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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses A mission for medicine : Dr Ellen Farrer and India 1891-1933. Anderson, Imogen Siobhan How to cite: Anderson, Imogen Siobhan (1997) A mission for medicine : Dr Ellen Farrer and India 1891-1933., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1630/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk A MISSION FOR MEDICINE: DR ELLEN FARRER AND INDIA 1891-1933 Imogen Siobhan Anderson The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Submitted to the University of Durham for the degree of PhD July, 1997 20 NOV 1997 Abstract A Mission for Medicine: Dr Ellen Farrer and India 1891-1933. Imogen Siobhan Anderson. Submitted to the University of Durham for the degree of PhD, 1997. The history of the British in India is a tapestry already richly woven, but the life and career of Ellen Farrer is a vibrant strand of colour which adds character and texture to the general finish. The thesis is not a biography, but an attempt to visualise the reality of medical service in British India and to explore the true nature of European survival in a foreign land. Generalised and ambitious histories have depicted European life in India as a civilised enclave amid a barbarous and backward society, while the apologists of Empire have variously held up technological improvement, economic advance, educational enlightenment and western medicine as undisputed bounties of British dominion. Of all these, medicine has been regarded as a gift of inestimable value, untainted by the colonial sub-text. This thesis, therefore, seeks to scrutinise received wisdom and to share a vision of India to discover how far historical perception is reflected in individual experience. The vision is Ellen's. Her legacy of documentation resides in dusty splendour in the Angus Library at Oxford, and comprises archive boxes full of closely written engagement diaries, a collection of letters written to her sisters over the course of her sojourn in India, sundry papers and drafts of speeches, and a miscellaneous cache of correspondence. Articles provided for The Missionary Herald have also been plundered for their resource. The thesis begins with an examination of the wider picture, focusing on the emergence of medical education for women, the development and organisation of the British medical profession and colonial medical services, the history of western medicine, science and therapeutics, the birth of the medical missionary movement, Indian climate and ecology, and the British response to indigenous culture. The latter half of the thesis embodies the perspective of Ellen Farrer, and elicits a colourful sketch of life and medical practice on the boundaries of British India. The degree to which this sketch typifies the wider experience depicted in contemporary accounts and retrospective analysis is considered alongside the elucidation of life at Bhiwani. Ellen's vision, idiosyncratic and intimate, is a rare glimpse at the naked face of colonialism and a still rarer peek behind the veil of Indian society. No part of this work has previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without her prior written consent and information from it should be acknowledged. At the discretion of the librarian of the University of Durham, this thesis may, i. be made available to bona fide scholars. ii. be photocopied wholly or in part for consultation outside Durham. Contents Acknowledgements vi Table of Abbreviations vii List of Illustrations viii Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Struggle for Equal Status: Women and the Nineteenth Century Medical Profession 5 Chapter Two: Missionaries, Medicine and the Zenana in British India 22 1. The Indian Mission Field 30 2. The Zenana Missionary Societies 38 3. The Countess of Dufferin's Fund 1885-1888 59 4. The Provision of Medical Training for the Women of India 76 5. The Work of the Medical Missions 82 6. The Reality of Practice 86 Chapter Three: Tropical Medicine, Indigenous Healing and the Disease Ecology of India 105 1. Indigenous Medicine 133 Chapter Four: The First Baptist Envoy: Ellen Farrer and the Bhiwani Medical Mission 165 1. Medicine and Evangelism at the Bhiwani Medical Mission 180 2. The Development of Bhiwani Station and the Farrer Hospital 190 3. Training and Tuition for Natives at Bhiwani Mission Hospital 205 Chapter Five: Cultural Constraint and the Reality of Practice: Ellen Farrer at Bhiwani 1891-1933 221 1. Daily Life at Bhiwani Mission Station 226 2. Scorn and Superstition: Ellen's Exposure to Indigenous Culture 241 3. Purdah, Caste and the Cultural