Dame Edith Mary Brown
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Dame Edith Brown DBE |
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| Born |
Edith Mary Brown 24 March 1864 Whitehaven, Cumbria, England, UK |
| Died | 6 December 1956 (aged 92) Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Girton College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Medical doctor and educator |
| Years active | Christian Medical College Ludhiana |
Dame Edith Mary Brown, DBE (24 March 1864 – 6 December 1956) was an English doctor and medical educator. She founded the Christian Medical College Ludhiana, the first medical training facility for women in Asia, and served as principal of the college for half a century. Brown was a pioneer in the instruction of Indian female doctors and midwives with modern western methods.
Brown was born in Whitehaven, Cumberland in 1864, the fourth of five sisters. Her father died when she was young, and the family moved to London, where her mother was born. She attended Croydon High School. Her older sister was a missionary, which led to Brown developing an interest in medicine and missionary work.
She graduated from Girton College, Cambridge, one of the first women to be admitted to the Honours Degree Examination at the University of Cambridge in 1882. After graduating she studied medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women and in Edinburgh, where she qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1891. The Baptist Missionary Society sent Brown to Bombay, where she arrived on 9 November 1891.
Brown was shocked by medical conditions in India and felt a need to educate women, particularly midwives.
"At that time by age-long tradition the orthodox Hindu woman would on no account have the services of a medical man, whether trained in modern or in the ancient systems of medicine followed in India; she was dependent for help in her confinement on the services of the superstitious dai or nurse, who was always of low caste and, from a surgical point of view, unbelievably dirty. Trained Indian women doctors or nurses were almost unknown, and throughout the peninsula only one or two women's hospitals existed."
After two years with various missions, Brown set out on her own. In January 1894, a woman in Bristol donated ₤50 (£5,135 today) to help Brown rent an old schoolhouse in Ludhiana, Punjab. She organised a Christian medical training center for women, the North India School of Medicine for Christian Women, starting with four students and four faculty.
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