Compiled by Judy Mackinolty
(Photo: SU Archives)
A striking photograph taken in 1887 shows a group of Sydney University medical students across a range of years. In the front row are Professor Anderson Stuart, Sir Alfred Roberts, Director of Royal Prince Alfred hospital, and five doctors. Amidst the waistcoats and watch chains, walking sticks and furled umbrellas, top hats and bowlers, a number of moustaches and a few beards, stands a demure young woman, her folded hands clutching a straw hat.
The young woman was Dagmar Berne, who in 1885 was the first woman to enrol in medicine in an Australian university. Writing to a colleague, Professor Stuart stated: 'I have had a lady in my classes for over two years, as gentle and modest a lady as I have ever seen, as such she came to us and as such she has remained ... (She) has been taught alongside the male students ... and has dissected side by side with the men during two sessions. The lady is now going round the wards of the hospital along with the men ...'
Berne begun her studies in Arts, and then transferred to the third intake in medicine, one of 15 students. Her progress was uneven and although she reached Med IV in 1888 she failed the second of the professional exams. Undeterred, she travelled to England where she gained her medical qualifications, though without finishing her degree. After working as a resident in England, she returned home and opened a practice in Macquarie Street in 1895. Sadly, she died of tuberculosis just five years later at the age of 34.
It has been suggested that Professor Stuart was less admiring of this young woman than his letter would suggest, that he failed to offer the help she may have needed, or was, indeed, positively discouraging. She had been educated at a time when there was little science offered at girls' schools, especially chemistry and physics, and so lacked some of the basic background. Above all, she was a pioneer in a difficult field and as such must have been a lonely figure.
She may have looked demure in the photograph and been gentle and modest, but she was also clearly a woman of determination, intelligence and courage, a fine role model and one who paved the way for others.
Some of those who followed Dagmar Berne were more successful. Iza Coghlan and Grace Robinson graduated in 1893, Robinson completing the course without failure, an achievement for male or female. Meanwhile Melbourne and Adelaide Universities had the first women medical graduates in 1891 with Clare Stone and Margaret Whyte, and Laura Fowler.
Women students at Sydney University c. 1897. (Photo: SU Archives)
The women undergraduates shown in the 1897 photograph above, included Julia Carlisle-Thomas (rear second from left), Harriett Biffin (rear second from right), and in the front Alice Newton and Ada Affleck. They graduated in medicine at Sydney University in1898. Carlisle-Thomas made a name for herself and assisted both the poor and the profession in establishing the Sydney Medical Mission in 1900; Biffin joined Lucy Gullett in founding the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in 1922; Alice Newton became a GP in Stanmore but she also took on a public role in acting as medical examiner for women for two insurance companies and as specialist in eye diseases at Rachel Forster.
Source: J. Young, A. Sefton & N. Webb, Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Sydney University Press, 1984)
Many of today's women in science have faced obstacles, some of which are not dissimilar to those confronting women late last century. The limited provision of science teaching for girls in schools had not been solved in post-World War II New South Wales, at least in many country areas. So girls such as Ruth Mawson, a student at Cooma Intermediate High School, were restricted to the commercial subjects, shorthand, typing and bookkeeping, and domestic science.
Her desire to become a teacher led Ruth to a two-year course at Sydney Teachers' College which involved a day secretarial course and Account-ancy I at Sydney Technical College. Her teaching appoint-ments to West Wyalong and Moruya, however, were to teach English and History. Encouraged to aim for promotion, she enrolled as an external student at Macquarie University in 1967 in order to complete the degree requirements necessary for a position as subject mistress.
Responding to Macquarie's flexible degree structure Ruth Mawson included science in her course and had completed majors in both English and Earth Sciences at her graduation in 1971. A course in Invertebrate Palaeontology led to her undertaking an honours year and then to a tutoring position in the School of Earth Sciences.
Since then, the girl who could not study science at school has progressed to a PhD in 1984 and her present rank of Associate Professor. She is joint head of the university's Centre for Ecostratigraphy and Palaeo-biology which is involved in such things as precision dating of rocks, processing samples for the recovery of microfossils, and analysis of carbonates. Much of the Centre's work has commercial and industrial applications.
The success of a country girl who left school at 15 is further evidence of the determination shown by many women in science, past and present.
(Source: Sirius - Macquarie University Convocation Magazine, Summer/Autumn 1995)
Some women have setbacks later in life than Ruth Mawson. Mandy Rashleigh had an excellent academic and sporting record at school and went on to graduate in microbiology and immunology from Monash University in 1983. The recession dashed her hopes of a career in medical research so she resorted to looking for companies seeking to employ university graduates.
Her skills in management and communication, and no doubt her growing enjoyment of the work, took her from her job as a teller in a branch of the ANZ bank to a branch manager's position within four years. Further promotions followed leading to her recent appointment in South Australia as the bank's first female state treasurer.
Ms Rashleigh attributes her initial appointment and her subsequent success to the research and analytical skills learnt while gaining her science degree.
(Source: Business Review Weekly, 1 May 1995)
Cathy Offord, horticultural research officer, Mount Annan Botanic Gardens, at work in her laboratory. (Photo courtesy of Royal Botanic Gardens)
While science leads women in many directions, from professions
and teaching to commercial activities and industry, there remains
the thrill of scientific discovery and application.
This is the case in the work of Cathy Offord, horticultural research
officer at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens, whose work featured prominently
in the Sydney press recently.
Cathy's parents were teachers and in the course of their careers they were appointed to Broken Hill where Cathy completed high school. Agricultural science won over archaeology when Cathy enrolled at Sydney University and specialisation in horticulture in her final year led to her present job, her masters degree and her current work towards a doctorate.
She heads a group whose most widely publicised goal is to propagate the Wollemi pine, previously known only from fossils, but recently discovered in small numbers growing in a remote and wild section of Wollemi National Park. The painstaking work of propagating this very rare tree by tissue culture, or cloning, is estimated as taking at least five years. During this time, such is the fragile nature of the area where the trees are growing, none of the propaga-tion team will be able to see the existing plants.
An indication of the difficulty of the task ahead, but also of the first signs of success, are the 20 cuttings beginning to grow in test tubes from the 500 set in a culture. The preparation of hormones to stimulate growth and the development of plants which can survive outside the laboratory are problems which still lie ahead. What is clear, however, is that every effort is being made to conserve the species.
The group led by Cathy Offord has been in existence for five years. She points out that the work on the Wollemi pine is not just a one-off project. Research on other native plants, including the waratah and the flannel flower is also being undertaken, and the group has recorded successes with many endangered species. She believes that the important thing is to put in place techniques and policies to ensure the conservation of all plants at all levels, not just endangered or rare species.
Such careful planning for conserva-tion may lack the drama seen in confron-tations between loggers and greenies, the emotional appeal of a project to conserve an endangered animal and the magic of the Wolle-mi pine story which attracted world-wide attention, but it is essential if Australia's unique habitat is to be preserved.