A Zenana Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Her Assistants in Bombay

In the second half of the 19th century, women gained the freedom to pursue formal education and professional practice in medicine with the opening of medical schools such as Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.  The missionary field held great appeal for women doctors.  By 1947, over 150 graduates of Woman’s Medical College had become medical missionaries, mainly in China and India.  Careers as missionaries allowed young women graduates to work independently with an array of patients, daily adventure, reliable salaries, and the possibility of making a major impact on the well-being of those they treated by founding hospitals and medical schools.  There was a great need for women doctors, especially in the Middle East and South Asia.  Because of the custom known as ‘purdah’ [the practice of concealing women and segregating them from men], women in countries such as Kuwait and India were unable to receive proper medical care and many died during or after childbirth because of infections.  Because of purdah, women were not formally educated, and even trained midwives lacked sufficient medical knowledge to properly care for women who were ill.  All of that began to change, however, as women were formally trained as doctors, started serving as missionaries, and founded medical schools and hospitals for the people they treated overseas.

The medical missionaries not only worked in hospitals, but also set up schools to train the local women in medicine.  It was not uncommon for the local women to continue wearing their traditional dress.