This article is the continuation of the story of Dr. Ida Scudder and her founding and development of a medical college to train women doctors in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, South India. 1,000 Years in Thy Sight was written by D.V. Scudder, the wife of Dr. Ida’s nephew, Dr. John Scudder III, who served as a missionary with her husband in Ranipet from 1929-1935. Please refer to The Scudder Journal (Vol.3 No.1, Winter 2021) for the first excerpt of Dr. Ida Scudder’s missionary service and the story of the Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital.

 

Vellore Medical School [2]

 Until 1910, medical care of the villagers was gratuitous. Then Dr. Ida [Scudder] decided that those who could do so must pay something. She started charging one anna (about two cents) for prescriptions. That meant grumbling. Also, many who could well afford to pay tried to evade while those who could little afford it paid what they had. But, in spite of the charge, patients were increasing in number every week. A larger hospital was needed and for some time Ida had been urging that she be allowed to do something about providing it. In 1911, she was given permission to raise money for four more wards. But there was so little room on the compound and only a small part of the building was strong enough to take a second story. Clearly, more land with a much larger hospital was necessary. She aimed at having one hundred and fifty beds and wanted $50,000 to build it, half of which she hoped to obtain from the Government of Madras.

  Dr. Lew [Scudder] was staunchly behind her; he gave support and encouragement. As head of the Ranipet Hospital, he approached the government on the subject of a grant. They told him they were willing to give one third of the amount, up to a maximum of 50,000 rupees*, for the buildings. That meant Dr. Ida must raise twice that amount in America. She wrote to the Secretary of the Board:

  “Please allow me to raise it and I promise I will not ask those who might give to the Board. I hope to get it all from outside. I have about two-thirds of it in view now, so I can surely get the rest from my own special friends outside the Church. I hope the Board will trust me to get it and that you will cable to India to go ahead and accept the government grant. Oh, please do make the Board to do this.”

             Her request was granted and she started formulating plans for a trip to America to raise the money. But Ida’s vision was not limited to a larger hospital. Overcrowding was only one of her reasons for wanting the new buildings. For years, she had been dreaming, planning and talking of a medical school for women, only to be told that she was too visionary, the idea was not practicable and could not be accomplished. Now, to a Scudder, nothing is impossible. Scudders welcome what is difficult; what is impossible is the measure of their achievement. Ida ran true to form—gloriously. Dr. Lillian Cook, one of her colleagues, insists that even when Dr. Ida lay down for a rare afternoon rest, instead of sleeping, she would spend the time discussing buildings, staff, curriculum and all that she hoped to accomplish. The pressing need for medical care in the villages could never be met by the few European women doctors who came to India. Indian women were accepted in Madras Medical College, but they were not welcome and their position was not happy. Dr. Ida and her colleagues not only wanted to train women doctors as practitioners, but aimed to instill in them Christian ideals of service.

  During the hot season vacation missionaries usually go to Kodaikanal in the hills. Dr. Ida took this time to present her scheme to the larger group, including those from other missions. Since the new hospital in Vellore was now assured – and no one questioned her ability to raise the money – it was agreed that the medical school should be there also and that Dr. Ida should be principal. In 1914, representatives of four South India missions** went so far as to recommend: “That a Medical School for Women be established at Vellore in connection with the Mary Taber Schell Hospital and that it be affiliated with Women’s Christian College, Madras.”

  The Surgeon General of Madras most heartily approved this undertaking. He invited Ida to visit him and his wife. He told her that there were Government funds available and urged her very strongly to apply for a large amount. Now that a Medical School was to be started, he felt that she should plan for nothing less than a three lakh*** hospital. It is hardly necessary to add that Ida at once made the application for a lakh, just twice what had originally been promised

 *    The rupee had by this time fallen to three to a dollar.
**  Baptist, Congregational, Methodist and Reformed.
*** A lakh is 100,000 rupees.

her. That meant raising twice as much at home, for the Government definitely would not give more than a third of what was to be spent. Would the Board allow her to do it? She hoped, when she got home, to be able to persuade them to grant her permission. By this time, she knew that her powers of persuasion were an important asset.

  In 1914 then, Ida, accompanied by her mother and her nephew John (who was being sent home to continue his education) sailed for America. Immediately on arrival, Ida began her campaign for the hospital and medical school. It was not an easy task, nor were the results always encouraging. People were reluctant to give to the unknown when the known was clamoring for assistance. In those war years everyone put the needs of France above all else. But Ida was undaunted. She talked and battled and worked until even her family registered a protest.

