“No speaking on our side could have changed the vote,” wrote Professor Masson, “those present were all predetermined. Crum Brown did well, and administered a proper reproof to L. Struthers was present and voted with us; so did Nicolson (who was quite in earnest when the time came), and Dr. Craufurd, who avows himself a convert. On the other hand, Wilson, Bennett, Charteris and Tait, of our side, were absent, reducing our number somewhat. People today are consoling me—for I was really downcast—by saying the result was a success in its kind, and an omen of final success when the thing comes up again, as it must. All very well; but how shall I console _you_? What are _you_ to do this year? The only thing I disliked in Crum Brown’s speech was his opening statement that he thought the motion perhaps premature, the time not having elapsed for the experiment of the other method. Premature! This in face of his own refusal to continue, and in face of his subsequent declaration that the existing method is impracticable! Still he said and did well. What shall I say but that my heart is sore for your immediate discomfiture? Time—a year or two—will rectify the thing generally, here and elsewhere; but how you are to get on with us is the question. Christison, who draws Turner, Lister, and Sanders (L. is nothing) with him, seems determined to get rid of you, and trusts to effecting this by mere continuance of the present arrangement. Whether you can wriggle on with us by any ingenuity in the hope of beating him is for your consideration. Would it might be so! Ever yours truly, DAVID MASSON.” Footnote 61: The _Times_, April 25th, 1870. The view that the result of the motion was a success in its kind proved to be a general one, and the matter was discussed at great length by newspapers, lay, medical and religious. “There is no possible reason,” said the _Guardian_,[62] “why a very large proportion of instruction may not be given with perfect propriety to men and women together; but there are clearly some parts in a medical course which cannot be so treated, and there ought to be no difficulty whatever in making arrangements for these. To provide separate lectures for a few special occasions is a very different thing, both in the matter of convenience and expense, from insisting on having two distinct and separate courses throughout in every department.... Professor Masson’s motion was defeated, but by a majority so small—eleven in a meeting of a hundred and five—that its success at some future time seems certain. Let the ladies only add to the exercise of one quality, with which the world credits them, that of patience, another, which is supposed to be a less common attribute of their sex, perseverance, and they will assuredly gain their point.”