Health statistics of women students of Cambridge and Oxford and of their sister / by Mrs Henry Sidgwick.

  • Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health statistics of women students of Cambridge and Oxford and of their sister / by Mrs Henry Sidgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/108 (page 6)
    Miss G. E. M. Jackson, formerly a student of Girton College, Cambridge, Miss Alice Gardner, formerly a student and then resident lecturer of Newnham College, Cambridge, Miss I. T. Don, formerly a student and afterwards assistant to the Principal at Somerville Hall, Oxford, and Miss M. E. Benson, formerly a student of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with myself as secretary. The Committee have received valuable help and suggestions from the Principals of the Colleges and Halls at Cam- bridge and Oxford included in the enquiry, and from others. In par- ticular, in the somewhat laborious work of tabulating the answers received, much assistance has been given by friends and especially by Miss Alice Johnson, without whose help the work would hardly have been accomplished even at this late date. The first duty of the Committee was to draw up a schedule of questions to be addressed to former students. In this we were greatly assisted by a similar enquiry which was conducted some years ago in America, and the results of which were published in 1885\ Through the kindness of American friends we obtained copies of the schedule of questions used there, and we framed our own to a great extent on the same model. We decided, however, after much consideration to omit some very important questions which had been put in America, as to details of health, mainly because enquiry led us to believe that the reluctance of many people to answer them would so far reduce our returns as to more than counterbalance the value of the additional information received. The direct questions as to health were thus reduced to the enquiry “ Has your health been a excellent, b good, c fair, d poor, e bad, between the ages of 3 and 8 years, 8 and 14 years, 14 and 18 years, at the time of entering College, during College life, and since leaving College ? ” and an invitation to give par- ticulars of any disorder from which the person enquired of might have suffered. It is of course impossible to secure absolute uniformity of standard in the estimates of their health made by different people in order to answer our question. We considered, however, firstly, that by requiring our informants to divide health into as many as five degrees (excellent, good, fair, poor, bad), an approximation to uniformity would be secured; secondly, that on the whole divergences from an 1 Health Statistics of Women College Graduates. Report of a Special Committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Annie G. Howes, Chairman; together with Statistical Tables collated by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Boston : Wright and Potter Printing Co., 18, Post Office Square. 1885.