Ida Scudder

Ida Sophia Scudder was born on December 9, 1870, in Ranipet, South India, to missionary parents. Her father, John Scudder, was a physician and a missionary, and her mother was devoted to the work. Ida was the daughter and granddaughter of missionaries, and she grew up in India. As a girl she was determined that she would not follow the family calling. She had seen the hardships and the dangers, and she wanted a life of her own in America. She was a lively girl who loved a good time. At the age of fourteen, she was sent to school in the United States, and she was happy to be away from India.

In 1890, while she was a student at a seminary in Massachusetts, a letter arrived to say that her mother was ill. She returned to India to care for her. She planned to stay only a short time and then go back to the United States. During that visit, in the course of a few days, three men came to her door, one after the other. Each asked for help for his wife, who was in difficult labor. They did not want a male doctor, as the customs of their religion forbade it. She offered to ask her father, but each man refused. Each said that he would rather let his wife die than let a man see her. She sent them away, and the next day she learned that all three women had died.

The event shook her. She spent a night in prayer and concluded that God was calling her to be a doctor. She returned to the United States and entered the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and then Cornell University Medical College. She graduated in 1899, in one of the first classes of Cornell that admitted women. She went back to India in 1900 with her medical degree. In 1902, with funds from an American donor, she opened a small hospital in Vellore, a town in southern India. She started with a single room, and she saw patients in the morning and traveled to villages in the afternoon.

Her work grew steadily. She built a hospital for women and children, and in 1909 she began a nursing school. In 1918 she founded a medical school for women, the Missionary Medical College for Women, which began with a class of seventeen. She worked with a number of other missions and raised funds from overseas. She traveled around India in a bullock cart and later in a car, with a mobile clinic. She also did research into diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy and set up programs for the poor. In 1947, the college began to admit men, and it became the Christian Medical College, Vellore, which is now one of the leading medical institutions in India.

She was a strong and hardworking woman. She was warm with her patients and with her students and was also a strict administrator. She was said to be hot-tempered at times and demanding. She never married, and she gave her life to the work. She was a woman of deep faith and said that she wanted to be the instrument of the love of Christ.

She died on May 23, 1960, at the age of eighty-nine, in Kodaikanal. Thousands of people mourned her death. The hospital and college that she founded have treated millions of patients and trained thousands of doctors and nurses. Her life shows how a reluctant daughter, moved by the deaths of three women, built an institution that has served a nation.