Subjugation of Women 255 4. Obstetrics, Gynaecology and the Dhai 261 5. Disease and Medicine at Bhiwani Hospital 272 Afterword 289 Bibliography 298 Glossary of Indian Terms 315 V Acknowledgements Ca I would like to express my thanks to Alan Heesom for his unfailingly patient and good humoured supervision. I would also like to acknowledge the help and encouragement of Mrs Susan Mills at the Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford, who kindly photocopied copious articles and photographs for me. I am obliged to Mr Trevor Woods at the Archaeology Department in Durham for enhancing one of these photographs for the frontispiece of the thesis. For awarding me a research studentship, I am grateful to the University of Durham. I have valued the friendship and company of Rebecca Reader, Mark Arvanigian, Tony Leopold, Jeff Neal, Karen Lucas, Wendy Palace and Clive Foster and would like to express my gratitude for their encouragement, and for making me laugh so much! Last, but most certainly not least, I am indebted to my mother and Peter for their constant support, both emotional and financial, which has always been most gratefully received and deeply appreciated. vi Table of Abbreviations AMW Association of Medical Women AMWI Association of Medical Women in India BMA British Medical Association BMS Baptist Missionary Society BZMS Baptist Zenana Missionary Society CMS Church Missionary Society IMS Indian Medical Service LMS London Missionary Society LSMW London School of Medicine for Women LSTM London School of Tropical Medicine MBBS Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery MMA Medical Mission Auxiliary NIA National Indian Association SAS Sub-Assistant Surgeon SPCK Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge SPG Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts WMS Women's Medical Service ZBMM Zenana Bible and Medical Mission vii List of Illustrations OR Dr Ellen Farrer at Bhiwani, pictured on the right Frontispiece The First Mission Hospital at Bhiwani, 1899 Page 193 The Farrer Hospital at Bhiwani, 1937 Page 196 The Medical Staff and Trainees at Bhiwani, 1923 Page 229 viii Introduction 'Fill full the mouth of famine And bid the sickness cease'.1 Small, frail, demurely poised and eminently European, Dr Ellen Farrer appears wholly unsuited to the harsh climate and taxing labour of a medical mission on the outskirts of British India. Yet this woman, who stares from her photographs through round steel framed glasses, attired in uncompromisingly English style and with her hair severely coiffured, sailed for India in 1891 with no knowledge of the language and little of what awaited her. Forty-two years later she sailed home, even more fragile, leaving a flourishing medical practice and a magnificent hospital behind her. The story of Ellen Farrer is remarkable not Only for her pioneering career, but for her personal strength and unfailing determination to serve. The purpose of this thesis is not, however, to provide a biography of Dr Farrer, although she is certainly a worthy subject, but to use her career, her life and her writing as a basis to discover the reality of medical practice in Imperial India. To that end, the thesis is divided into two parts. The first describes the context and history of medical education for women and the development of western medicine, the growth of science and the development of the colonial medical profession, the emergence of medical missionaries and the pathology of the Indian continent, and the attitude of English imperialists to their new possession. The grass roots reality of medical service in India is then viewed through the eyes of Ellen Farrer, exploring not only the practicalities of therapeutics but also the day to day survival of an English lady in an unfamiliar land. Access to such a perspective is rare, and the written legacy of Dr Farrer is every bit as precious as the hospital she founded in Bhiwani. 1From Rudyard Kipling. 'The White Man's Burden'. 1 The aim of the study is to explore aspects of experience as depicted by both contemporary writers and commentators and later by historians, and to contrast this perceived and generalised picture with the reality as revealed by Ellen Farrer. The history of women's struggle for medical education came to fruition only a decade and a half before Ellen Farrer enrolled at the London School of Medicine for Women and although her diaries do not include any reference to her time there, her speeches and articles do provide insight into the difficulties still surrounding the choice of a medical career by women.
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