Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature Christmas 2018: Equal to the Task

The trouble with girls: obstacles to women’s success in medicine and research—an essay by Laurie Garrett

BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5232 (Published 13 December 2018) Cite this as: BMJ 2018;363:k5232

Rapid Response:

Re: The trouble with girls: obstacles to women’s success in medicine and research—an essay by Laurie Garrett

It may be worth checking and referencing the historical aspects. Is there evidence Eunice Foote's work was done in 1848 when it was presented to the AAAS in 1856 and published the same year? At the time of the presentation women could in principle be members of the AAAS and speak at meetings (though very rare) but Eunice was not a member. This might explain why Joseph Henry read the paper.

I have a substantial paper coming out on this soon in the Royal Society's Notes and Records.

Competing interests: No competing interests

21 December 2018
Roland Jackson
Historian of Science
Royal Institution of Great Britain