Sophia Jex-Blake (The Edinburgh Seven)

 Edinburgh Women in STEM  No Responses »
Feb 292024
 

Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9DW

A tall light stone building with six columns, a decorated pediment, and a blue Welcome banner out front. There is a small plaque at the gate on the left, behind two lamp posts.

Sophia Jex-Blake (1840 – 1912) was a pioneer of university education for women and was the first female practicing doctor in Scotland. She was part of the Edinburgh Seven, a famous group of women who studied at Edinburgh University and were the first women to be accepted to university in Britain. However, male students became very hostile towards the Seven, resulting in the Surgeon’s Hall riot, where a large gathering of 200 people insulted and threw rubbish at the women on their way to an exam. This did not deter Jex-Blake, who went on to found two medical schools for women in both London and Edinburgh, and this plaque commemorates the spot where seven women faced blatant hostility, purely because of their gender. Other members of the Edinburgh Seven: Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson and Emily Bovell.

A tall light stone building with six columns, a decorated pediment, and a blue Welcome banner out front. There is a small plaque at the gate on the left, behind two lamp posts.
A painting of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with her hair back in the style of the late 1800s, wearing a dark gown with a white collar against a warm brown background.

In 2020, the University of Edinburgh unveiled a painting commemorating the Edinburgh Seven, which is currently on display in the Sophia Jex-Blake room of the Chancellor’s Building at the Royal Infirmary. The portrait, by Laurence Winram, is a re-imagining of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. (Learn more on Laurence’s blog post about the piece).

A group of seven young women in black graduation gowns around a table with a cadaver on it and a female instructor giving an anatomy lesson the arm.
Copyright Laurence Winram via author’s blog, (permission granted to use with link and credit)

Sources:

Additional links:

Anna Dominiczak

 Edinburgh Women in STEM  No Responses »
Feb 282024
 
Level 6, National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF
National Museum of Scotland, light sandstone with a curved tower and modern architectural features.

Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak (born 1954) is a medical researcher, Scotland’s Chief Scientist of Health, and the first woman to be appointed Regius Professor of Medicine – the oldest existing chair at the University of Glasgow. She has held positions as Vice Principal and Head of Medical Veterinary & Life Sciences at Glasgow University and was awarded a DBE in 2016 to recognise her contributions to medical science. Dame Dominiczak has published extensive research across various fields, including hypertension, cardiovascular genomics and precision medicine. She was the Editor-In-Chief of the prestigious American Heart Association journal, Hypertension from 2012-2022, and in July 2023 launched the new journal Precision Medicine as Editor-in-Chief with Cambridge Prisms. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and her pioneering work in medical science is recognised in this exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland.

Portrait of a light-haired woman in a corridor wearing a dark suit and pink shirt with her arms crossed.

Portrait of Anna Dominiczak
A display of medical equipment and books, including a blood pressure monitor, a book on the genetics of hypertension, and a Scotswoman of the year award.

Sources:

Additional links:

Plaque for Sophia Jex-Blake

 History of Public Health  No Responses »
Nov 252020
 

St Giles’ Cathedral, High St, EH1 1RE

Plaque in St. Giles Cathedral
Plaque in St. Giles Cathedral

Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912) became Scotland’s first female doctor when she established a private practice in Edinburgh in September 1878 at 73 Grove Street. In 1885, she opened the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, just a few doors down from her private practice. It was a so-called cottage hospital, a small hospital (6 beds) intended to cater for the immediate needs of the local poor population without requiring them to travel long distances.

Sophia Jex-Blake. Creator: unknown. © The University of Edinburgh
Sophia Jex-Blake. Creator: unknown.
© The University of Edinburgh
Sophia Jex-Blake. Photograph by Swaine. (Wellcome Collection).
Sophia Jex-Blake. Photograph by Swaine.
(Wellcome Collection).

