Dr ida scudder biography of mahatma
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Scudder family of missionaries in India
Family of missionaries in India
Members of the Scudder family have worked as medical missionaries in South India.[1][better&#;source&#;needed]
First generation
[edit]John Scudder Sr., born in Freehold Township, New Jersey, on September 3, , was India's first medical missionary. He graduated from Princeton University in and the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and practiced medicine in New York City.[citation needed]
Scudder became committed to serving as a medical missionary of the American Board, and later of the Dutch Reformed Board.[2] He went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in , and founded Asia's first Western medical mission in Panditeripo, Jaffna District. Scudder served there for nineteen years as a clergyman and physician, establishing a hospital at which he was the chief physician; he was especially successful in treating cholera and yellow fever, and founded several na
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Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder (December 9, – May 24, ) will be remembered by the generations to come as the founder of the Vellore Christian Medical College (CMC) and Hopsital. Today, the CMC is the foremost medical college in Asia.
Ida was born in India as the daughter of American missionär doctors. Her father Dr. John Scudder Jr and mother Dr. Sophia worked in India with the missionaries of the Reformed Church, an American denomination. Her grandfather Dr. John Scudder Sr had also worked in India as a missionär doctor. Naturally, Ida was expected to become a missionary.
From her early childhood, Ida was trained by her parents to live beneath conditions of poverty. This was considered a practical training to live among India’s children. Gradually, she began to feel ashamed of herself for having a full course of meal, when so many kids had practically ingenting to eat.
When she grew up, Ida was sent to a seminary in Massachusetts. As there was plenty to eat
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How an American woman built one of India’s most prestigious medical schools
The story of how Ida Sophia Scudder became a doctor is as poignant as it is disquieting.
Sometime in , a late-night knock on her door in Tindivanam in present-day Tamil Nadu woke her up. There was a man standing outside, begging for help for his year-old wife, who was about to give birth. Scudder told him she was no doctor, her father was. The man’s face turned stony: tradition didn’t allow his wife to be examined by a male doctor.
That same night, two other men came by Scudder’s house seeking medical attention for young women. Both went away on hearing her reply. The next morning, Scudder learned to her distress that all three women had died.
The experience shook her profoundly. It was in that moment she decided to study medicine to help out Indian women who had little access to healthcare, especially its child brides and women living in the seclusion of zenanas.
Scudder’s work, beginning from a one-ro