Frances J. Baker First Women Physicians to the Orient R 692 . B3 Baker, Frances J. First women physicians to the Orient irst Women Physicians TO THE 0R1ENT / By FRANCES J. BAKER PRICE, TEN CENTS Published by Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society Methodist Episcopal Church 36 Bromfield Street, Boston, Mass. FIRST WOMEN PHYSICIANS TO THE ORIENT. By Frances J. Baker. Mrs. Sarah F. Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book , as early as 1851 used the power and prestige of her position to urge the necessity of sending young women, qualified , I as physicians, to minister to suffering women in Beginnings. heathen lands. Not more than two years had passed since the degree of M. D. had been conferred for the first time on a woman in this land, Miss Elizabeth Blackwell. The first Indian woman in this country to obtain the degree of M. D., in 1889, was Miss Susan La Flesche. The first colored woman was Miss Georgia Patton (Mrs. Washington), born a slave, and graduated from the Meharry Medical College in 1893. Miss Petra B. Toral, M. D., ! is the first Mexican missionary physician. She was graduated from the Laura Memorial Medical Missionary College of Cincinnati in 1902, and is now working in Leon, Mexico. The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania was the first college in the world regularly organized for the education of women for the medical profession, and was incorporated March 11, 1850. In 1875 the new college building was dedicated, the first in the world built expressly for the education of women in medicine. From this college many women have gone to the mission field. 6 First Women Physicians to the Orient. INDIA. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church has the honor of inaugurating woman’s medi- cal missionary work, by sending Miss Clara A. First Woman Swain, M. D., to India, in i860. She was Medical v Missionary. graduated from the Woman’s Medical College, of Pennsylvania, and sailed November 3, the same year, reaching Bareilly January 2, 1870, where she com- menced practice the following morning. The need for a hos- pital soon became urgent, and the only eligible site was some property adjoining the mission premises, owned by a Moham- medan, an opposer of Christianity’, who lived some forty miles away. Ur. Swain, with four other missionaries, decided to appeal to him, when, to their embarassment, he said, “ Take it, take it,” giving outright an estate of forty-two acres, with a large brick house, two fine old wells, trees, and a garden, worth at least $ 1 5,000. January 1, 1874, a new hospital was completed, the first for Oriental women, whose cost, including the remodelling of the house for a home and dispensary, was about S 10,000. The work grew, making such de- mands on the doctor's strength that she was obliged to come home in her seventh year and remain two years. On her return she continued in the work until March, 1885, when she received a call to Khetri, Rajpu- tana, to treat the wife of the Rajah as a physician in the palace. She was allowed to take a nurse, a cook, and any other servants needed, regardless of expense. There were seven persons besides the escort. At the railroad terminus transportation was provided by a chariot and four camels, two palanquins carried by seventeen men each, two riding horses, and, a few miles out, two elephants. There was also a I'ath, drawn by two white oxen, and there were likewise sent over First Hospital and Dispensary. First Women Physicians to the Orient. 7 two hundred men servants. The people of Rajputana, the Rajputs, were very proud, bigoted, religious Hindus, who would not allow a missionary to preach on their streets or in the bazaars, but Dr. Swain was accorded much liberty. She distributed religious books and portions of the Bible, taught Christian hymns which were sung in the palace, and opened a dispensary and a school for girls. In 1895 Dr. Swain resigned and came home to Castile, N. Y., having given twenty-seven years’ service to India. Since the beginning of medical missionary Methodists work among women, the Methodist Woman’s Medical Work. Foreign Missionary Society has sent out fifty- five physicians, twenty-two of whom are in active service. In its thirty hospitals and dispensaries, the number of patients treated during the year 1902 was 153,365. The first woman’s medical class of India, or of Asia either, was opened May 1, 1869, in Nynee Tal, under the supervision of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, of the Methodist First Woman s Mission. At the close of the season, four Medical . Cl ass _ women were examined on their two years course of study, before a board of physicians, one of them Inspector General of Hospitals for the North- west Provinces,' and were given certificates'. Their history shows that they all came to occupy responsible positions. Miss Sara C. Seward, M. D., was the first woman physician sent out by' the Presbyterian Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. She went in 1871 to Allahabad, India. Presbyterian she was the n ; ece 0 f Secretary of State Seward Pioneer Work. and sister of the Consul General, George F. Seward — -later our Minister to Peking — for whom she kept house for several years. She returned from China and was graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1871. She reached her appointment in SARA SEWARI) HOSPITAL, ALLAHABAD, INDIA. BUILT iSgi. By courtesy of Woman's Work for Woman, First l / 'omen Physicians to the Orient. 