bit kingly, but just a weak, old man. I suppose that was what he was meant to be. Ellen Terry was splendid. The storm on the heath awful. I shivered in my seat when the wind whistled. The last scene – the French camp on the cliffs on Dover – was really beautiful.

‘Yesterday, I did a lovely thing – slept like a top till almost nine. I suppose I was tired after the exciting cases. Janet burst into my room with “Mrs. S. will be here in a very few minutes, Miss.” So, out I tumbled, and tore downstairs to meet Mrs. S. in the hall! I tried to look as if I had had breakfast hours before, and I don’t think she suspected that was my first appearance. She did her visit, and then I went to breakfast. As luck would have it, Mrs. G. Anderson chose that morning of all others to show a friend of hers round the hospital. She marched calmly into the board-room to find me grubbing. I saw the only thing to do was to be quite cool, so I got up and shook hands, and remarked, “I am rather late this morning,” and she only laughed. It was about 10.30, a nice time for an H.S. to be having breakfast.

‘I did not go to hear Father Maturin after all yesterday. I have been very busy; we have had another big operation, doing all right so far. She is an artist’s wife; she has had an unhappy time for four years, because she has been very ill, and their doctor said it was hysteria, and told her husband not to give in to the nonsense. Really, some of these general practitioners are grand. They send some of the patients in with the most outrageous diagnoses you can imagine. One woman was told her life was not worth a year’s purchase, and she must have a big operation. So she came in. We pummelled her all over, and could not find the grounds of his diagnosis, and finally treated for something quite different, and she went out well in six weeks. Her doctor came to see her, and said, “Well, madam, I could not have believed it.” It is better they should err in that direction than in the direction of calling real illness “hysteria.”

‘I mean to have a hospital of my own in Edinburgh some day.

‘A patient with a well-balanced nervous system will get well in just half the time that one of these hysterical women will. There is one plucky little woman in just now. She has had a bad operation, but nothing has ever disturbed her equilibrium. She smiles away in the pluckiest way, and gets well more quickly than anybody. I agree with Kingsley: one of the necessities of the world is to teach girls to be brave, and not whine over everything, and the first step for that is to teach them to play games!

‘Fancy who has been here this evening – Bailie Walcot. He has come up to London on Parliamentary business. He investigated every hole and corner of the hospital. He says our girls are going to Dr. Littlejohn’s class with Jex’s girls at Surgery Hall. It is wonderful how these men who would do nothing at first are beginning to see it pays to be neutral now.

‘We have a lot to be grateful to J. B. for; Bailie W. told me the Leith managers have approached the Edinburgh managers, saying, “If you will undertake no more women students, we will undertake to take both schools, and to build immediately.” Bailie Walcot said he and Mr. Scott of St. George’s were the only two who opposed this. If they send us down to Leith we must make the best of it, and really try to make it a good school, but it will be a great pity.

‘The dance was awfully nice. Mrs. G. Anderson is a capital chaperone. I managed to go off without my ticket, and the damsel at the door was very severe, and said I must wait till Mrs. Garrett Anderson came. I waited quietly a minute or two, and was just going to ask her to send in to see if Mrs. Anderson had come, then a man marched in, and said in a lovely manner, “I have forgotten my ticket,” and she merely said, “You must give me your name, sir,” and let him pass. After that I gave my name and passed too! I found I might have waited till doomsday, for Mrs. G. A. was inside. I danced every dance; it was a lovely floor and lovely music, and you may make up your mind, papa dear, that I go to all the balls in Edinburgh after this. They had two odd dances called Barn-door. I thought it would be a kind of Sir Roger, but it was the oddest kind of hop, skip and dance I ever saw. I said to Mrs. G. A. it was something like a Schottische, only not a quarter so pretty. She said it was pretty when nicely danced, but people have not learnt it yet. I rashly said to Mrs. G. A. that I could get some tea from the night nurse when I got home (because I wanted to dance the extras), but she was horrified at tea just before going to sleep, and swept me into the refreshment-room and made me drink soup by the gallon. I came home with Miss Garrett. We had an operation this morning, so you see dances don’t interfere with the serious business of life.

‘Mrs. Scharlieb came in here the other day, and declared I was qualifying for acute bronchitis; but I told her nobody could have acute bronchitis who had a cold bath every morning, and had been brought up to open windows. This is the third sit down to your letter. Talk of women at home never being able to do anything without being interrupted every few minutes! I think you have only to be house surgeon to know what being interrupted means. They not only knock and march in at the door, but they also whistle up the tube – most frightfully startling it used to be at first, to hear a sort of shrill fog-horn in the room. There are three high temperatures, and the results are sent up to me whenever they are taken. We are sponging them, and may have to put them into cold baths, but I hope not. Mrs. G. A. told me to do it without waiting for the chief, if I thought it necessary, whereupon Mrs. B. remarked, “I think Miss Inglis ought to be warned the patient may die.”