  In the meantime, the Madras government procured land for the hospital, a good-sized block close to the Vellore bazaar. The dispensary and maternity wards were to be there. For the rest (dormitories, laboratories, etc.) a two–hundred–acre tract was secured some four miles from the town. The government then asked for plans so that the building might start at once. Prices for materials had begun to soar and might make it difficult, if not impossible, to complete the work on the money set aside for the purpose. This caused Dr. Ida no little uneasiness. She was unwilling to trust her plans to the government unless she were there to see they were carried out according to her wishes. She asked Dr. Lew to hold off all decisions until her return. As he was secretary and treasurer of the Medical School Committee, he managed to delay operations until October, 1915. By then, Ida’s plans had been received and work begun on the buildings near the bazaar.

  When other Indian missions learned that money for the hospital had been raised, they offered to cooperate. At a meeting held in November, 1916, fifteen such organizations sent their representative to help draw up plans for the school. The Madras government not only gave its unqualified endorsement to the undertaking, but sent a lakh of rupees for the first buildings.

  On her return to India, Dr. Ida faced a tremendous task. As usual, she accomplished her aim by corralling not only her associates, but all other available help, inspiring them by her own energy and her own faith. As a result, the buildings were ready within the allotted time. The medical school was opened in July, 1918*, the beginning of the Indian school year. Instead of the five or six students the pessimists grudgingly allowed her, Ida had a class of seventeen selected from a hundred and fifty applicants.

   Students at the new school were to be trained as sub–assistant surgeons, with the degree of L.M.P. (Licensed Medical Practitioner), the lower of two medical degrees then given in India. Ida would have preferred to train for the higher degree of M.B.,B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) but that would entail more courses, more laboratory facilities and a larger

 *In this year also, Dr. Ida was awarded the gold Kaiser-i-Hind medal by the King-Emperor, George V, for meritorious service to his subjects. In 1941 she received the much coveted, but rarely awarded bar to wear above the medal. staff. She did not have the money for these. From then on, her dominant purpose was to raise the school to a medical college.

 Dr. Ida’s relations with her first class of medical students suggests an Indian guru and his followers. They lived and worked together, the students literally sitting at her feet, for she taught many of the courses herself, and with excellent results. One member of her class won the gold medal in anatomy as the ranking student in the Presidency. Another won similar distinction in obstetrics. Of the fourteen who finished the course and at the end of four years took the final examinations given by the Madras Medical College, every one passed, a record of 100 percent. Of the four hundred men who took the same examinations, only 20 percent passed. Ida had every reason to be proud of her girls!

  One of her early students tells of those first years in the Medical School:

   “With just one or two books and one microscope, and a few bones, it was real fun to begin the school! We used to sleep with the bones under our pillow for study. But with all these difficulties, it was Dr. Scudder’s courage and the wonderful lectures she gave that brought such good results at the beginning of the school. Weekly she used to give examinations, and unless we got 90%, back came the paper with a page full of criticisms. Each week, we used to take turns in groups of four at a time, having dinner with the family and enjoy a bit of social life. Each evening there were the basketball and badminton games in which she took part with us; and then after that, a ride for all of us in the Ford car. We used to be seated on the mudguards, bonnet and in double rows inside and the trip was usually down to the mission compound. She was more a part of us then than she can be with students now.

                         Regarding the food, she had great difficulty. She wanted to give us the best food prepared in the best way and we used to give her a lot of trouble in that line. It was something like a mother worrying over the feeding of her first child due to inexperience.

 On Sundays, after going to church, we were made to do more work at the hospital and the reason that she’d give was that it was God’s work and so it should be done on His day. Each and every patient would be seen to on that day, and each nurse’s work would be supervised. In the early days we used to have to run from patient to patient, because when she walked her steps and movements were so quick. She never liked to see us standing idle for one moment in the hospital and she was sure to make some work for us, so we remember how we used to get busy the minute we’d see her on the steps.

 Music, prayers, and especially the Bible study about Paul was a great help indeed. She was our ideal in most of our lives and we were sure to be recognized as her followers by so many of her patients when we went to work.

 Any doctor, any new treatment, any specialist never passed by Vellore without being called in to give us a lecture or a clinic. 