9 December, and confined her practice at first to zenanas. The following March she opened a small dispensary, and later built a new and larger one. Miss Symes, an English woman born in India, and a graduate in London of a special medical depart- ment, became associated with Dr. Seward; also a Miss Christian, who received her medical training in India. Dr. Seward died at her post, of cholera, in 1891. In 1893, or about that time, the beautiful “Sara Seward Hospital” was completed, as a fitting memorial. During the year 1901 the physicians in charge treated 26,525 patients. CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, MIRAJ, INDIA. By courtesy of Woman's Work for Woman. The Presbyterian Woman's Board employs (1904) thirty- eight women physicians, and maintains sixteen hospitals exclusively for women, besides forty-four well- equipped dispensaries, some of them equal to a small hospital. Their leper hospital at Ambala, India, is the only instance known to us of lepers under the continuous medical care of women. At Miraj, India, they have a hospital distinctly for little children. Miss Sarah F. Norris, M. D., of New Hampshire, was the first woman physician under the Woman’s Board of Missions Presbyterian Hospitals and Dispensaries. IO First Women Physicians to the Orient. of the Congregational Church. She sailed for Bombay in 1873, and carried the key that opened zenana doors through which a missionary not a physician had entered but Congregational once ; n fifteen years. The Zenana Mission of Woman s Board. an English society had prepared the way so that she was welcome in the homes of the people, rich or poor, high caste or low caste, Hindus, Moham- medans or Parsis. She gained their confidence, and in less than three months made out four hundred prescriptions. Ten thousand were treated annually at her dispensary, and more than fifteen thousand received religious instruction. When she left in 1881, they parted from her sorrowfully and begged her speedily to return. The Woman’s Board of the Congre- gational Church supports ten medical missionaries and four trained nurses and assistants. It has also an itinerating medi- cal band and three hospitals and dispensaries. The first woman physician sent out by the Baptists of America was Miss Ellen E. Mitchell, M. D. When she was thirty years old she became an army nurse in the Civil War and served three years. After teaching a few years, she entered the Women’s Medical College in New York, and graduated in 1871. She practiced medicine for some years in Fond du Lac, Wis., and in 1879, at the age of fifty years, was appointed a missionary to Moulmain, Burma. In 1888 she returned and took post-graduate work in the Medical Missionary Institute, New York. She again sailed for Burma, October 9, 1890, and remained continuously at her post in Moulmain until her death, April 4, 1901, after twenty-two years of faithful, untiring work. Much of the time she returned her salary to the treasury and depended upon her own resources. She was lovingly called “ the little doctor,” for she had greatly endeared herself to her associates, and was considered an unostentatious but marvel- Work of American Baptists. First Women Physicians to the Orient. lous worker. She used her medical knowledge as an assistance in her missionary work, and by her kindly skill recommended the religion of Jesus Christ to multitudes in Burma, as she went about doing good. She had planned to come home to be with her friends after her working days were over, but she worked until it was too late, and died in Burma. The Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society has fourteen women phy- sicians in six of its mission fields, and has sent out in all twenty women physicians. Miss Fannie Jane Butler, M. D., has the distinction of being the first fully equipped woman physician sent from England to the Orient. She was appointed to India in Church 1880 by the Church of England Zenana Mis- England. sionary Society, and first labored in Jabalpur, then in Bhagalpur, where she had charge of two dispensaries and saw several thousand patients annually. In 1S87, after a short furlough at home, she was Appointed to Kashmir, a pioneer among the women in that lovely valley. The first year five thousand patients attended her dispensary. Such was her character and that of her work that the native government consented to allow missionaries to live in Sringar, the chief city, where she secured the ground for dispensary, hospital, and home. She was emphatically a medical mission- ary, and though she dressed wounds, dispensed medicines, and performed surgical operations, she also read, prayed, and talked to the suffering ones, and directed their sin-sick souls to the Great Physician. Mrs! Isabella Bird Bishop visited her in her isolated home, and rendered financial aid in the building of a hospital. She has most graphically written of the stress that Heroic was upon the doctor, even just before her Service. death, when women pressed upon her at the