The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-16 00:00:00

A NOBLE WORK IN INDIA.

The British Medical Journal says : —"A large medical
and surgical hospital has been recently built at Jey-
pore, called The Mayo Hospital, which will be publicly
opened by the Prince of Wales driving his visit to
India. This hospital is one result of the work which
has been carried on in Rajpootana during the last nine
years by Dr. Colin Valentine, a medical missionary.
His career well illte.trates what a man in his position
may effect. In 1866 he owas the means of saving
the life of one of the queens of the Maharajah of Jey-
pore, when she had been given up by the court
physicians, He was in consequence appointed
private physician to the Maharajah, a post which
he accepted on the distinct understanding that
he should be allowed to continue his Mis-
sionary work. His connection with the court
naturally gave him great influence, and he set
on foot many plans for the amelioration Of Abe people.
Amongst these, we may mention gaol works, by which
about a thousand prisoners, who formerly did nothing
but fight and eat opium, were taught reading and useful
trades • a school of arts where skilled workmen,
brought from Madras, Delhi, and other parts of the
country, taught young men of all castes without dis-
tinction ; a library consisting of 7,000 carefully-selected
volumes, both in the native languages and in English;
a museum, a philosophical institute, in which Dr.
Valentine himself gave popular lectures on natural
science; a board of health: a medical store, where
dispensers are trained • and sixteen or seventeen
local dispensaries, which have been opened in
various parts of the country, and which are
served by native doctors, trained at the Agra
Medical College. This is, indeed, good work for a
man to have accomplish in ten years. But Dr.
Valentine has yet further plans. He is anxious to
found a medical training institute for the Urdu and
Hindi speaking provinces of India. He proposes that
the institution should be capable of affording accom-
modation to forty or fifty boarders; that it should be
presided over by an European or American medical
missionary; that it should receive pupils from all the
different mission stations, who should be trained not
merely as medical men, but also as missionaries. With
this institution it is proposed to affiliate a school for
the medical training of European and Eurasian ladies
resident in India. Both branches of the institution would
be under the same superintendence ; but the male stu-
dents will attend and graduate at the Agra College,
while the females will receive their medical education
sepasately, and within their own premises. To carry
out this scheme, Dr. Valentine estimates that £5,000
will be required. We hope that the money will be
raised without difficulty, as there can scarcely be a
difference of opinion with regard to the importance of
the nbjects in view. The proposal to found a female
medical college in particular has our cordial sympathy.
The percentage of deaths among women and children
in India is out of all proportion to the population;
and this must continue to be the case as long as the
inmates of the zenanas are left to the care of ignorant
and degraded native nurses. Whatever view may be
held as to the admission of women to the profession
in this country, there is no doubt that, so long as the
social customs of India remain as they now are, it is a
most useful work to provide for the wants of its
female population in some such way."