 Then we remember one day which was a government holiday and it happened on a Saturday too; we all planned to ask her to let us have the day off when she wanted to teach us so much! Our aim was to use the holiday for study too, but not in the classroom, but she didn’t understand that, and so she got up and walked out saying that she would have no more class. But we made up for it by sending our class president to her, and later on having a lecture and tea party! To any place of interest to which she was invited we were sure to follow her and each patient of particular interest would be shown to us without the least embarrassment to the patient.

 One thing she never liked in us was our getting sick. She was an example of one who never got sick, so it was natural, I should say.

 Her morning rounds were sometimes done before she came to the early morning class, and the night rounds were done at about 10 o’clock; then she used to work at her desk until about twelve in the night.”

  After graduation, many of the Vellore students went into mission service; some entered government service and a few in private practice. Some of the more promising were sent to England for advanced study. One of them became Dr. Ida’s assistant in gynecology and obstetrics. Later she had charge of the whole department when the “Doctor Amma” went on furlough. The assistant enjoyed every moment of the experience as a letter to Dr. Ida shows:

   “We are having a very exciting time since you left. On Monday morning I had a forceps case, evening another forceps case; the same night two ruptured uteruses came—one at 9:30 p.m. and one at 3:30 a.m. On the next morning I did a V.V.F.* operation and that morning a Caesarean for primipara after seventeen years of married life…the parents and friends were very anxious to have the child alive. It was then I wanted you here! I did the classical Caesar and the baby was alive and well. Today is the third day postoperative for the ruptured uteruses. Both women are fine. I hope and pray all three will live.”

Dr. Ida was then serving not only as principal of the medical school but she was professor of surgery and head of the hospital as well. No one woman could have stood the strain alone, Fortunately, she did not have to stand it alone. For one thing, she had her mother, ever a tower of strength to her only daughter. Also, since 1916, she had had the support of Miss Gertrude Dodd of New York City, a devoted friend and most efficient assistant.

 The two had met in 1909 when Miss Dodd, on a round-the-world tour, visited Vellore. As a member of the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church, she knew a great deal of Dr. Ida and her work, but they met for the first time in front of Ida’s bungalow, where she stood, a gracious figure in white, holding a lamp to guide the tired and dusty traveler up the steps. Miss Dodd never forgot that meeting. During her visit she followed the doctor about the hospital as she made her morning rounds, always patient with the sufferers, gentle and  *Dr. Scudder developed the VVF (operation for the repair of vesico-vaginal fistula) often referred to as the “Ida Scudder operation”.  sympathetic; and in the afternoon she watched Dr. Ida operating, skillful and sure. From then on, Miss Dodd never wavered in her loyal support of the work at Vellore.

 In 1916, Miss Dodd received an invitation from the Arcot Mission to come to India and act as their treasurer. The mission knew that she had been left a large fortune by her father, which she had administered with marked success, so felt confident of her ability to handle their funds. Miss Dodd accepted the offer, prompted, as she said, by her desire to be of particular service to Dr. Ida.

 When the medical school was founded two years later, Miss Dodd became treasurer of that also and managed its finances for over twenty years. Furthermore, she helped countless children, Indian and missionary alike, through school and college, and gave large sums for evangelism and medical projects as well. During the First World War, when the exchange rate was unfavorable and the Board hesitated to send out additional appropriations asked for (until te rupee should fall in value), Miss Dodd lent large sums to the Mission, assuming the loss in exchange rate herself.

As early as 1915, the government had urged Dr. Lew to speed the hospital building program lest the money run out before the work was completed. By 1921 their fears were realized. The money was spent. The buildings were not complete. Fortunately, the government was willing to help again. The governor of Madras, Lord Willingdon, was genuinely interested in the people and their problems and therefore in Dr. Ida’s work. The day he visited the hospital and medical school, Dr. Ida was invited to tea at the Collector’s. As soon as she arrived, the Governor asked that she be brought to his table where she was placed on his right. He showed a gratifying interest in her work and in her plans for expansion. Not long afterwards, the Madras Council voted her five lakhs of rupees towards the hospital and medical school providing she could raise an equal amount elsewhere, a gift which she attributed to Lord Willingdon’s efforts. His interest lasted long after he left Madras. Years later, when as Viceroy of India, he was visiting the south, a reception was held for him and Lady Willingdon at Government House in Madras. They requested that Dr. Ida be invited. When her turn came to greet her hosts, the reception line was held up for several minutes while they questioned her minutely about Vellore. They allowed her to pass on only when she promised that she would not leave until they could see her again.