‘Lovely weather here. I have been prescribing sunshine, sunshine, sunshine for all the patients. There are only two balconies on each floor, and nurse Rose is reported to have said that she supposed I wanted the patients hung out over the railings, for otherwise there would not be room. Miss W. came this morning, to Sister’s indignation. “Does not she think she can trust me for one day?” So I said it was only that she was so delighted at having a ward; and that I was sure I would do the same. “Oh,” said Sister, “I am thankful you have not a ward. You would bring a box with sandwiches and sit there all day.” I am always having former H.S.’s thrown at my head who came round exactly to the minute, twice a day, whereas they say I am never out of the wards, at least they never know when I am coming. I tell them I don’t want them to trot round after me with an ink-bottle. Miss R. says I have no idea of discipline! I make one grand round a day, with the ink-bottle, and then I don’t want the nurses to take any more notice of me. I think that is far more sensible than having fixed times. I quite agree the ink-bottle round ought to be at a fixed time, but I cannot help other things turning up to be done.

‘I had to toddle off and ask for Mrs. K. She is the one who is appointed to give anæsthetics in the hospital. They are all most frightfully nervous about anæsthetics here, in all the hospitals, and have regular anæsthetists. In Edinburgh and Glasgow the students give it, under the house surgeons of course. I never saw any death, or anything that was very frightening. One real reason is, I believe, that they watch the wrong organ, viz. the heart. In Scotland they hardly think of the heart, and simply watch the breathing. The Hydrabad Commission settled conclusively that it was the breathing gave out first; but having made up their minds that it does not, all the Commissions in the world won’t convince them to the contrary. In the meantime they do their operations in fear and trembling, continually asking if the patient is all right.

‘You never saw such a splendid out-patient department as they have here – a perfectly lovely, comfortable waiting-room, and pretty receiving waiting-room. The patients have to pay a small sum, yet they had over 20,000 visits this year up to November – that is about half the size of the Glasgow Royal, one of the biggest out-patients in the kingdom, and general. This is paying, and for women! Who says women doctors are not wanted!

‘This morning I started off, meaning to go to Dr. Vaughan in the Temple Church. Sister C. told me I ought to be early, and of course I was as late as I could be. As I was running downstairs Nurse Helen asked me if I had ever heard Stopford Brooke. I had heard his name, but I could not remember anything about him. Nurse H. said he was an awful heretic, and had got into trouble for his opinions. As a general rule men who get into trouble for their opinions are worth listening to – at least they have opinions. So I left Dr. Vaughan, and went off to Mr. S. Brooke. He gave a capital sermon with nothing heterodox in it, about loving our fellow-men. I liked him, and would go to-night to hear his lecture on “In Memoriam,” but Sister C. is going out.

‘You know you must not aim at a separate but at a mixed school in Edinburgh. I am sure this is best, and all the women here think so too. I wonder when the University means to succumb.

‘Mrs. G. Anderson asked me to come and help her with a small operation in an hotel. She gave me a half-guinea fee for so doing. We drove there in a hansom, and drove back in her carriage. She was most jovial and talkative. We went into the Deanery, Westminster Abbey, on our way back to leave cards on somebody. You suddenly seem to get out of the noise and rush of London when you turn in there. It is quite quiet and green. All sorts of men were wandering about in red gowns and black gowns. We were told it was Convocation.

‘Mrs. Scharlieb was awfully nice and kind. She said she hoped I would get on always as well as I had here. Was not it nice of her? I said I hoped I would do much better, for I thought I had made an awful lot of mistakes since I came here. She says everybody has to make mistakes. The worst of being a doctor is that one’s mistakes matter so much. In everything else you just throw away what you have messed and begin again, but you cannot do that as a doctor.

‘She said she expects to be called in as my consultant when I am a surgeon. Won’t my patients have to pay fees to get her up from London!

‘Miss C. has been trying to get on to some of the medical societies, and has failed. I shall not demean myself by asking to get on – shall wait till they beseech the honour of adding my name.

‘As to women doctors here having an assured position, I rather like the pioneer work, I think! I mean to make friends with all the nice doctors, and vanquish all the horrid selfish ones, and end by being a Missionary Professor.

‘If I don’t get into the Infirmary in Edinburgh, I mean to build a hospital for myself, like this one. Indeed I don’t know that I should not like the hospital to myself better! I’ll build it where the Cattle Market is, at the head of Lady Lawson Street. That would be convenient for all the women in Fountainbridge, and the Grassmarket and Cowgate, and it would be comparatively high. To begin with, I mean to rent Eva’s hall from her for a dispensary. You see it is all arranged!’

