Hospital and Dispensary, Nellore, South India 
 
The Nellore Hospital 
 
 Dr. Lena A. Benjamin 
 
 B EC.AUSE of the vast ignorance and superstition of the people of India in regard 
 to the science of medicine and because of the peculiar social conditions, the 
 women are in very special need of medical help, such as we of the West can 
 give them. The doctors are doctors, not because of training, but by heredity, 
 and have most peculiar and erroneous ideas regarding anatomy, physiology, hygiene and 
 therapeutics. Such diseases as cholera and smallpox are attributed to the influence of 
 certain goddesses instead of being the work of specific germs as has been definitely 
 proved. Of course with such an idea as to the cause of the disease, the natural way to 
 try to stop an epidemic is by propitiating the goddess And thus they spend their time 
 and money on processions, lights, music, flowers and offerings, making no attempt to 
 disinfect or isolate the cases. 
 
 Crude drugs, such as mercury, opium, croton oil, etc., are employed freely and in 
 very large doses, so that many a patient dies of poisoning rather than of disease. 
 
 Burning with a hot iron or a lighted cigar is a favorite method of treatment, espe- 
 cially of convulsions due to any cause. Most of the babies of the land bear scars on 
 their foreheads and over their abdomens, where they have been burned at birth to 
 prevent convulsions. 
 
 Many diseases are supposed to be due to demon possession, and the demon is exor- 
 cised by many ceremonies, concluding with a severe beating of the patient, which not 
 he, but the demon within, is supposed to feel. 
 
 Perhaps the child wives of India suffer most of all. Many girls are mothers at 
 twelve and sometimes younger. And these little, undeveloped children at such a time 
 are in the hands and at the mercy of the native midwives, who are the most ignorant of 
 women. Like the doctors, they know absolutely nothing of their work. They are not 
 only ignorant, but dirty and superstitious to the last degree. The things they do are too 
 terrible to tell. The wonder is that any survive their ministrations. 
 
 It was because of such conditions that it occurred to some of our women that a hos- 
 pital for these suffering sisters would be a suitable gift to celebrate the Centenary of 
 Missions. And so the hospital was planned in 1894, the land procured in Nellore and 
 building operations begun in 1895, and the present buildings were finished and the 
 hospital was opened in 1896. Dr. Ida Levering and her sister. Miss Mary Faye, who 
 were already well beloved in Nellore, were in charge. They carried on the work most 
 successfully for about three years, when they both came home on furlough. When 
 
they returned to India they went to anotlier station. After they left Nellore, tlie liospital 
 was closed for a few months because of no one to do the work. Then Dr. Caroline Coates 
 went out, and she and Miss Lillian Wagner worked together for some time. In 1901, 
 Dr. Coates, finding the work too heavy while still studying the language, was transferred 
 to Ramapatnam ; Miss Wagner went to Hanumakonda to work with Dr. Timpany, and 
 the hospital at Nellore was again closed, and no regular work was done until July, 1904, 
 when it was begun again by Dr. Lena A. Benjamin and Miss Katherine Gerow. Since 
 that time, it has gone steadily on. Miss Annie Magilton and Dr. Anna Degenring being 
 on the field ready to take over the work when the others came home on furlough. Both 
 Dr. Levering and Dr. Coates did a beautiful work and their names are still frequently 
 on the lips of many, even of the caste women of Nellore. 
 
 The original buildings were only intended as a beginning of what would be required 
 if the work prospered. They are already insufficient. The main building contains 
 altogether but six rooms, tw'O upstairs and four below. Of these rooms, one is the 
 operating-room and another the office. That leaves but four rooms. There is also a 
 small detached building, making five rooms in all. None of these rooms are large 
 enough for more than four beds and part of them will hold but three. If we put a fourth 
 patient in we have to put her on a mat on the floor. Sometimes we put from one to four 
 beds in the office. Nearly always, except during the rains, we have three or more beds 
 on the veranda. Sometimes we have had to keep a patient in the operating-room. 
 
 There is no place which can be used as a laboratory. There is no storeroom at all. 
 There is no place which can be set aside and kept ready for labor cases aside from the 
 operating-room, which is too small for its original purpose, let alone being made to serve 
 a double one. 
 
 Thus we need ( i) two wards, one for general and one for obstetrical patients. The 
 present rooms will be utilized for private and European patients. (2) A new operating- 
 room, the present one being used for sterilizing, etc. (3) A number of small rooms for 
 laboratory, labor-room, storeroom, etc. (4) A small separate building for an isolation 
 ward. 
 
 The dispensary building also is insufficient. The waiting-room is very small. Dur- 
 ing the busy part of the year it will not hold one-half of the patients. There is no room 
 but the compounding-room for the patients to go to for their medicines. Consequently 
 there is great noise and confusion, and it is difficult for the medicines to be put up or 
 given out correctly. We have no dressing-room but the back veranda, where abscesses 
 are opened, teeth pulled, ulcers and wounds dressed, ears syringed, etc. The publicity, 
 as well as the small space it affords, makes it very inconvenient. 
 
 So we need here (i) a new waiting-room, using the old one for the patients to go to 
 
for their medicines, avoiding their entering the compounding-room. (2) A new consult- 
 ing-room, taking the present one for a dressing-room. (3) The small bathroom back 
 of the compounding-room enlarged for a stockroom, the present small stockroom becom- 
 ing a bathroom. 
 
 We also need new buildings for the nurses, as the present ones are altogether insuffi- 
 cient and are, moreover, in a very dilapidated condition. The wall in front of the com- 
 pound should be extended all the way round to keep out pigs, donkeys and cattle, not to 
 mention the too much interested friends of the patients. 
 
 We rejoice at the generosity of the Baptist women this last year, which has made 
 possible part of these improvements. 
 
 There is urgent need along another line, — that is for another physician. Because 
 of the heavy work and the great responsibility, no one doctor should be compelled to 
 carry it alone. In a recent year, we had nearly eighteen thousand dispensary cases and 
 about one thousand outside visits besides the in-patients. What doctor at home has that 
 amount of work? Then there are operations and other difficult cases where it is practi- 
 cally an impossibility for one to do the work. Were there always two on the field, 
 branch dispensaries in neighboring villages could be carried on with great advantage. 
 
 Besides the actual medical work, there are native Christian girls to be trained as 
 nurses and midwives, and that, too, with almost nothing in the way of text-books in their 
 own language as an aid. This is a very important work, for these girls later on may 
 become a great blessing to their own country-women both in ministering to them physi- 
 cally and spiritually. The preparation of text-books, after one has sufficient command 
 of the language, is another important phase of our work. 
 
 Are there not Christian young women physicians in the home land to whom this 
 work will appeal? Nellore is not the only place in the Telugu field that needs you. 
 Even now there are two hospitals closed because there are no physicians. Where in 
 America can you make your lives count for so much ? 
 
 I have written only of the physical side of the work, but let no one think that is the 
 only side or even the most important. There is every opportunity for presenting the 
 gospel to those whom we serve, and because of our medical skill we enter many homes 
 where others cannot go. Pray that all engaged in this kind of woik may have the ever 
 present help of Christ and a special enduement of the Holy Spirit, that His name may 
 be honored and that He may be glorified among the people. 
 
 Price 2 cents 
 
 Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society 
 
 Ford Building, Boston, Mass- 
 
 20 cents a dozen