    The grant promised by the Government made it necessary for Ida to go to America again. She waited, however, until after the first graduation exercises of the Vellore Medical School on March 24, 1922. The function followed the traditional American pattern: a procession of the principal and staff, followed by the medical students. They marched from the nurses’ quarters to a large tent which had been erected for the occasion. It was picturesque. The police band escorted the students, who walked two abreast, carrying jasmine chains, the beginnings of which were entwined among the palms and ferns on the edge of the platform, the remainder held by the students forming an aisle for the procession. A large audience filled the tent and applauded the recipients of diplomas in the most approved manner.

 

 

 Vellore Medical School graduation ceremony [3]

 

Dr. Ida delivered the address of farewell:

    “To the students with whom I have worked in such close fellowship during the past four years, I today extend my greeting and my congratulations that you have achieved that for which you set out…Today we stand on the mountain top of achievement. The seemingly unsurmountable obstacles lie below us. As we glance back four years and see that group of rather timid girls we rejoice with you as we realize that in spite of all the hard things you have overcome and the struggles you have had, you have kept on climbing and over-coming…There will probably never be a time in your lives which will hold the same meaning that today holds; the thrill of having accomplished much gives you joy, but much lies before you of work to be done…as among the mountain ranges, so in life, there are still greater heights in the distance, more stony paths to climb; and you will realize you have made only a beginning…

  You will not only be curing diseases, but will also be battling with epidemics, plagues and pestilences and preventing them. You will be teaching mothers how to nurture their children so that they will make more efficient reliable citizens to take their rightful places in their nation. The practice of medicine affords scope for the exercise of the best faculties of mind and heart…

  You must learn to be cool, collected and quiet; to have presence of mind; rapid thought and action in the most trying circumstances. You must learn to have wise judgement in moments of great peril; you must train your tempers until you have complete control, for your temper will often be taxed by exasperating patients and their friends. You must learn never to betray indecision and worry, for if you become flustered and flurried, you will lose the confidence of your patients. Practice and experience will train you to have firmness and courage.

  Do not always look for gratitude, for sometimes when you are most deserving you will get the least. Do not expect too much of your patients, do not betray surprise or be aggravated if you find they are taking medicine from half a dozen doctors.

  There will be disappointments; your pet theory will be dashed to the ground; your most painstaking laborious work, unsuccessful; there will be cares, anxieties, failures which are very common to a professional life. These are the valleys into which you descend, but stand up bravely, be true and keep on climbing. 

  Face trials with a smile, with head erect and a calm exterior. If you are fighting for the right and for a true principle, be calm and sure and keep on until you win.

  The aim of the Vellore Medical School has been (as you have realized) enthusiasm, love for your work and for the subjects you are studying, a thorough knowledge and mastery of your subjects. The future will ned even greater enthusiasm on your part, and the greater knowledge will come by living experience. 

  If you find yourself in a small hospital in some out of the way place, set yourself to work it up, study to perfect yourself whenever you have time to study. Some of the greatest names in the medical world are of those who have toiled for years in some obscure spot and by their faithfulness to small details have so perfected their knowledge that the world at large stops to listen to what they have to say.

  Never stand aloof from your colleagues. Be true to them and to yourself. Give them the experience of your best talents, and take from them what they have to give. Never have an attitude of superiority and indifference…

  We have watched you during the past four years with interest; we have rejoiced as we saw you developing, becoming stronger, more self-reliant and finer women. Your characters have been molded and deepened, your sympathies widened. You have been prepared for what lies before you…

  Have gentleness, forbearance and courtesy when dealing with the sick. May the blessing of quietness, of assurance and of wisdom which is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits be yours always.

  And last and greatest of all, may you follow always and closely in the foot-steps of the Great Physician, Christ, who went about doing good, healing the sick, outpouring His wealth of love upon a sinning, sorrowing world, encouraging, uplifting, and carrying joy wherever He went. Study to know the will of God. Make yourselves workmen that need never be ashamed.

  To those of you who will be successful in the finals, I bid you farewell as students, and extend to you the right hand of fellowship as colleagues; and in the future may we together help India to take her rightful stand among the great nations of the world. To you, my beloved students, farewell, and may God’s richest blessings be upon you one and all.”

