‘ 'o • 6~.'C - Jk-i-oi. , CENTERS OF COMPASSION Our Hospitals in India Price Three Cents WOMAN’S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Publication Office BOSTON, MASS. Centers of Compassion OUR HOSPITALS IN INDIA MISSION ZENANA HOSPITAL Bareilly, India O N the seventh day of January, 1870, the first two missionaries of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society landed in Bom- bay. They arrived in Bareilly some weeks later during the session of the one India Conference. One of the women was Dr. Clara Swain, the first woman medical missionary to be sent to the Orient. She was appointed to medical work in Bareilly, where her success was assured from the first. A hundred and eight patients came during their first six weeks there, and the work very soon outgrew the little dispensary started, and a hospital, the first in all southern Asia, was erected. The story of the acquisition of property for the hospital, a noble gift from a Mohammedan Prince, bitterly opposed to Christianity, reads like an “Arabian Nights” tale. Many other chapters out of the story of her life and work are of the same thrilling type. Bareilly is a city of 160,000 inhabitants, and is one of the most attractive in tl;e United Provinces. It is in the center of a rich farming district, a five hours’ ride from the foot of the Himalayas, and about midway between Calcutta and Bombay. The hospital is located in the English section, halfway between the cantonments and the native city. The building is ideal in form, being a rec- tangle enclosing a large court. There is room for fifty-two beds. It is old and quite too small effi- ciently to take care of the large work developed. Last year our doctor cared for 980 patients in the hospital and 850 outside. There were 70 maternity cases and 412 operations. Adjacent to the hospital is the dispensary, a beautiful building of six rooms, conveniently arranged for its purposes. “No doctor works here without feeling great pride in the dignity 2 this building seems to give as it stands among the trees which furnish shade to the thousands as they come and go.” The return visits to the dispensary last year numbered 39,081 and the new cases 20,271. There is a fine, large, comfortable home for the doctor and her assistants, with ample porches and facilities for protection from storm on the roof, which is used for sleeping. The new hospital building so much needed is to be provided by the Standard Bearer Thank Offer- ing next year, and named the Clara Swain Memorial Hospital. Other needs are: One doctor. One nurse. $2000 for hospital equipment. MARY WILSON SANITARIUM Tilaunia, Rajputana, India T uberculosis is alarmingly prevalent all over India. One of the most urgent matters is the checking of the spread of the disease. It seems so futile to educate our girls only to let them become victims of this deadly enemy. Every school has among its pupils those who are infected. That they might have proper conditions under which to recover, as well as to protect the other girls from infection, this sanitarium was opened in 1906, by Dr. Edna Beck, to which such girls might be sent. The plant up to the present time has consisted of very temporary buildings which have been entirely inadequate. The patients have come from all missions and from all directions, and from the most distant parts of the country. They come in increasing numbers. The institution has been one of the most successful of its kind in India. During 1917, one hundred and seventy-four dif- ferent patients were treated. One hundred and one of these were admitted during the year, the daily average being ninety-one. There were thirty deaths and fifty dismissals. 3 During that year the patients helped gather materials and build a little stone church thirty by fifty. Its walls are open arches. This is probably the only church owned by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. The institution having proven its great value, plans for an enlarged plant of permanent buildings are now being executed. When completed and equipped with sufficient helpers we will be able to care for a larger number of women and girls in approved scientific methods. Needs: One doctor. One nurse. $4000 to complete plant. $500 for beds. SIRONCHA S IRONCHA is in the southernmost district of the Central Provinces and is ninety miles from a railway. A hospital was built there in 1913 at a cost of about four thousand dollars. A man in Illinois, hearing the pathetic stories of the suffering in that great jungle region, promised the price of six fat steers for equipment and the gift amounted to about five hundred dollars. It is a great misfortune that a physician has never been sent to this hospital. The story of Miss Blanche Moore, who was a nurse there and died in 1917, is one of noble sacrifice. There is no medical aid within hundreds of miles of the station. At the time of Miss Moore’s illness a doctor was called from V'ikarabad. At the end of the railroad journey he travelled on a bicycle one hundred and twenty miles through the jungle. Sironcha is the center of evangelistic work extending eighty or ninety miles in all directions. The hospital, properly staffed, might be the center of a great work. The immediate needs are: Full equipment. A doctor. A nurse. 