for Women, but also continued campaigning and studying. The Medical Act (39 and 40 Vict, Ch. 41) soon followed, which was an act to repeal the previous statute, while also permitting medical authorities to license all qualified applicants whatever their gender. The first organisation to take advantage of this new legislation was the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, but before Jex-Blake applied to them, she passed the medical exams at the University of Berne, where she was awarded a medical doctorate in January 1877. Four months later, she had further success in Dublin and qualified as licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland, meaning she could at last be registered with the General Medical Council, the third registered woman doctor in the country. Medical career Jex-Blake returned to Edinburgh, where she leased a house at 4 Manor Place, and in June 1878, put up her brass plate – Edinburgh had its first woman doctor. Three months later, she opened an outpatient clinic at 73 Grove Street, Fountainbridge, where poor women could receive medical attention for a fee of a few pence. After her mother's death in 1881, Sophia Jex-Blake had a period of depressed reclusiveness. The dispensary expanded by 1885 was moved to larger premises at 6 Grove Street, where a small five-bed ward was added. The little outpatient clinic thus became the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women. This was Scotland's first hospital for women staffed entirely by women. In 1886, she established the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. Effectively a small extramural class, it was largely enabled by a small handful of profemale male physicians linked to the University of Edinburgh giving extramural classes open to men and women (which the university could not prevent). The first students included Elsie Inglis, Grace Ross Cadell, and her sister Georgina, but Jex-Blake's skill as a teacher did not match her role as a doctor. An acrimonious split emerged, with her students culminating in an infamous court case in 1889, where Jex-Blake was successfully sued for damages. Thereafter, the Cadell sisters pursued their studies with the more genial, though far younger, Elsie Inglis, who had set up a rival school, the Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women. Jex-Blake's school came to an effective end in 1892, when the University of Edinburgh began taking female students. The Elsie Inglis College continued until 1916, when it merged