dispensary door, overpowering the men sta- 1 2 First Women Physicians to the Orient. tioned outside and in, and were precipitated bodily into the consulting room. Mrs. Bishop believes that the work amid such surroundings of vile odors and insufferable heat, was done at the expense of her life, which went out on the earthly side October 26, 1889. HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, NELLORE. From Christian Missions ami Soc ; nl Progress. Miss Ida Faye, M. D.,(Mrs. Levering), was appointed by the Baptist Missionary LInion to Nellore, India, after her gradua- tion at the Pennsylvania Woman’s Medical Baptist College in 1881. During the first two years Union. she had no pl ace where she could receive patients, and rented a dispensary with a few rooms until 1886, when a new dispensary was opened. In February, 1897, there was erected the new and attractive hospital, which has an operating room, supplied with two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of instruments, and a capacity for twenty beds. From forty to fifty patients come to the dis- pensary every morning, some often on foot, from a distance of First Women Physicians to the Orient. 13 forty to sixty miles. Dr. Faye also attempted some outside practice, but found a limit to her strength, with failing health. She came home, and in 1900 pursued some post-graduate work in New York before returning in the fall of that year, to the great joy of the Telugus, among whom she worked. The hospital was planned during the Baptist Centennial Year, and had the enthusiastic support of Dr. Clough, Dr. Downie, and other missionaries. Dr. Downie superintended the building, which is no small task in a country where native workmen are apt to be both dilatory and dishonest. It is the only woman’s hospital within the bounds of the Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. Mrs. S. Satthianadhan, of Madras, was the first woman in India to enter a medical school, having been graduated in a zenana mission school. “ It is difficult for us First Woman {<-, rea lj ze ” savs Dr. Dennis, from whose Medical Student of India. account we glean this information, “ what it cost this brave young girl to face the prejudice of Indian so- cietv, and begin a course of medical study in the Madras Medical College, the first in India to open its doors to women.” She at- tained eminence as a novel- ist, and described in one of her novels herreception when she first entered the lecture hall. Her appearance was the signal for enthusiastic assembled students, who rose to their feet and cheered § r m MRS. S. SATTHIANADHAN. From C'/tr. Missions and Social Pi ogress. welcome on the part of the First Women Physicians to the Orient. her for her courage and independence in joining their ranks. Her unassuming and gentle demeanor, as well as her remark- able scholarship, won for her the respect and admiration of both teachers and students. She was obliged on account of her health to give up her chosen profession without her degree, and was married in 1S83. Her death occurred in 1894, at the age of thirty-two years. As a fitting memorial of her life, a scholarship for women has been instituted in the Madras College, and also a medal in the Madras University, to be awarded to the girl who passes the best matriculation examination in English. Both these tributes were gifts from friends. The first Hindu woman to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine in any country was Mrs. Anandabai Joshee, M. D., adequate medical aid to her countrywomen. Her husband was postmaster at Serampore, and offered no objection. From this place where, some seventy years before, the first American woman missionary — Harriet Newell, a young girl bride of eighteen years — arrived in 1812, this first Indian woman to leave her country — she, too, a young girl of eighteen years — departed to America to study medicine. Before she left, a great public meeting was held, attended by both Europeans and natives, to whom she explained her reason for wishing to undertake what she was about to do, and affirmed her deter- mination to remain true to her religion. March 1 1 , 1 886, she was graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Prof. Rachel L. Bodley, A. M., M. D., dean of the school, invited Pundita Ramabai, then in London, to attend the commencement exercises. She First Hindu Woman Physician. a high caste Brahman, born in Poona in 1865. She was married at the age of nine, and became a mother four years later. Her child died, and she decided to devote her life to bringing First Women Physicians to the Orient. 15 received a letter from Windsor Castle, written by the Queen’s private secretary, at her command, thanking her for having sent Her Majesty the account of Dr. Joshee’s Queen reception in the College, and assuring her that Recognition. the Queen had read the paper with much interest — a significant recognition by the Empress of India. In June, 1886, Dr. Joshee was appointed to the position of physician in charge of the female wards of the Albert Edward Hospital in the city of Kolhapur, but before she had entered upon the work her death occurred, February 26, 1887, the cause being tubercular disease of the lungs, which began to develop during her stay in this country. CHINA. