Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-09-27
MISS SCHOKMANN.

Medical Inspector of the port Of Colombo,
Ceylon.]
novation is the direct %outcropping and
result of the fogyish old woman notions
Of the orient.
One of these announcement ancient
notions is that in no case must a wom-
an see or come in contact with any men
except those of her own family. The
idea of a man doctor attending a wom-
an in illness is as abhorrent to the orr
entail mind as pork to a Mohammedan.
In consequence poor little brown and
yellow women suffer untold agonies be-
cause there are no more than two or
three educated native women physicians
in any country in Asia.
For this reason missionaries are hur-
rying to their aid with all possible dis
patch lady medical graduates from
England and America. Such women
doctors are called medical missionaries,
and if ever the new woman had a
sphere cut out and waiting for her it is
in Asia.
Noninfected Asiatic ports maintain
a strict quarantine against cities in
which the bubonic plague is known to
exist. This involves a medical inspec-
ton of passengers arriving on ships
from infected ports. Colombo as a Brit
ish city with a clean bill Of health rig
idly enforces quarantine regulations.
Many passengers from plague strick-
en- ports are native women. Whether
these be steerage or first cabin travel
ers, to have them inspected by a mascu-
line doctor would subvert social insti-
buttons, destroy the foundations Of re-
ligion and, worst Of all, might start a
revolution against the British govern
ment. /.
The assistant port surgeon who in
spects and passes women travellers at
Colombo is Miss Schokmann. Great
Britain provides literally for education
in the oriental colonies. At Colombo
there is a government medical school
open to both sexes. Its system Of in
struction is thorough.
TO become a medical man or woman
full 1edged the student must take a SIX
years course of study. A four years
course entities the undergraduate to
practice MS a medical assistant. He may
not put out a shingle on his W &C
count, but he may associate himself
with a regularly graduated physician
and cure or kill all the patients he can
get There is also connected with the
institution a curse in pharmacy.
It is to the credit Of the native In
dian and Cingalese women that they
are bursting the iron bonds Of oriental
tradition and are bravely beginning to
qualify themselves for physicians, drug
gists or nurses. Girls Of half native and
half European blood take advantage of
opportunities for er '%ightenment often'r
than the downtrodden native women.
A broad division of the inhabitants
of Ceylon puts them into three classes
as to race-whites, burghers and MS
tives. The burghers are the mixed blood
descendants Of the Dutch, who held the
island till they were made to give it up
to the British in 1895. The burghefs
naturally constitute a solid and intel
ligent portion of the people Of this fear
fully mixed up island. Burgher girls
are foremost among those who go in fa
industrial and professional training.
and they are eminently successful III
what they undertake. Their ancestral
Dutch ommon sense and steadiness are
notable.
80 Z =.
Of burgher bloodis Miss Schokmala.
assistant medical inspector at Colombo
Her sturdy Dutch father, himself .
medical man, is proud Of his girl, aa4