The next course Elsie decided on taking was one of three months in Midwifery in the Rotunda, Dublin. There was a greater equality of teaching there in mixed classes, and also she thought the position of the whole hospital staff was on lines which would enable her to gain the most experience in this branch, where she ultimately achieved so much for her fellow-citizens in Edinburgh.

‘Costigan’s Hotel, Upper Sackville St.,‘Dublin, Nov. 18, 1893.

‘I went over to the Rotunda and saw Dr. Glenn, the assistant master. I am “clerk” on Mondays and Thursdays. The only other person here is a native from the Nizam’s Dominions. At breakfast this morning he told me about his children, who are quite fair “like their mother.” How fond he was of London, and how he would not live in India now for anything; he finds the climate enervating! I told him I thought India a first-rate place to live in, and that I should like to go back.

‘By the way, fancy the franchise for the Parish Councils being carried. The first thing I saw when I landed was defeat of the Government! The Independent here is jubilant, partly because the point of woman’s suffrage is carried, partly because the Government is beaten.

‘So the strike has ended, and the men go back to work on their old wages till February. I expect both sides are sick of it, but I am glad the men have carried it so far. Lord Rosebery is a clever man.

‘Mrs. C. evidently thinks I am quite mad, for I have asked for a cold bath in my room. “Good gracious me, miss! it’s not cold entoirely ye’ll be meaning.”

‘I went to see the D.’s. The first thing I was told was that a Miss D. sat in their church, an M.B. of the Royal Infirmary. A very clever girl, she has just taken a travelling bursary and is going to Vienna. “But we don’t know her, they are Home Rulers!” Mrs. D. went on to say both she and her father were Home Rulers, but that she for one would not mind if they did not obtrude their politics. So, I thought, “Well, I won’t obtrude mine.” Then Mrs. D. said, “You must take a side, you know, and say distinctly what side you are on when you are asked.” So I thought, “Well, I’ll wait till I am asked,” and I have got through to-day without being asked. But, positively, they used the word “boycott” about those D.’s. They have been boycotted by the congregation. It must be rather hard to be a Home Ruler and a Presbyterian just now in Ireland. Positively, they frightened me so, I nearly squirmed under the table. However, when I looked round the congregation I thought I should not mind much being boycotted by them. The sermon was one about forgiving your enemies. Mrs. D. has given me a standing invitation to come to dinner on Sunday. What will happen when I am suddenly asked to take my side, I don’t know. In the meantime I will let things slide! Mrs. D. asked me if the Costigans were Catholics, and said she thought Mrs. C. looked so nice she could not be one.’

‘Dec. 1893.

‘I have done nothing but race after cases to-day. One old woman was killing. She came for Dr. B., whom she said she had known before he was born. Dr. B. could not go, so I went. “Hech,” she said, “I came for a doctor.” “Well, I’m the doctor. Come along.” “Deed no,” she said; “ye’re no a doctor – ye’re just a wumman.” I did laugh, and marched her off. She was grandly tipsy when I left the home, so I am going back to see how the patient has got on, in spite of the nursing.

‘I had a second polite speech made to me last night. I was introduced into a house by the person who came for me as the doctor. When I had been in about two minutes, a small man of four years old, said suddenly in a clear voice “That is not a doctor, it’s a girl!” I told him he was behind the age not to know that one could be both.

‘We had a chloroform scare this morning. I admired Dr. S.’s coolness immensely. He finished tying his stitches quietly while two doctors were skipping round like a pair of frightened girls. It ended all right. They don’t know how to give chloroform anywhere out of Scotland. It is very odd.

‘Mrs. D. declared she was going to write to you that she had found I had gone out without my breakfast. So, here are the facts! I was out last night, and was not up when they rang over for me. So, before having my breakfast I just ran over to see what they wanted me for, and finding it would keep I came back for my breakfast to find Mrs. D. here. I am not such an idiot as to miss my meals, Papa, dearest. My temper won’t stand it! I always have a glass of milk and a biscuit when I go out at night. I am as sensible as I can be. I know you cannot do work with blunt instruments, and this instrument blunts very easily without food and exercise.

‘Jan. 1, 1894.

‘I have been round all my patients to-day, and had to drink glasses of very questionable wine in each house. It is really very trying to a practical teetotaller like me. Literally, I could hardly see them when I left the last house! There was simply no getting off it, and I did not want to hurt their feelings. When they catch hold of your hand and say “Now, doctor dear, or doctor jewel, ye’ll just be takin’ a wee glass, deed an ye will,” what are you to do?