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church also pioneered medical work among the women of China, sending out Miss Lucinda L. Pioneer* 81 Coombs, M. D., (Mrs. Strittmater), in May, Medical Work. [ 873. Miss Coombs was an orphan and de- pendent upon her own resources, but by energy, industry, tact, and unswerving faith in God, she prepared her- self by a seminary course, and then entered the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated. Dr. Coombs soon saw the necessity of a hospital to separate the patients from their homes ; the Society appropriated the sum necessary, and in November, 1875, two years after her arrival, she opened the first hospital for women in China. In the midst of the building she acquired such proficiency in the language that at an early day she was able to dispense with an interpreter. She visited patients in their homes beside heathen shrines, and sitting near their senseless idols tried to heal the body with a heart longing for their soul healing. Her minis- 1 6 First Women Physicians to the Orient. trations were attended by marked success in winning the hearts of Chinese women. After five years she was married, and removed to Kiu Kiang in Central China, then later to this country. It is interesting to note, in connection with the Methodist medical work, that Dr. Hii King Eng, (Pennsyl- vania Woman’s Medical College, 1894), now in charge of the Woolston Memorial Hospital, Foochow, China, was the first FOOCHOW HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN. girl within the Foochow Conference to have her feet unbound. Dr. Meigii Shie (Mary Stone, Michigan University, 1 S96), in charge of the Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiu Kiang; China, was the first girl in all Central China brought up by her own parents with natural feet. To the Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of the West belongs the honor of sending out the first regularly First Women Physicians to the Orient. ’7 Baptist Beginnings in China. appointed and equipped medical worker of the American Baptist Missionary Union, Miss Caroline H. Daniels, M. D., of Michigan, who went to Swatow, China, in 1879. She had previously graduated from the medical department of Wooster University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Daniels, on reach- ing her field, went to work with a will, and happily succeeded in laying good foundations; then in 1884 failing health com- pelled her return. She has been active in the work at home, encouraging and inspiring others by her zeal. The first appointee to China of the Congregational Woman’s Board was Miss Mary Ann Holbrook, M. D., in 1881. She was a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, Congregational anc j Q £ q le Medical Department of Michigan Womans Board. University. Her destination was Tung-cho, where she spent five years, establishing a dis- pensary and doing other work. In 1887, on account of failing health, she returned home, and two years later was transferred to Japan. Again, in 1896, she came to San Francisco, and in 1901 was re-appointed and entered upon the work of teaching in Kobe, Japan. The Woman’s Board of the Interior (Congregational) also sent, in 1881, Miss Virginia C. Murdock, M.D., to Kalgan, a peculiarly isolated position on the borders of Mongolia, where she has a dispen- sary, desirably located in the centre of the city. She is known as a “ downright Christian worker,” and her dispensary has proven far-reaching for good. Miss Mary Frost Niles, M. I)., Canton, China, is the first woman physician sent to China, in 1882, by the Woman’s Dr Niles of the ^' ore 'g n Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Presbyterian Church. Twenty years later, Miss Ellen C. Woman s Parsons, while on a visit among Presbyterian Boa r d - & ' . Missions, spent some time in Canton. Having Woman’s Board of the Interior. is First Women Physicians to the Orient, Dr. Niles as her escort in her search for government philan- thropic institutions in the heart of that great, throbbing, amaz- ing city, she writes: “ Proud I was of my countrywoman as I saw how every street knew her, how every' door opened before DAVID GREGG HOSPITAL. By courtesy of Woman's Work for Woman. her, and how approachable she was to everybody. Coolie, scholar, and mumbling old granny alike desired speech with her. Here people came to show their sores, there they begged her to stay r and talk the Bible.” Dr. Niles is a busy woman, and as happy as can be in her work, visiting in homes, receiv- ing office calls and lady visitors, itinerating in the country, First Women Physicians to the Orient. l 9 superintending the school for blind girls, responsible for the support of more than half of the girls, for the wages of a Christian teacher, and for house rent, superintending Sunday schools and conducting teachers’ meetings, besides giving instruction to the medical students under Dr. Mary Fulton, who has opened the first medical college for women in China. In the dispensaries she reports 1,550 new patients, 2,056 return visits and 202 minor operations. Miss Elizabeth Reifsnyder, M. D., after graduating at the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia, was sent to Shang- ... , hai in 1885 