Find out more

1 Roseneath Terrace

 UncoverED  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

1 Roseneath Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 1JS

1 Roseneath Terrace
1 Roseneath Terrace

The sixth floor of 1 Roseneath Terrace was home to Eustace Akwei while he studied medicine at Edinburgh during the 1940s. Coincidentally, another Ghanaian medical student, Emmanuel Evans-Anfom, would later move into the very same room. The landlady was therefore “familiar with the ways of students from the Gold Coast” and remarked that Eustace Akwei was “a courteous and cultured gentleman”. Eustace Akwei trained to become a doctor in Edinburgh at a time when it was official policy to exclude indigenous African from practicing medicine in West Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of 1945, the medical services in British West Africa were amalgamated and in 1902 the West African Medical Staff (WAMS) was formed. The WAMS formally rejected any physician not of “European parentage” from its ranks and was the only department in the British empire to do so. In 1955, more than half a century after this racist policy was first enacted and a decade after it was repealed, Eustace Akwei became the first Ghanaian to be appointed Chief Medical Officer in the Gold Coast. In 1958, he was one of the prominent doctors present at the inauguration of the Ghana Medical Association.

15 Melville Terrace

 UncoverED  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

15 Melville Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 1LY

15 Melville Terrace
15 Melville Terrace

Born in 1886, Jung Bahadur Singh was an advocate for marginalized colonial subjects in British Guiana (now Guyana). While his time at Edinburgh is poorly documented, we know that he lived with his wife, Alice Bhagwandy Singh, and their children at 15 Melville Terrace. After the abolition of chattel slavery, Britain began to recruit indentured labourers as a substitute. Indentured labourers were paid to work in the Caribbean but were expected to return to South Asia after a 5 year period. Singh had close and personal experiences with indenture – both of his parents were indentured labourers in British Guiana, and between the ages of 16 and 28, he had worked as a medical dispenser on immigration ships. As a result, he became dedicated to representing the plight of diasporic Indians, and when he enrolled to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1914, he became a prominent member of the Edinburgh Indian Association. When Singh completed his studies and returned to British Guiana, he fought for the rights of the Indo-Guyanese to participate in their own governance, to have their non-Christian rites legally recognized, and to receive better pay.

Jung Bahadur Singh and Alice Bhagwandy Singh
Jung Bahadur Singh and Alice Bhagwandy Singh

Wong Fun Statue

 UncoverED  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

The Confucius Institute for Scotland, 1 Marchhall Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 5HP

Wong Fun Statue at the Confucius Institute for Scotland
Wong Fun Statue at the Confucius Institute for Scotland

The Confucius Institute for Scotland at the University of Edinburgh promotes the “educational, economic, and cultural ties between Scotland and China.” In the 1850s, the University of Edinburgh was one of the first destinations for Chinese students pursuing overseas study. This statue depicts Dr. Wong Fun (Huang Kuan), who was educated as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh between 1850 and 1855. The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (EMMS) granted financial support to overseas students studying medicine in Scotland, and aided Dr. Wong financially from 1852. Upon completing his studies, Dr. Wong became the first Chinese student to graduate from any institution across the whole of Europe, as well as the first Western-trained doctor in China. Dr. Wong’s thesis was entitled ‘On Functional Disorders of the Stomach’ and Yung Wing, a former classmate and one of the first Chinese students to graduate in America, remembered him as “one of the ablest surgeons East of the Cape of Good Hope.” After his graduation, Wong was appointed as a clinical clerk to Professor James Miller in the New Surgical Hospital, and later took a position in a missionary hospital in Kum-Lee-Fow.

Wong Fu
Wong Fu
Wong Fu's thesis.
Wong Fu’s thesis.
A Plaque to Wong Fun also stands at 8 Buccleuch Place.
A Plaque to Wong Fun also stands at 8 Buccleuch Place.