4 SARAH CREIGHTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL Brindaban, India B RINDABAN is situated on the Ganges River, one hundred miles from Delhi. It is one of the sacred cities and one of the wickedest cities in all India. It is a city of five thousand temples with thirty thousand inhabitants, and is wholly given over to the vile worship of Krishna. It is the mecca of thousands of pilgrims from every part of India, who come for the annual festivals. Our hospital is the only Christian institution in this stronghold of heathenism. It was built in 1910. It is a brick and cement building, constructed after the oriental style of one story with wide verandas on either side, making the rooms airy and comfortable. It has twenty-four beds in wards, an operating and a dressing room, all with cement floors but poorly equipped. The dispensary is a separate building of four rooms. The physicians and nurses' home is a com- fortable six-room bungalow near the hospital. Four years ago the doctor came home on furlough and since that time the nurse with native assistants has held the work open with an increasing number of dispensary and in-patients. A new doctor has been appointed and will arrive on the field next winter. The nurse who has stood so valiantly in this hard place beyond her furlough time now comes home. There is no one to take her place. Our work has intrenched itself at this strategic point. If we withdraw, then Christianity abandons the field, and that must not be allowed to happen. We must reinforce the position. We need: One nurse. $2000 for equipment of hospital. $300 annually for medicines. S ELLEN THOBURN COWEN HOSPITAL Kolar, India K OLAR lies in one of the principal districts of the great Hindu State of Mysore in South India, on the plateau of the Denan three thousand feet above the sea level. It has a pleasantly cool and beautiful climate. It is about eleven miles from the main railway between Ban- galore and Madras and is connected with the junction of a local railroad. Kolar is the headquarters of the civil district of the same name and is a place of great antiquity. It has a population of about ten thousand. The site of the hospital is magnificent. It faces Kolar Lake, and has the high Boulder Hills for the background. The plot of ground occupies ten acres, with a frontage of four hundred eighty feet. The municipality had the plot cleared, the low places filled, avenue trees planted, the streets put in good condition and cement drains made. It is sur- rounded by roads so that there can never be any crowding of buildings. In 1910 Dr. Margaret Lewis opened a dispensary and during the first few months treated over three thousand patients. The hospital was erected as a memorial to Mrs. Ellen Thoburn Cowen, corres- ponding secretary of Cincinnati Branch. It was finished in 1910 at a cost of $12,000 and was dedi- cated December 10 by Bishop McDowell. At the close of the service Mrs. McDowell states, “We stood on the verandas and sang the Doxology in many languages.” The hospital is a beautiful two-story building with wide arched verandas in the Mohammedan style. It is built of brick, plastered inside and out with white, and whitewashed, giving the appear- ance of white marble. The dispensary occupies one end of the building and is quite separate from the hospital, although under the same roof. The corresponding wing at the other end contains the operating and obstetrical rooms, with anesthesia, sterilizing and wash rooms attached, all furnished to meet modern require- ments for doing aseptic and surgical work. 6 There are six wards having forty-six beds, office and reception room, classroom for nurses, room for house physician, linen room and laboratory complete, the hospital proper, with four rooms for the doctors’ home and a room for European patients, a nurses’ home, servants’ house and well, complete the plant. All rooms open on to the verandas. This is our only hospital in South India. It is located in a district which for nineteen years has been annually devastated by plague. Dr. Lewis is broken in health and has been ordered home. There is therefore an emergency need for a doctor at once. An additional doctor should be appointed to adequately provide for all phases of the work, and for furloughs. We have two nurses, a new one on the field and one coming on furlough. Needs: Two doctors. $2000 for hospital equipment. $1000 for a wall. $500 annually for medicines. MRS. WILLIAM BUTLER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL Baroda Camp, India O UR medical work in Baroda was begun about twenty years ago, and the hospital building was erected in 1909-10. The city of Baroda is the capital of the Baroda Native State, and is the home of the Gaekwar, the native ruler. It has a population of one hundred thousand with about one hundred English residents. Large mili- tary quarters for native troops are located here. The hospital draws its patients from both city and surrounding villages. It ministers to both high caste and low caste. It is a handsome brick building of two stories situated in a three-acre plot of ground. In front is a lawn with beautiful flower gardens and a tennis court. There is a large garden space where all the vegetables used are grown. Running water for the hospital and grounds is supplied from a 7 well and tank. All rooms open on to verandas. The floors are cement, the ceilings high, the wood- work is white and the walls painted light green. The capacity is forty-five beds. The flat roof is used for sleeping purposes. There is no dispensary building The dispensary work is done on the back veranda and in the dressing rooms. There should be two doctors for the work, one to care for the hospital, and one to do dispensary work in the city and village. There is a training school for nurses. Our best native trained nurse died last winter during the influenza epidemic. Our doctor came home on furlough three years ago, since which time the hospital has been practically closed. The new doctor has been studying the language and is now ready to take up the work. A nurse has been appointed and will go out next winter. Bishop Robinson writes that our hospital work has assumed a decidedly useful place in the Gugcrat district. It needs: One more doctor. One more nurse. $10,000 for physicians’ and nurses’ home. (They now live in the hospital.) $1000 for an infection ward. $300 for electric lights. $800 for a sterilizer. 8