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Neil Latimer was a fierce-faced anatomy teacher who had made it a pledge of honour never to admit a single woman to his class. Indeed the lack of anatomy tuition was becoming one of the women’s greatest handicaps. The man would argue his case constantly in front of us, and I recalled one occasion in particular when he was brutally dissecting a frog. ‘Besides, gentlemen,’ he said, looking up at us from his dissection with an expression on his face that was positively obscene, ‘there are traps even you may not have thought of. What after all is to stop a Magdalene from the streets coming here to study?’
    He smacked his lips as he said the word Magdalene, and we all knew what he meant, indeed some of the men guffawed at the thought of a prostitute in our midst. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘there is a place for everything.’
    It was, I suppose as I look back now, among the stupider observations I heard from any teacher in the whole of my career at university. Not only was it utterly fatuous to imagine a woman of the streets without any education entering the university to study medicine. But supposing even that impossibility happened, what exactly could she do to corrupt us? Beyond the open soliciting that we endured every day on the streets, the answer was nothing at all except in Latimer’s own fevered imagination. His words were nothing more than a lustful fantasy masquerading as an argument. My blood boiled to think of that now, and to recall that Crawford had been one of those who guffawed the loudest. And what did it say about our sex that on the one hand we could try to hound women out of learning the practice of healing and on the other use their services in houses like the one I had just seen?
    That night such thoughts went round and round in my head but it would be entirely dishonest to pretend that, during this confused time, I always occupied the moral high ground. On the contrary, I was as torn as any eighteen-year-old about my true emotions with regard to these subjects, and no doubt my encounter with Miss Scott added to my confusion. For the honest truth was that, outside of my immediate family, I barely knew what I should expect of a woman when the examples around me were all so manifestly different.
    On the one hand there was the Edinburgh landlady, who in this era was a notorious breed, grasping and viciously prudish almost to a point of madness. On the other, in the streets, we students were constantly being importuned by girls who seemed tender-hearted and were no older than ourselves. There was one woman in particular I had encountered regularly, on the corner where Samuel played his violin, who had a merry twinkle in her eye and a kindly mischievous manner.
    I never really dared to talk to her, yet once this woman had come upon me unawares, and offered a sweet kiss, and the memory of that kiss lingered uneasily with me. I knew well enough it was only an attempt to part me from my money, but in her way she still seemed far less hard and grasping than the landladies I had encountered at my friends’ lodgings. Indeed, when Latimer had first spoken, I certainly felt a guilty fascination at the thought of a ‘Magdalene’ appearing in our class to tempt us to unspeakable acts of lust.
    But, by the night I describe, I know I was at last becoming aware of a vague sense of right. Whatever my reservations about Bell (and these reservations had by no means disappeared), I could see quite well that he had a good deal more rationality than Latimer or Crawford, and also I needed little persuading to honour Miss Scott as a shining example of sense and fortitude.
    As a result I longed to meet with her again, and looked for her the next day and the day after. But, after Crawford’s cruel prank, the women were much less in evidence at the university and there was no sign of her. Eventually, since there were already rumours on the subject, I told my friends of Miss Scott’s disguise and they were both amazed and