The Quiver 11/1899

MOTHERHOOD.

After the Picture by Miss Ida Lovering.]

LADY DOCTORS IN HEATHEN LANDS

By the Author of "The Child Wives and Widows of India," Etc.

A garrison of snow-capped mountains; a valley smiling in Oriental luxuriance; the gorgeous, romantic loveliness described in "Lalla Rookh"—such are the general impressions of the land of Kashmir. Dirt, disease, and degradation summed up its prevailing characteristics in the eyes of an Englishman, who, in October, 1872, toiled wearily over the Pir Panjal, 11,900 feet above the level of the sea.

This was Dr. Elmslie's last journey. He hardly realised, as he dragged his weary limbs over rough but familiar paths, that one object for which he had struggled for years was practically accomplished. He sank from exhaustion on the way, and the day after his death Government granted permission for missionaries to spend the winter in the Valley of Kashmir. Still farther was he from knowing of another result of his labours. He had appealed to Englishwomen to bring the gifts of healing to suffering and secluded inmates of zenanas. Dr. Elmslie had found a direct way to the hearts of prejudiced heathen men. The sick came to him for healing, and learnt the meaning of his self-denying life.

(Photo: Elliott and Fry.)

THE LATE DR. FANNY BUTLER.

(At the time she went to India.)

"Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life," are ancient words of wisdom; but this rule has exceptions. To Hindu women, at least, caste is dearer than life. It would be as easy to restore the down to a bruised butterfly's wing as to give back self-respect, and with it all that makes life worth living, to a zenana lady who has been exposed to the gaze or touch of a man other than a near relation. Custom of the country debars a respectable woman from receiving ministry to body, soul, or mind, unless it comes from one of her own sex. Dr. Elmslie's appeal resulted in Miss Fanny Butler's offer of service to the Indian Female Normal School and Instruction Society. She was the first enrolled student of the London School of Medicine, which had just been transferred from Edinburgh, and passed second out of one hundred and twenty-three candidates, one hundred and nineteen of whom were men, in the Preliminary Arts Examination. She went to India in October, 1880, the first fully qualified medical missionary to women.

Seventeen years after Dr. Elmslie's death Dr. Fanny Butler obtained another concession for Kashmir, the permission for missionaries to live within the city of Srinagar. She saw the foundations of a new hospital for women begun within the city, and fourteen days after she also laid down what, an hour before her death, she described as a "good long life," in the service of Kashmiri people. The age of thirty-nine, she said to the friends who surrounded her, and who felt that she of all others could not be spared, was "not so very young to die," and she sent an earnest plea to the Church of England Zenana Society, the division of the old society to which she belonged, to send someone quickly to take her place. The new hospital was the gift of Mrs. Bishop (Miss Isabella Bird) in memory of her husband. She had seen the dirty crowd of suffering women at the dispensary door overpower two men, and the earliest arrivals precipitated head foremost by the rush from behind, whilst numbers were turned away in misery and disappointment.

Hospitals and dispensaries have rapidly increased since the day of pioneers. Absolute necessity has forced medical work on many missionaries in the field. The most elementary knowledge of nursing and hygiene appears miraculous to women sunk in utter ignorance. A white woman too modest to give them remedies for every ailment is usually regarded as unkind. A neglected missionary dispensary is practically unknown.

(Photo supplied by the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.)

OUTSIDE THE VERANDAH OF THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL AT TARN TARAN.

(Showing some of the patients placed out to spend the hot night in the open.)

At the time when the Countess Dufferin started her admirable scheme for providing medical aid for Indian women a well-known Anglo-Indian surgeon stated publicly that, whatever other qualification was required in a candidate, two were absolutely necessary: she must be a lady in the highest sense of the word, and she must be a Christian, and he proceeded to give good reasons for what he said. The experience of every woman who has taken up this work would bear out his sentiments. Without courtesy and ready intuition of the feelings of others it would be hard to get an entrance into zenanas, and nothing but love and devotion to her Master would enable a woman to persevere in spending her life amongst sick heathen women, in spite of sights, scenes, and vexations beyond conception in England.

(From a Photograph.)

THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT'S HOSPITAL, PESHAWUR.

The greatest difficulties are probably met in high-caste zenanas. There, in the midst of unhealthy surroundings, the friends and neighbours have grand opportunities of undoing any good that may have been accomplished. It is grievous to a medical missionary to find her fever patient dying from a douche of cold water, because the white woman has defiled her high caste by feeling her pulse. It is enough to make her give up a case in despair if, after she has explained that quiet is absolutely necessary, the friends and neighbours decide that the evil spirit supposed to be in possession must be driven out by the music of tom-toms. A Hindu man is said to "sin religiously," and a Hindu woman excels him in devotion to her creed. A fever patient in the Punjab refused to drink milk—the one thing of all others that her medical woman ordered her—because she said, if it were the last thing she swallowed, her soul would pass into the body of a cobra. One medical missionary found a woman, who was in a critical state, lying on a mat, whilst an old woman, supposed to be learned in sickness, stood on her body, or patrolled up and down like a sentinel, as far as the length would admit. This was kindly meant. Another found one suffering seriously from the effect of a linseed poultice. She had carefully explained the mysteries of making and applying it, but in her absence the patient's friends had spread dry linseed over her chest and poured boiling water over it.