by the Woman’s Union Missionary Woman s J J J Union Society. The following year, through the Missionary munificence of Mrs. Margaret Williamson of New York, land was purchased, a hospital built and furnished, and the salary of a physician and nurse provided for for seven years, at an expense of #35,000. The hospital bears her name, and Dr. Reifsnyder was put in charge, where she still remains (1904). She has won for herself a wide reputation as a surgeon, her skill being a great boon to her patients. During these years she has received over 200,000 individual patients, many of whom have returned for repeated treatments. The hospital is called one of the greatest evan- gelizing agencies in that Chinese city. Kying Yiio Me, M. D., is the first native woman physician of China. She was early orphaned and became the ward of Dr. and Mrs. McCartee of the Presbyterian Kying Yuo Board at N ingpo, who gave her every oppor- Me, M. D. tunity for a thorough education in this country. She graduated at the head of her class from the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, in 1885. Next in rank was a Jewess, and third was a daughter of missionaries in India, but, as Dr. McCartee used to say, “ Asia led that class ! ” After some months in hospital work in New York, and post-graduate study in Philadelphia, she joined her 20 First Women Physicians to the Orient. friends, the McCartees, in Washington, where Dr. McCartee was for two years foreign secretary to the Japanese legation. Dr. Kying continued her studies at the Army Museum and Smith- sonian Institute, becoming an expert in micro-photography, then first introduced into this country for pathological and biological INTERIOR MARGARET WILLIAMSON HOSPITAL. f From Christian Missions and Social Progn ss. uses. So brilliant was her work that she was elected an honorary member of the Washington Microscopical Society. Several physicians, microscopists of Washington, in 1887 pro- nounced her photomicrographs so beautiful and so vastly superior to anything that had been done in that line, that the editor of the Medical Index requested permission to substitute one of her micrographs for an illustration already begun bv the engraver for the article on Micography. First J I 'omen Physicians to the Orient. 21 Dr. McCartee gave her instruction in music, Latin and botany, and before her return to China, in 1887, she had acquired a working knowledge of French and First Chinese German. In the fall of 1887 she went to Woman Physician. Amoy for work under the auspices of the Dutch Reform Mission Board, it being con- trary to the rules of the Presbyterian Board to send natives to their own land. She was eminently successful in charge of a hospital, and had a large paying practice outside among all classes, from Admiral and Tao Tars down, but in May, 1889, having no assistant and being overworked, she was ill with fever. Dr. McCartee had her come to them in Japan. There she gave five years to medical work under the Methodist Church South, in Kobe. In November, 1893, she married a Protestant Portuguese, Sig. Ecada de Silva, and again came to America, where they took up their residence in San Francisco. KOREA. In 1S86, the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church sent to Korea Miss Annie Ellers, a trained nurse and much beyond that, but she Presbyterian had no medical degree. A woman’s depart- Beginnings. ment was added to the hospital in Saoul, and Miss Ellers took charge of it. She was also made physician to Her Majesty the Queen. In July, 1887, she married Rev. D. A. Bunker and resigned from the hospital work, expecting it to include all medical work. The Queen would not permit this, so for nine years (seven and a half with Dr. Horton) she was called to the palace when the Queen was ill, the last time being just two weeks previous to the brutal murder ot the Queen in 1895. First Women Physicians to the Orient. The first woman physician to Korea was Miss Metta Howard, M. D., of Michigan, a graduate of the Woman's Medical College of Chicago. She was sent to Woman Seoul, the capital, by the Woman’s Foreign Physician. Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1SS7. During the first ten months PO GOO XI JO GOAN HOSPITAL, KOREA. she treated 1,137 dispensary cases. In 1S89 she opened the first hospital for women in Korea. When the King heard of it he showed his approval by sending a name — “ Po Goo Nijo Goan” (home for many sick women). It was framed and painted in the royal colors, all ready to be hung over the great gate. Dr. HowarcTmet with favor among the people, visiting professionally in the homes of officials and men of rank. In First Women Physicians to the Orient . 2 3 less than two years she treated 3,000 patients. Early in 1890 she was obliged, on account of serious illness, to return home, and after a few years she entered upon her profession in Albion, Mich, Miss Margaret J. Edmonds, a trained nurse of the Methodist Society, opened in Seoul, in 1903, a training school for nurses, the first of its kind in Korea. 