Projects > Victorian Scientists

There is immense value in highlighting the inspirational activities of our female forerunners; it improves the visibility of women’s history and helps to redress traditionally male-dominated narratives. However, in doing so, we also risk sanitising.

In browsing many natural history periodicals of the nineteenth century, a casual reader could be forgiven for believing that science was pursued predominantly by men.

When I talk about my research on Victorian medical women, I find that people are sometimes familiar with the names of the earliest pioneers, such as Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake.

Frederick James Gant first appeared on my research radar when I was examining attitudes towards women in medicine.

My last blog post looked at the Indian Medical Record, a journal aimed at independent practitioners in British India.

I first encountered Jukes de Styrap as the author of The Young Practitioner (1890) – an advice guide for aspiring medical men – when I was researching the early struggles in practice.

In an earlier blog post, I profiled the Midland Medical Miscellany, a proudly provincial medical journal which was conducted by Kenneth William Millican.

In 1893, the popular periodical The Nineteenth Century featured an article on ‘Medical Women in Fiction’, written by Sophia Jex-Blake, who was well-known as a pioneer in the movement for women in medicine.

The life of a periodical editor in the nineteenth century was not an occupation for the easily discouraged.

Sarat K. Mullick was a medical man who practised in England and India, and who passionately campaigned for medical reforms in India and for rights and respect to be given to Indian practitioners and the public.