Trinity House / South Leith Parish Church

 History of Edinburgh Hospitals  No Responses »
Aug 102020
 

99 Kirkgate, Leith, EH6 6BJ

South Leith Parish Church

The Maritime Museum (formerly the South Leith Parish Church and Trinity House), is the site of Leith’s first hospital, St. Anthony’s, founded in 1430 by Sir Robert Logan. The hospital consisted of two parts: hospital and the chapel, and the hospital would have stretched all the way to Henderson Street. In 1560, the Siege of Leith led to the hospital falling into ruin. After the Scottish Reformation, a new hospital, King James’, was erected on the same site in 1614, where it remained until 1822. A memorial stone commemorating the original hospital can be found in the kirkyard, with a small stretch of the original wall from 1614. In 2009 an archaeological excavation of Constitution Street just outside of the church discovered 260 graves, dating from the time of the original hospital on this location. 

Find out more
The collection records for the original seal of St Anthony’s Hospital.
Details of the excavation in 2009.

High School Yards

 History of Edinburgh Hospitals  No Responses »
Aug 102020
 

High School Yards, Edinburgh EH1 1LZ

surgeon's square
High School Yards with Old Surgeon’s Hall.

The four buildings inside High School Yards have a long history of medicine and surgery within Edinburgh. Old Surgeons’ Hall (OSH), built in 1697 by Scottish architect James Smith, was designed as an anatomy theatre and the first public dissection occurred in 1703. By 1832, the surgeons moved to New Surgeons’ Hall on Nicolson Street and OSH and the New High School building (where the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation is currently located) were converted to surgical hospitals. The current School of Geoscience was built in 1853 as a surgical hospital. Known as Drummond Street Surgical Hospital, it was built as part of the Royal Infirmary. When the Royal Infirmary moved to Lauriston Place in 1879, the already established surgical hospitals and Chisholm House were converted into medical facilities for contagious patients. Under the control of Sir Henry Littlejohn, Edinburgh’s Medical Officer, this group of buildings became known as the City Fever Hospital. In 1903 the City Fever Hospital moved to a new location on Coliston Mains and the buildings at HSY were sold to the University of Edinburgh.

Postcard of a painting by J Sanderson of the old Royal Infirmary Edinburgh building at Infirmary Street.
An etching (published in 1829) of Old Surgeon’s Hall and adjacent buildings.
Perspective View of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Infirmary Street.

Longmore Hospital

 History of Edinburgh Hospitals  No Responses »
Aug 102020
 

Longmore House, Salisbury Place, EH9 1SH

Longmore House is now the head office of Historic Environment Scotland.

Longmore Hospital (now Longmore House) was the first hospital for “incurables” in Edinburgh. Opened in 1875, the hospital took on patients requiring long-term care that the Royal Infirmary was not equipped to provide. In 1891, a new east wing opened with two 14 bed wards, nurses’ quarters and kitchens and a two-storey west wing was added with a basement in 1899. The top two floors housed a new kitchen, laundry room, chapel and mortuary while the basement was reserved for tuberculosis patients. In 1903, the hospital received a royal charter from King Edward VIII and officially became the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Incurables. It joined forces with Liberton Hospital on Lasswade Road in 1906, to allow for even greater capacity. Longmore remained a hospital until 1991, when its services were moved to the General Western Hospital. In 1994 the building was converted into office space for Historic Environment Scotland. Liberton Hospital is still in operation as a hospital for geriatric care.

Longmore Hospital image from a pamphlet.

Bruntsfield Hospital

 History of Edinburgh Hospitals  No Responses »
Aug 102020
 

92 Whitehouse Loan, EH9 1BD

Portrait of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake.

This is the site of the Bruntsfield Hospital. Dr Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first women to be enrolled at a British university and the founder of the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, lived and practised here in Bruntsfield Lodge with her partner Dr Margaret Todd. When Jex-Blake retired in 1899, the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children established Bruntsfield Hospital on the site. The hospital was closely linked to Elsie Inglis’ hospital “The Hospice” and, when the two merged in 1910, The Hospice was dedicated to obstetric and infant care and Bruntsfield hospital was responsible for all medical, surgical, and gynaecological work. The hospital closed 90 years after its initial move to Bruntsfield Lodge in 1989 and has since been converted into residential units.

The exterior of Bruntsfield Hospital.
 Older Entries