Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women

The Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, referred to in Poor Things as the Jex-Blake women’s medical school in Edinburgh, represents a route into medical education for women in a profession that the novel describes as excluding them. Bella Baxter enrolled there under the name Victoria in 1886; the account connects that education to her subsequent medical qualification and charitable clinical work, while distinguishing the school from the university that later awarded her degree.

Identity and Historical Context

The school appears in a narrative about the barriers facing women who sought medical training in Britain. Baxter reports that only four women doctors then practised in the country, all holding degrees from foreign universities. He connects the prospect of change to the Enabling Bill of 1876 and the work of Sophia Jex-Blake: Dublin University had opened its doors to women medical students, and he expected Scottish universities to follow. In this setting, the Edinburgh school stands as a named institution through which women could pursue medical education.

The account does not describe the school’s governance, curriculum, or daily operation. Instead, it presents women’s access to training as part of a larger argument about who should be permitted to practise medicine and how doctors should be prepared. Baxter argues that professional education should begin with practical work, and proposes that Bella first gain experience in nursing and assisting in a theatre before going to medical college. This is his proposed route for her preparation, not a stated requirement of the Edinburgh school.

Bella Baxter’s Enrollment

In 1886, Bella, by then living under the name Victoria, enrolled at the Jex-Blake women’s medical school of Edinburgh. The name links her personal history to the institution’s role in women’s medical education, although the narrative supplies no further account of her studies there. Her use of Victoria also reflects the divided identity through which the book recounts her later life: the woman who had been known as Bella pursues her professional future under another name.

The account carefully separates enrollment from qualification. In 1890, Victoria was made a Doctor of Medicine by Glasgow University; the degree is not attributed to the Edinburgh school. That same year she opened the Godwin Baxter Natal Clinic in Glasgow, a charitable institution staffed by local women whom she trained. The clinic’s work with women and children gives concrete consequence to her medical career, but it should not be mistaken for an activity of the Edinburgh school itself.

Narrative Significance

The school marks a transition from the general struggle over women’s admission to medical education to Victoria’s own professional life. Her enrollment makes the change described by Baxter more than a prediction: the possibility of women’s medical study becomes part of her personal chronology. Her later qualification and clinic show the practical direction her training took, while the distinction between Edinburgh enrollment and a Glasgow degree preserves the different roles of the institutions named in the account.

The school also sits within the book’s criticism of professional exclusion. Baxter argues that women should be able to practise intricate medical arts, and Bella’s later work training local women extends that principle into patient care and practical instruction. The narrative does not claim that the Edinburgh school alone caused these developments; rather, it gives a specific institutional setting to a broader contest over women’s access to education, medical authority, and the ability to shape their own professional work.