ABSTRACT
Although significant scholarship exists on missionary hospitals in India, the focus tends to be on the nineteenth century and on British provinces. Relatively few historians have analyzed the work of medical missionaries in the princely states or medical missionaries as British power declined. David Hardiman and Biswamoy Pati are notable exceptions. This chapter focuses on three missionary groups and their hospitals in the princely state of Mysore: the French Catholic St. Martha’s in Bangalore (1886), the Wesleyan Methodist Hospitals in Mysore city and Hassan (1906) and the Church of England Zenana Mission Society (CEZMS) Hospital (1895) in Bangalore. Despite their denominational differences, the women administrators of these institutions confronted similar issues such as funding, attracting staff and carrying for patients with limited resources. One prime target for funding was the notably orthodox Hindu ruler of Mysore and his officials. By the early twentieth century all three medical institutions faced increasing difficulty in recruiting women physicians from England and retaining Indian women physicians with higher medical degrees. While their superiors in Britain lamented the lack of converts from mission hospitals, British women physicians in Mysore continued to accept new challenges such as establishing clinics to treat venereal diseases and special facilities to care for tuberculosis patients. All four hospitals remain significant institutions today.
