The Portland daily press., 1893-12-08
DOCTOR, DENTIST, MISSIONARY.
Miss Taylor Goes to Africa with Her Uncle
to do Many Kinds of Work.

to do Many Kinds of Work.
When Bishop William Taylor sails for
Africa on the steamer Majestic tomorrow
he will be accompanied by his niece,
Miss Jennie Talyor. Bishop Taylor has
charge of the Methodist Episcopal mis-
sions in Africa, and this, his fifth visi
tation to that distant mission field. will
last two years and half.
Miss Taylor, who is about 26 years old,
has the right to place A. B.. Nj. A., M. d.,
and DID,. S., after her name, for she has
diplomas showing her to be graduate
of Dickinson College at Carlisle, Penn,
of the Woman's Medical College, in
PHILADELPHIA, and has taken special
course in dentistry in this city, doing
the pactical work at the Office of sDr.
William E. Dunn, 331 Lexington Avenue.
Miss Taylor will be the first proficient
dentist that has ever been sent out on a
missionary tour, and her trip will there
fore be unique one. She goes without
salary, the Methodist Board of Missions
merely paying her expenses. Her labors,
which will be confined to work among
the missionaries and their families will
be entirely gratuitous. The African
natives have not yet reached that state of
civilization where dental services are
deemed a requisite to their comfort.
Miss Taylor is daughter Of the Rev.
A. E. Taylor of Martinsville, Penn, her
father being younger brother of Bish
OPP Taylor. When in her "teensn Miss
Taylor made up her mind to become
medical missionary, for the need of
which there was considerable demand at
the time she determined to labor in that
field. With this end in view all her
studies were directed after leaving Dick
enson Seminary, where she received her
preparatory education. She was gradu-
ated in 1889 at Dickinson College. taking
both the degrees of A. B. and M. A., It
was securing the latter degree that en-
abled her to secure an appointment as
resident physician in the Methodist
Hospital in Philadelphia, after gradual
tion at thes.Woman's Medical College.
A provision in the endowment fund of
the Methodist Hospital at Philadelphia
is that no resident physician shall DE
appointed who has not received the M.
A. degree. Her collegiate education
made. her eligible, and she is the first
woman ever appointed hospital pnysi.
clan in Philadelphia.
1t was while serving in the Philadel-
phia hospital that an incident occurred
which made her turn her atten ton to
dentistry. Bishop Taylor had for some
years been trying to find a dentist to go
out for missionary work among the
missionaries in Africa, who have not.
been back to their homes in some cases
for a dozen yeas. Many of them have
suffered considerably for lack CT atten-
tion to their teeth. Last year il young
missionary, who was Dentist pomised
to go out and perform all the dental
work necessary. But shortly befcre the
time set for sailing he was married, and
his wife, hearing reports of an unusually
large number of deaths in the Congo dis
trict, pevailed::on him to abandon the
trip.
It was then that Miss Talyor came to
the assistance of her uncle, began study
ing dentistry, and goes abroad as the
first dental missionary, and also fully
equipped for work as a medical mission
. Bishop Taylor and his niece, who sail
for Liverpool, will leave that port on
steamer which three weeks latter will
land them at Monrovia, the capital of
Liberia. After the necessary sojourn
there the two will take steamer for
the Congo district, and in the Province
of Angola the two will pass the greater
turn trip will be made up the Congo, in
rowboats, for several hundred miles
followed by visit to mission stations
in the interior. To these latter places
the journey must be made on foot.
Native guides and carriers will escort
them to the extreme outposts Of civiliza-
ton, carrying tents, bedding, food, and
other necessaries During the two years
/ and half of their absence the Bishop
and his charge will visit about forty
mission stations. The trip will be one Of
young woman.