1 In 1888 the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church sent Miss Lillias S. Horton, M. D., of Chi- p. cago, as their first woman physician to Korea. Presbyterian She was delicate in health, weighing about Missionary ninety-five pounds, but her fondness for study, especially the sciences, led her to enter the Young Ladies’ Seminary at Albany, and later the Woman’s Medical College, Chicago, where, after giving nine months as interne physician in the Woman’s Hospital, she received her degree. She also nursed three months in Cook County Hos- pital, Chicago, and received a special certificate of honor from the faculty of the Medical College. She reached Seoul in March, 1888, in time to take the work of Miss Ellers, who had married, and, in March, 1889, she was herself married to Rev. H. G. LTnderwood, D. D., but continues her profession. She is very efficient, and has done a prodigious amount of hospital and itinerating work, besides caring for patients in her own home. When Korea was yet a “Hermit Nation,” there was born, in 1S76, a little girl now known as Mrs. Esther Kim Pak, M. D., the first Korean woman physician. She was a Esther pupil in the first girls’ school which was opened Kim Pak, r . M jy in Seoul, and was converted in her own room. The following day she told the other girls of this new experience, and invited them to her room that evening for a prayer meeting, which was the origin of women’s prayer meetings in Korea. 24 First Women Physicians to the Orient. At the age of fourteen, because of her proficiency in English, she was chosen to act as interpreter for Dr. Rosetta Sherwood, on her arrival, who in turn taught her physi- ology, and later materia medica , the putting up of drugs, and how to care for the sick. In 1891 she was baptized, and received the name Esther. Her family was very anxious for her marriage, and in order to save her from a heathen husband her missionary friends chose a Mr. Pak, a Christian young man, and they were married by the Christian ceremony. The following year they went to Pyeng Yang, one hundred and eighty miles distant, where Esther helped Mrs. Dr. Sher- wood Hall in opening Christian work among the women and children of that wicked city. In 1895, Esther and her husband accom- panied Dr. Hall to America, and Esther esthkr kimpak. attended the public school at Liberty, N. Y., and in 1896 entered the Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore, where she received her degree, and returned to Korea in 1900. During the first ten months after she reached Pyeng Yang, of the 2,414 cases in dispensary and out-calls, more than half were treated by Dr. Pak. She is a fully accredited worker of the Methodist Woman’s Foreign Mission- ary Society. ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET. The sweet influence of this work of love has not been allowed to touch the women of Tibet, but Miss Martha Sheldon, M.D., the first missionary in Bhot, has several times Attempt to entered that land, in 1896 penetrating further Enter Tibet. than any missionary had gone before. On reaching the summit of the pass, she found > ° shrines to the gods, and some of her men added a stone and First Korean Woman Physician. First Women Physicians to the Orient. spoke the names of their gods, but with the native Christians she shouted “ Yesu Misah Kijaij!" (Victory to Jesus!) thrice repeated, thrilling two continents with her confident trumpet call from the “roof of the world.” August 8, 1895, Dr. Sheldon finished translating the Lord’s Prayer into Bhotiyan. Since then her work of translating the gospels and the hymns of the Methodist hymnal will give her historic prominence in the development of that region. Sunday schools have been organized, mass temperance meetings are held, when she invites her Nepaulese neighbors. An Ep worth League has been formed, self-support established, and medical practice introduced. The Bhotiyas treat with the Tibetans, and through them, if in no other way, the gospel will enter Tibet. THE TURKISH EMPIRE. Miss Grace N. Kimball was a missionary under the Congre- gational Woman’s Board, from 1882 until 1886, in Van, Turkey, one thousand miles west of Constanti- Dr. Grace nople. She returned to this country, and in Kimball. 1892 graduated from the Woman’s Medical College, New York Infirmary, and went back to Van, soon to face Armenia’s national tragedy. She was made superintendent of the Armenian Industrial Relief Bureau, her work and the need enlisting the financial support of the Christian Herald. Within twenty-four hours after receiving money from that source, she had hired a bakery and all things necessary, and had nine hundred pounds of dough ready for baking. The work grew until more than seven hundred were daily supplied with bread. Over nine hundred persons were employed in relief work, including the supply of wool and other material to the spinners, weavers, carders, etc. In addition. I)r. Kimball rendered the service usual to the medical mission- ary, but she was disappointed in not obtaining government 26 First Women Physicians to the Orient. Dr. Mary Pierson Eddy. sanction to practice medicine, although United States Minister Terrell labored three years in a vain effort to get her diploma vized by the Sultan. Thus, while she was the first physician to undertake to secure the liberty of practicing in Turkey, its accomplishment was soon to be accorded to another. She returned to this country, and is physician in Yassar College) besides