by Emma Fraser
The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was considered the leading hospital in Europe, even the world, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Women were not permitted to take lectures alongside men until 1916, four years after the date I use in the book. The attitudes to women medical students from their male counterparts and the professors was every bit as antagonistic – if not more – as I describe.
Finally, I use the spellings of the towns as the women used them in their diaries, for example Nish and Kragujevatz.
If you are interested in finding out more about any of the topics I cover in my story, I include a list for further reading.
Selected Further Reading
Adie, Kate, From Corsets to Camouflage (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)
Bell, E. Moberly, Storming the Citadel: The rise of the woman doctor (London: Hyperion Press, 1981)
Corbett, Elsie, Red Cross in Serbia 1915–1919: a personal diary of experiences (Banbury, 1964)
Crofton, Eileen, The women of Royaumont: A Scottish Women’s hospital on the Western Front (Edinburgh: Tuckwell Press, 1997)
Culter, Elliot Carr, A journal of the Harvard Medical School Unit to the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris, spring of 1915
Eastwood, M. A & Jenkinson, Anne, A History of the Western General Hospital: Craigleith Poorhouse, military hospital, modern teaching hospital (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1995)
Krippner, Monica, The quality of mercy: women at war, Serbia (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1980)
Lawrence, Margot, Shadow of Swords: a biography of Elsie Inglis (London: Joseph, 1971)
Leneman, Leah, In the Service of Life: The story of Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (Edinburgh: The Mercat Press, 1994)
MacDonald, Lyn, The Roses of No Man’s Land (London: Penguin, 1993)
Marlow, Joyce (editor), The Virago Book of Women and the Great War (London: Little, Brown, 2009)
McLaren, Eva Shaw (editor), A History of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919)
Powell, Anne, Women in the War Zone: hospital service in the First World War (Gloucestershire: History Press, 2009)
Stevenson, David, 1914–1918, The History of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2005)
Storey, Neil R. & Housego, Molly, Women in the First World War (Oxford: Shire Publications, 2011)
Whitehead, Ian R., Doctors in the Great War (London: Leo Cooper, 1999)
Other sources
The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
The Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh
The Mitchell Library special collections, Glasgow
Imperial War Museum, London
Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux, Paris
The British Medical Journal