  Immediately after Commencement, Ida left for England and America where she spoke in person and over the radio to large audiences, meeting everywhere an enthusiastic response not only in regard to funds, but also in the promise of several new doctors.

The next year she was back in India to push through her program for the new buildings needed for the ever-increasing number of patients, and to give proper teaching facilities for the medical students. She continued her roadside dispensaries which were as practical as they were unique. Every Wednesday she started out at seven o’clock in the morning, taking a group of students with her in the ambulance which had supplanted the Peugeot. The girls had been previously given a talk on hygiene, the care of children, the treatment of patients, etc., and were expected to pass on as much of this by precept and example as they could to the patients they treated. On the road to Gudiyattam, they made about eighteen stops, usually under shady trees, and scenes more of less like the following took place:

 

Roadside Clinic [4]

 A weak-looking child with a cough was brought up. Dr. Ida took out her stethoscope to listen to the chest. “Kamela,” she would call to one of the students, “come listen to this chest and tell me what you think is wrong?”

“It sounds like T.B. to me, Doctor Amma,” the girl would reply.
“It is,” said Dr. Ida, sadly. “Can anything be done for the child?”
“I don’t think so, doctor. I think it is too far advanced.”

The girl was right. But sometimes they found the disease in the incipient stage and arrangements were made for admission to Arogyavaram.*

  Another prevalent children’s affliction was scabies. The medical student gave the mother salve on a freshly plucked leaf from the tree explaining that the child must be properly bathed and kept clean. Drops for sore eyes were administered by the bottleful and the mother again urged to keep the baby’s eyes bathed.

  Guinea worm, when it existed, was apt to be present in most of the inhabitants of that village. The people either had to be operated upon to extract the worm or given injections of dichloride of mercury to kill it off. In one such village, Dr. Ida’s students had a field day, sending for samples of water from the village wells in order to show the people the little white cyclops on which the larvae grew, explaining that when any of these larvae are swallowed, they may grow into big worms within the body. They taught the villagers that if it was impossible to boil the water (it often was because of the scarcity of firewood) they must at least strain it through a cloth.

  At each place where it was announced that the doctor would stop, lepers squatted waiting for their chaulmoogra oil injections. When the doses were small, the students could administer them, but as they increased in size, they became correspondingly difficult to inject: if the doctor herself was unable to do so, the ambulance driver was called on to give the hypodermic. Some of these people had been coming for their ouci week in and week out, year after year. But they were in the minority. Of course, these injections were helpful in some cases, but the one hope for eradicating the plague lay in prevention. Most lepers did not have the patience to continue their injections, especially as it often meant the loss of half a day’s or even a whole day’s pay. Usually, such people were spreading the disease among their relatives, for there was no forced segregation. The people were so afraid of such a possibility that if a stranger entered a village, all the lepers disappeared, as if by magic, and every family denied that any lived in their household.

  Not only did the students give talks on hygiene and child care, but they gave scripture lessons illustrated with pictures. How the peopled loved pictures (pudum they called them). The children always cried for them, bringing a bunch of flowers in payment. Dr. Ida, knowing this, went along armed with old Christmas cards. The children gave shrieks of delight when she handed them out and ran off comparing pictures as they went.

  Dr. Ida ministered to her patients with a compassion born of her own dread of pain. She understood what physical pain meant. If possible, she was more anxious to prevent suffering than to heal disease. Dr. Louisa Hart used to tell the tale of how, once, Ida had a boil on her neck.

 * The Union tuberculosis sanitarium which Dr. Lewis Scudder helped to found.

 Dr. Hart was about to lance it when Ida saw her coming towards her with the scalpel. She was out of bed at once standing on the other side.

Why, Ida! What are you doing?” asked the surprised Dr. Hart.
I don’t know,” laughed Ida. “I did that without realizing what I was about.” Whereupon she lay down and allowed her boil to be lanced.

 Such understanding on her part inspired her patients with such love and gratitude that, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her medical work in India, they presented her with the funds for a clock tower for the hospital. Thousands of villagers sent in their contributions, veritable “mites”. They had sacrificed some essential in order that they might share in the gift to their beloved “Doctor Missey.” Of course, they expected a tomasha, which the ever-generous Miss Dodd provided, in the way of a feast for several thousand when they came for the formal opening of the clock tower.

