The Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, is one of the finest institutions built by Christian missionaries in India. It owes its small beginnings in 1918 to the indefatigable spirit of a young daughter of American missionary parents, who dedicated her life to the plight of Indian women and the fight against the bubonic plague, cholera and leprosy.
Ida Sophia Scudder was born in Ranipet, near Vellore. Her paternal grandparents had moved to India as the country's first medical missionary family. Her father John completed medical training and then set up a mission in Vellore with his wife Sophia Weld. Of the couple’s six children, Ida was the youngest and the only daughter.
In 1878, following a cholera epidemic and a severe famine, the parents decided to go to the United States for a short time. When they returned to India a few years later, they left 13-year old Ida behind under the guardianship of an aunt and uncle to complete her education.
At Northfield Seminary, in Massachusetts, Ida spent a few years in school, but had to withdraw in 1890 and return to India to care for her sick mother. Still set against a missionary life, Scudder planned to leave India as soon as possible.
That is when the death of three women in childbirth made her change her mind.
Before Ida Scudder had even decided to study medicine, she had to attend one evening to women in childbirth whose husbands refused to allow the presence of a male physician. Watching helplessly as three of the women died, Scudder committed herself to providing Indian women with medical education and care. She went on to do just that in a career spanning five decades. She realised that she wanted to carry on the work of a medical missionary, as her parents and grandparents had done.
She returned to the United States, and in 1895, enrolled in the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, completed her final year in 1899 at Cornell University Weill Medical College, and received exceptional clinical training.
Immediately after graduating, Ida set out to raise money to establish a hospital in Vellore. She left for India with Annie Hancock, a classmate from Northfield Seminary. Within a few months of her arrival, her father died. His former patients were wary of the new young woman physician, and Scudder started operating in a tiny mission bungalow with her mother as her assistant. With the money she had collected in America, she began the construction of a small hospital, which opened in 1902. For the next 22 years, she remained the hospital's only surgeon.
Scudder started training nurses for the first time in Asia. Her nursing school grew to become the first graduate school of nursing in India, affiliated to Madras University. In 1909 she started roadside dispensaries ministering to patients from the surrounding villages. For this, she travelled by train, carriage, or pony cart. She also opened a tuberculosis sanatorium.
In 1918, with the help of women of many denominations, she founded a college to train women doctors. Beginning with seventeen girls, all taught by herself, it grew into a great complex of buildings in a beautiful valley, graduating thousands of skilled, dedicated doctors. In 1923, again with the support of many denominations, she built a larger hospital in the heart of Vellore.
The work expanded to treat thousands each week, developing finally into Vellore’s Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs.
With the help of her close friend Gertrude Dodd, who provided funds from her inheritance, Dr Scudder managed to achieve her goal, and the Union Mission Medical School for Women opened in 1918. Making regular trips abroad to raise funds and support for the school, she continued as its surgeon, instructor and administrator.
In 1941 she travelled all over the United States raising money, enlisting new leadership with advanced degrees, securing the necessary upgrading of both college and hospital, now both to men as well as women.
The college and hospital grew to be among the largest in Asia. The departments kept growing to include radiation-oncology—headed by niece and namesake Dr Ida B Scudder—thoracic surgery, nephrology, leprosy surgery and rehabilitation under the world famous Dr Paul Brand, microbiology, rural work, mental health, ophthalmology, and many others recognised as firsts in India.
By 1950, the school had become affiliated with the University of Madras. Dr Scudder retired soon afterwards, having seen her school grow from a small institution to one of the best teaching hospitals in India and trained hundreds of women nurses and physicians.
Throughout her career, Dr Scudder's work brought her wide renown, in addition to numerous awards. She died in 1960 at her bungalow near Vellore, where she had spent her life helping to improve medical education.