Ida Scudder
Dr. Ida of Vellore
Ida Scudder grew up in a long line of medical missionaries to India but meant to leave it behind — until, in a single night, three young high-caste wives died in childbirth rather than be treated by a male doctor. She trained in medicine, returned to Vellore, and from a one-room dispensary built a women's hospital, a travelling village clinic, and a medical school for Indian women that grew into one of Asia's foremost medical centres.
- Founded a medical school to train Indian women as doctors, joined in the effort by Lucy Peabody. wilson-dr-ida p.145
- Opened a one-room dispensary in Vellore and within two years had treated over five thousand patients. wilson-dr-ida p.97
- Built the Mary Taber Schell Memorial Hospital, a forty-bed women's hospital with a free ward for the poor alongside paying wards. wilson-dr-ida p.99
- Began 'Roadside' — a travelling dispensary that carried care to village patients across the district. wilson-dr-ida p.133
- Turned to medicine after three young high-caste wives died in childbirth in one night because custom forbade a male doctor to attend them. wilson-dr-ida p.38
- 1898Entered Cornell Medical College among the first women it admitted, to train as a doctor. wilson-dr-ida p.52
- 1910Her travelling 'Roadside' dispensary to the villages was well established. wilson-dr-ida p.133
- 1913Lucy Peabody joined her campaign for a women's medical school. wilson-dr-ida p.145
From that one-room dispensary grew what the biography calls the greatest medical centre in Asia — supported by some forty Protestant denominations, training around a thousand doctors, nurses and health workers, and treating roughly two hundred thousand people a year across the surrounding region.
- Mary Taber Schell Memorial Hospital — Vellore, Tamil Nadu still active
- Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore — Vellore, Tamil Nadu still active
“God has been very good to me.” — Ida Scudder wilson-dr-ida p.11
Even Scudder's hospital worked within the caste order of its day — its wards distinguished between paying caste patients and the free poor — a reminder of how reform advanced inside, not outside, the society it served.
wilson-dr-ida— pp. 11, 38, 52, 97, 99, 133, 145
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