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The Legacy of Hilda Lazarus Ruth Compton Brouwer or the members of the Christian community,” Brian parents on both sides had converted to Christianity in the early “F Stanley has observed, “the independence and parti- nineteenth century, her maternal grandfather abandoning his tion of India in 1947 simply accentuated the problems inherited Brahmin identity to become an ordained missionary for the from the colonial era of how to affirm and defend their London Missionary Society (LMS). Hilda was one of nine surviv- ‘Indianness.’”1 The problems to which Stanley refers also faced ing children born to Eliza and Daniel Lazarus. Her father, a mission-founded educational and medical institutions. Given a highly regarded Christian educator and author, ran the oldest deeply rooted tendency in nationalist circles to regard Christian high school in the Madras Presidency, an institution founded by institutions, as well as Christian individuals, as fundamentally the LMS and later administered by the Canadian Baptist Mission. “un-Indian,” it could not be taken for granted that such institu- After obtaining a solid education in this school, Hilda Lazarus tions would be welcome in the new India. In these circumstances, attended a local college and then, like her brothers, left “Visag” for India’s Christian medical community to have secured Dr. for professional training and a remarkable career.4 Hilda Lazarus (1890–1978), a nationally recognized medical At the University of Madras Lazarus completed a B.A. leader and a deeply committed Christian, as the first Indian to before obtaining her medical degree from the university’s coedu- head Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC), Vellore, cational Madras Medical College and winning a gold medal for was unquestionably a case of obtaining the right person at the outstanding work in midwifery. Following further training in right time. Lazarus served at CMC for only seven years, retiring the United Kingdom, she passed medical examinations in Lon- just before the beginning of its “golden years,” 1955–70.2 Yet don and Dublin. Having obtained membership in the Royal during her seven-year tenure she played a vital role in ensuring College of Surgeons and a specialization in obstetrics and gyne- the survival and future success of the institution, which remains cology, she was appointed from London to the Women’s Medical today a landmark in the town of Vellore and a center recognized Service (WMS) in India, the first Indian woman to obtain such an throughout India for compassionate medical expertise.3 This appointment. Thus began a career in government medical ser- profile provides information on Lazarus’s background and her vice that lasted from 1917 to 1947. long career with the Women’s Medical Service of the Govern- Established under the authority of the government of India, ment of India before focusing on the institutional transitions at the WMS had its origins in the National Association for Supply- Vellore that gave rise to CMC and her years of leadership there. ing Medical Aid to the Women of India, otherwise known as the The name that looms largest in CMC history is that of an Dufferin Fund. Named for the vicereine and initiated by Queen American medical missionary, Ida Sophia Scudder. Beginning Victoria in 1885, the Dufferin Fund had as its mandate the her celebrated medical work for women in 1900 in her missionary provision of medical services for Indian women and children.5 parents’ bungalow, Dr. Scudder went on to establish a women’s Proselytizing was forbidden in Dufferin-funded institutions. hospital and, in 1918, the Missionary Medical School for Women, Nevertheless, many women doctors in the WMS, Lazarus among the foundation on which CMC was built. Retiring from Vellore them, brought a strong personal Christian faith to their work and in 1946, she remained nearby until her death in 1960, a source of had close links with medical missions. counsel and practical help. Like another remarkable medical Lazarus entered the first stage of her career with the WMS by missionary connected to the Vellore story, the first full-time serving briefly at Lady Hardinge Medical College and Hospital, secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI), New Delhi. Established under government auspices in 1916 as Dr. Belle Choné Oliver, Dr. Scudder recognized the gifts that the only fully professional medical college in India concerned Hilda Lazarus could bring to the cause of Christian medical exclusively with the training of women, Lady Hardinge was education in India. When a convergence of nationalist goals and open to qualified students from all religious backgrounds. Full new professional standards led in the late 1930s to a requirement professional training was also available in some coeducational to upgrade medical schools like the one at Vellore, both women institutions, such as the one in Madras where Lazarus herself had were eager to obtain Lazarus’s services for what would be India’s studied, but other facilities in India exclusively for training first fully professional Christian medical college. Other contem- medical women, such as the Missionary Medical School for poraries in India and the West also recognized Lazarus’s gifts Women in Vellore, offered only licentiate-level instruction and and the positive impact of her brief tenure at Vellore. Yet no thus only limited professional horizons for their graduates. Lady buildings, wards, or other facilities appear to have been named Hardinge Medical College was thus unique within India, and it in her honor, even after her death, when one-third of her estate was to this institution that Lazarus returned in triumph in 1940 was left to the college. Nor has her life been the subject of a book- as its first Indian principal. Meanwhile, during the years that length work. In the absence of such a study, this brief profile will, intervened, she worked in various parts of India, superintending I hope, suggest something of the importance of her legacy. hospitals, training nurses and midwives, and taking other steps to improve the quality of medical services for women and Background and Government Medical Service children. In addition to broadening her professional horizons and areas of expertise, these years also led her to acquire facility Hilda Mary Lazarus was born on January 23, 1890, into an accom- in several new Indian languages in addition to the Telugu and plished family at Visakhapatnam, in southern India. Her grand- Sanskrit that she had learned in childhood, along with English. The years of World War II significantly advanced Lazarus’s Ruth Compton Brouwer is Professor of History at King’s University College, career. Having been made head of Lady Hardinge in 1940, she University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. She is the author of was asked just three years later to take up another new appoint- two books and many articles on women and mission. ment: chief medical officer of the WMS. At the same time, she 202 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 4 became secretary of the Countess of Dufferin Fund and assistant Licensed Medical Practitioners) rather than the degree of M.B.B.S. director-general of the women’s branch of the Indian Medical (bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery), available only through Service. In the latter position she held the rank of lieutenant- affiliation with a recognized university. For Indian nationalist colonel. Nor were these the last of the firsts in her career in modernizers anxious to make their educational and medical government medical service. Lazarus was one of just three institutions as respectably professional as those in the West, the women invited to serve on the government of India’s Health licentiate level of training was no longer acceptable. Steps to Survey and Development Committee, headed by Sir Joseph legislate more rigorous requirements for medical education be- Bhore. Its report, published in 1946, was intended to serve as a gan in the late 1930s with Indian politicians in the Madras blueprint in planning for public health and medical education for the next forty years. Though the Bhore Committee had been appointed by a government still under British control, its compo- When an opportunity came sition reflected changes to come in that two-thirds of its member- ship was Indian, including “many of the leading figures in to help secure a future for a medicine and public health in India at the time.”6 Lazarus’s fully professional Christian appointment to the Bhore Committee was thus an exceedingly important recognition of her status in the Indian medical com- medical college, she felt a munity. Her accomplishments were also recognized in several sense of vocation. government honors, among them appointment as a Companion of the British Empire (CBE). Meanwhile, in 1945 her sisters in the medical profession chose her as president of the Association of Presidency, where Scudder’s school was located. At the time the Medical Women in India. University of Madras was widely regarded as the premier uni- Given this background, it is scarcely surprising that Lazarus versity in India, so the state’s leadership in this matter was not was regarded by Oliver and Scudder and many of their col- surprising. Scudder had already been seeking funds in the United leagues in the medical missions community as the ideal person States to upgrade her school even before the Madras government to become CMC’s first Indian head. For those who did not know issued its ultimatum to licentiate-level institutions to develop her, it was perhaps less easy to see why Lazarus agreed to leave their staff and facilities to meet degree-level standards or cease the WMS a year before her retirement and, already in her late teaching.

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