  One of Dr. Ida’s constant problems was babies left on the doorstep. Sometimes the mother had died and there was no relative; occasionally the mother had not wanted her baby. In time, there were many such youngsters playing about the compound under the care of the nurses. Her mother, Mrs. John, took all of these under her wing and started a children’s home, looking after their food, their play, and later their education. At first, she rented a small house near the Mary Taber Schell Hospital and put a matron in charge. Then, in 1920, a home was built for them on the new hospital compound. Twenty-three children were moved in. Many who had once belonged to this group were by this time in Vorhees College. Some missionaries and other interested friends “adopted” one or more of these children, that is, paid for their maintenance. But Mrs. John was the real mother of them all. They called her “Nana” as her own grandchildren did. Today, many are married with homes and children of their own. They frequently return to visit Vellore and talk about “Nana” and “Dr. Ida”.

  In August, 1925, Mrs. John contracted a fever which weakened her, and although nothing organically wrong could be found, she gradually failed. She was ready to go; her life had been very full; children and grandchildren were near; Ida had celebrated a quarter of a century of her medical work in India; her mother’s mission was over and now she wanted to join her John from whom she had been separated for twenty-five years. Ida sent for the various members of the family, and on Sunday, August 30th, early in the morning, as quietly and sweetly as she had lived, Mrs. John slipped away. Sixty-four of her eighty-six years had been spent in India. The funeral was held that afternoon. As the flower-covered ambulance passed slowly up the long street to the cemetery, the entire way was lined with Hindus, Muslims, Pariahs and Christians; all of Vellore seemed to be there and all silently saluted. A vital living part of their lives had gone. In the soft glow of the twilight, hymn after hymn was sung as the grave was filled with flowers, and when the mound was piled high with the Indian flowers that she loved, not “good-bye” but “good-night” was in the hearts of all.

 Fortunately, Ida had Miss Dodd for fill the void in the home by taking over the duties of hostess and housekeeper along with those she already carried as treasurer and registrar of the medical school. More than that, she was able to protect Ida from the hundreds of petty annoyances which are the common heritage of all busy people. This left her free for her own work. And that work was expanding constantly. By 1928 all the buildings on the compound near the bazaar had been completed (or so they thought then): an administrative block, surgical, medical, maternity, ophthalmological and children’s wards, operating rooms, X-ray room and laboratories as well as living quarters for all, and rather cramped they were.

  Ida was not yet ready rest on her laurels. Each aim achieved led to new effort in other fields. The very modern hospital made it necessary to raise the medical school to college rank and give the M.B.,B.S. degree. That meant more buildings, more laboratories, a library and larger living quarters.

  The two hundred acres which the government had obtained for her four miles out of town furnished an ideal location for such a plant. Ground was broken in 1928 and plans laid for a large airy hostel on one side of the quadrangle with individual rooms where the girls might enjoy some privacy. The entire roof became a dormitory (rows and rows of beds with a covering over them to keep off dew and rain, but open on all sides for coolness.) A dining hall and common rooms were an added feature. On the other side of the quadrangle were lecture halls, a library, laboratories (and very good ones too) and an open-air auditorium. At the front were administration offices and at the back a lovely chapel* with the rounded dome under which were cut in the granite some small windows which turn a beautiful deep blue at dusk. Two houses for staff members were also built, like the rest, of granite from the foothills of the Mysore plateau (visible in the distance) strong, enduring, practical and able to weather any change of time or circumstance.

  The college buildings at “Hillsite” as Dr. Ida christened her new medical school campus, were opened officially in 1932 by Lord Stanley, then Governor of Madras. Lady Willingdon, Vicereine of India, had hoped to come down for the occasion but official duties in Delhi prevented her.

  The year before this opening, Dr. Ida’s niece, Dr. Ida Belle Scudder, known as “Dr. Ida B.” to distinguish her from Dr. Ida, came out to work at Vellore. When her Aunt went home on furlough in 1934, Dr. Ida B. took over the gynecology department.

 *The Weyerhauser chapel, a gift from that family

 

Bibliography

[1]]  Scudder, Dorothy Jealous; “Founding of Vellore Medical School”, A Thousand Years in Thy Sight: The Story of the Scudder Missionaries of India, New York: Vantage Press, (1984), 198-213.

[2]  Wilson, Dorothy Clarke; Dr. Ida; New York: McGraw Hill, (1959), 170ff.

[3]  Ibid.

[4] Ibid.