Everything was obstacles when the British Sophia Jex-Blake tried to enter the career of Medicine in 1869. From the University of Edinburgh, reserved at that time only for men, they argued that, as a woman, she should receive separate classes and that they could not create a group just for her.
Jex-Blake told her story in a local newspaper, and soon after, she was no longer alone: six other women joined her.
Together they are known as The Edinburgh Seven, the first women to enroll in a British university.
Their story has been remembered these days by the photographic tribute they have made from the university where they enrolled:
Rembrandt's
famous
Anatomy Lesson
painting
, reinterpreted with medical students.
My commissioned interpretation of Rembrandts Anatomy lesson using women medical students to represent the Edinburgh 7, the first women to study medicine in Britain 150 years ago but not then allowed to graduate.
@EdinUniMedicine rightly granted them posthumous degrees last year.
pic.twitter.com/Gg3DoTJIz3
- Laurence Winram (@WinramPhoto) September 23, 2020
The image was published on September 22 on the Twitter profile of the University of Edinburgh Medical School and, a day later, on that of the author of the image, Scottish photographer Laurence Winram.
Both publications have obtained hundreds of retweets and likes.
“I didn't know the history of The Edinburgh Seven before I started this project, but fixing it has been wonderful,” Winram tells
Verne
by email.
Titled 150 years later
Sophia Jex-Blake, Edith Pechey, Isabel Thorne, Emily Bovell, Helen Evans, Matilda Chaplin and Mary Anderson, members of The Seven, were the first women to enroll in a UK university, but not the first to graduate.
According to the page dedicated to them at the University of Edinburgh, The Seven were expelled without being allowed to finish their degree after four years at the university, in which they did not have anything easy: they were charged higher rates than to boys were not allowed to go to class with men and were graded differently, so that they could not access scholarships.
If from the University they put obstacles to Las Siete, they had worse it with the rest of the students.
"They made life as difficult as possible for the Edinburgh Seven, closing doors in their faces, berating them and behaving aggressively with them," explains the university's website.
"Events came to a head in the Anatomy exam, when hundreds of students threw mud and other objects at the women when they arrived."
According to the biography
Sophia Jex-Blake: A Woman Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Medical
(
Sophia Jex-Blake: a pioneer woman in medicine of the nineteenth century
), the rioters came to sneak into the classroom of the examination a sheep that the students had as a faculty mascot.
Portrait of Sophia Jex-Blake, 1865. Samuel Laurence (Getty)
The riots of this day reached the newspapers and the university ended up expelling them in 1873. According to the page of the University of Edinburgh, many of the seven ended up going abroad to finish their studies, and Sophia Jex-Blake founded the London School of Medicine for Women, Britain's first medical school to train women as doctors.
Last 2019, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of its enrollment, the University of Edinburgh awarded Las Siete the posthumous honorary title.
Seven women currently studying Medicine at this center received their diplomas on behalf of the original Seven.
And a year later, the photographic tribute
This 2020 The Seven have received one more tribute: the photographic adaptation
of Rembrandt's
Anatomy Lesson by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
, reinterpreted by seven women.
It can be seen on the premises of the Edinburgh BioQuarter research complex, in the Sophia Jex-Blake common room:
Its new home is the Sophia Jex-Blake common room in the Chancellor's Building at @EdinburghBQ.
Be sure to check it out next time you are passing!
(4/4) pic.twitter.com/N63mbOpniK
- Edinburgh Medical School (@EdinUniMedicine) September 22, 2020
Asked by
Verne
about how this photographic project came about, the author of the photo, Laurence Winram, has referred us to a post on his blog in which he describes the process of creating the image.
In it, the Scotsman explains that the proposal for this tribute came from the university itself, and that the photograph was taken in the anatomy museum with medical students as models.
The man who plays the corpse on the table is also a college medical student.
In networks, some users have asked if it was Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, with whom he bears a certain resemblance.
“Since we published the image, several people have commented that the body looks like Mark Zuckerberg and, as much as I would like to say that it was all an intentional symbol, it was not!”, Explains the photographer.
They have also joked about it from the university's Twitter account.
Several people are speculating on the identity of the cadaver - it is medical student Liam Parkinson.
(Zuckerberg was busy).
- Edinburgh Medical School (@EdinUniMedicine) September 23, 2020
Many people are speculating on the identity of the corpse.
It's medical student Liam Parkinson (Zuckerberg was busy).
"Although I didn't have much time to take the photo and the outfits weren't ideal, the experience was very rewarding," Winram tells Verne.
The photographer considers that the photo has attracted attention in networks because “people appreciate a positive story at a time of much bad news” and because “it empowers women, which is increasingly essential when there are so many male leaders taking bad news decisions ”.
In his opinion, "the world is crying out for a change and any step in the right direction is very welcome and necessary now."
Like the tributes to Sophia Jex-Blake, Edith Pechey, Isabel Thorne, Emily Bovell, Helen Evans, Matilda Chaplin and Mary Anderson.
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