having an office in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Miss Mary Pierson Eddy, born in Syria of missionary parentage, is the first woman physician to her native land, appointed by the Woman’s Foreign Mission- ary Society of the Presbyterian Church. She is also the first woman recognized as a medical graduate by the Turkish Government, the first- woman to receive a permit to practice medicine in the Turkish Empire. When this result was achieved, the newspapers of Germany, Austria, France and England recorded the result. On the request of Dr. Gracey, Dr. Eddy sent him for publi- cation in the Missionary Review , in 1894, an enumeration of the several steps taken, a summary of which Struggle for reveals that her six diplomas in pharmacy, Government Recognition. medicine, surgery, opthalmology, etc., were presented to the Sultan ; the Imperial Council of State authorized the repeal of the Turkish law forbidding women to practice medicine in the Empire ; and by degrees all duly qualified women are to enjoy the same rights upon the terms hitherto allowed men only. Her diplomas having been returned, she presented them to the Imperial Council of Medi- cine and was granted a colloquial examination. After taking the required oath to serve the subjects of the Empire without distinction, and of loyalty to His Imperial Majesty, Abdul Hamid II, a permit was received allowing her perfect freedom to practice anywhere in the empire, and everything was attended to in just exactly one year after her arrival in Con- First Women Physicians to the Orient. stantinople. Congratulations were received from everywhere. She. a Protestant, is the only woman who carries a firman from the Sultan of Turkey, the head of the Mohammedan Church. It enables her to call upon the officials and the military author- ities for any assistance or supplies that she may need. It entitles her to military escort whenever she desires, and in various directions gives her an importance that no other missionary possesses. THE SIAMESE PENINSULA. Miss Mary M. Bowman, M. D., is the only woman physician who has ever gone to the Siamese peninsula. After much hesi- tation the venture was made by the Woman’s Physician to Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Missionaries. Church of sending Dr. Bowman to Laos, in 1895, as a physician to her fellow missionaries. She had graduated in 1890 from the training school for nurses at Battle Creek, Mich., and then spent a year in sanitarium work in California, after which she entered Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, receiving her degree in 1894. She at once entered upon the duties of house physician in the St. Helena Sanitarium, from which place she received her appoint- ment to Laos. Her special training as a nurse, physician, and teacher of classes in massage, cooking, emergency cases, rudi- ments of surgery, and simple remedies, fitted her for training the natives in just these things. What a boon she has been to the ladies of the mission, saving more than one from coming to America! There were no other physicians for several days T journey in either direction, and there were times when she felt as if she had the responsibility of all the people of the world on her shoulders. In June, 1899, she was married to Rev. Robert Irwin, but continued her medical work. Owing to extra pressure of special cases, she herself broke down in 1902,. and started for America for a time. 2 8 First Women Physicians to the Orient. AFRICA. The pioneer woman physician of the Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society to Africa was Miss Lulu C. Woman’s Fleming, M. D., in 1S95. She graduated from Baptist Foreign Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C., in 1 88 5 , and Missionary was appointed a missionary ot the American Society. Baptist Missionary Union, in 18S7, going to Palabala station of the Congo mission, where she remained three years, returning to America in 1S91, Miss Fleming pursued a medical course, and was sent as a medical missionary on her return to the field, when she was stationed at Irebu, on the Upper Congo. Her labors were useful, and she had gained the approbation of all her missionary associates, but in 1899 she came home with broken health and died in the Samaritan Hospital, Philadelphia, June 20, 1899. JAPAN. Miss Sarah K. Cummings, M. D., of Indiana, after graduat- ing from a Homoeopathic college, entered the Woman’s Medi- cal College, Chicago, and graduated in 1883. Presbyterian She was appointed by the Woman’s Foreign Wor k- Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church to Kanazawa, Japan, in the fall of 1883. Find- ing that the practice of her profession would arouse enmity on the part of the Japanese physicians, who are well educated and equipped, she soon devoted her energies chiefly to other forms of mission service, but by the education of Miss Hishikawa in medicine, and in various other unobtrusive ways, she still made her knowledge very useful. She was married in 1884, to Rev. James B. Porter, of the same mission. In 1883, the Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Soci- ety sent Miss Florence N. Hamisfar, M. D., of Kansas, to First Women Physicians to the Orient. -9 Japan. She returned in i