1873 caricature of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson by Frederick Waddy

THEY fought discrimination and abuse to become the first female doctors and founded a groundbreaking women’s medical school in Bloomsbury.

But the author of a book about the three Victorian trailblazers told Review she thinks they would be “discouraged by the persistent sexism” in today’s medical profession.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Blackwell founded the first medical school in Britain to allow women to train to become qualified doctors, and were pivotal in opening the profession to females.

Olivia Campbell, who has written Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine, believes the three pioneers would be “ecstatic” that so many females are now studying and practising medicine.

However, she said: “Women are still underrepresented in leadership positions, several medical specialties remain ‘boy’s clubs,’ and too many women doctors report experiencing sexism.”

Jex-Blake, Garrett Anderson and Blackwell established the London School of Medicine for Women in Henrietta Street, off Brunswick Square, in 1874.

Initially the school met with “derision” from much of the medical profession, but a few years later its students were able to complete their clinical studies at the Royal Free Hospital.

The pioneering trio battled for their qualifications at a time when would-be women doctors were denied degrees, jeered, insulted and even pelted with mud and rotten eggs.

Times have changed, but not enough. Today’s campaigning female doctors, concerned at sexism, harassment and abuse in healthcare, have called for the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, to explicitly denounce sexist and misogynistic behaviour towards female colleagues.

Many 19th century women avoided consulting male doctors.

Campbell, a journalist specialising in medicine and women, said: “Most of the women who fought to become doctors in the Victorian era were driven by witnessing female friends or relatives suffering through illnesses or dying slow, agonising deaths.

“The unifying factor with nearly all these early medical women was that they saw a need and couldn’t rest until it was filled: women needed women doctors.”

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain, addressed the need by opening a dispensary where poor women could receive free healthcare in Seymour Place, Marylebone. It became the New Hospital for Women, staffed entirely by females, in 1872, later moving to Euston Road and re-named the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in 1918, after her death.

Five-foot tall Lizzie (as she was known by family and friends) Garrett – she acquired the Anderson name on marriage – nursed and was a part-time medical student at The Middlesex Hospital in Mortimer Street, Fitzrovia.

Elizabeth Blackwell and, right, Sophia Jex-Blake by Samuel Laurence 1865

Male students, embarrassed when Lizzie was the only one who knew the right answer to a visiting doctor’s question, started a petition against her.

Lecturers decided the presence of a woman in their classes would harm the medical school’s reputation, and she was ousted. She studied privately and in 1865 was licensed to practise medicine by the Society of Apothecaries.

Medical journal The Lancet suggested the examiners had given Lizzie an easy ride – though she had taken exactly the same exam as the men.

After she earned her licence the Society of Apothecaries changed its rules to stop other women following her example.

In the eyes of many Victorian male medics and others, women were intellectually and physically inferior and controlled by “whims of the uterus”.

Paradoxically, there were also concerns that “ruthless lady doctors” would push men out of their jobs. No wonder. Campbell writes that “Medicine, for many men of the time, was the profession you went into after showing no particular aptitude for anything else.”

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to receive a medical degree and the first woman on Britain’s medical register, was a mentor to Garrett Anderson and Jex-Blake.

Blackwell undertook clinical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, later worked at Lizzie’s New Hospital for Women and became professor of Diseases of Women at the new medical school.

Sophia Jex-Blake campaigned long and hard for UK medical training for women and was a driving force behind the school. She was among the “Edinburgh Seven” female medical students who braved a howling mob lobbing missiles in 1870.

Reading about this Edinburgh riot sparked the idea for Campbell’s extensively researched and engaging book, which mingles portrayal of its subjects’ personalities and private lives with their struggles and achievements.

Sophia’s “impulsive, outgoing nature was in direct contrast to demure, feminine Lizzie and the eccentric, introspective Elizabeth.” They didn’t always get on, but their goal of better understanding of the causes and treatment of female diseases overcame any interpersonal differences.

Lizzie was a senior physician at her hospital for 24 years, lectured at the medical school for 23 years and was its dean from 1883-1903. She had three children, suffering the heartbreak of losing one to meningitis.

In 1998 the London School of Medicine for Women merged with University College Hospital Medical School to become the Royal Free and University College Medical School, which is still going.

The book’s inspiring story merits a screen version. Campbell said there are currently no plans, but: “I’d like to think this story of the founding of the London School of Medicine for Women and the lives of its three fascinating founders would make for an amazing film.

“In my mind, my perfect cast is Emilia Clarke as Garrett Anderson, Yasmin Paige or Bronwyn James as Jex-Blake and Laura Carmichael as Blackwell.”

The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, which campaigners fought to save in the 1970s, amalgamated with the Obstetric Hospital in 2001, moving to Huntley Street, Bloomsbury. In 2008 the hospital’s maternity and neonatal services moved to the new University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing.

• Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine. By Olivia Campbell. Swift Press, £14.99