Medical Missionary Dr. Jean Isabelle Dow (25 June 1870 – 16 January 1927) was a Canadian medical missionary, who was regarded as a pioneer in women's health care for her work as a member of, and one of the only women in, the Canadian Presbyterian Church Mission in the Honan (currently referred to as Henan) province of China.

In 1891, no longer wanting to be a teacher, Dow enrolled in the University of Toronto’s Trinity College where she studied medicine.

[3] It was there that Dow was first exposed to missionaries and realized a potential interest in pursuing foreign mission work.

"[4] For thirty years, from 1895 to her death in 1927, Dow served as a surgeon and as a member of the North Honan Mission.

In the North Honan Mission, Dow maintained a varied medical practice treating everything from cataracts and wolf bites to more complicated obstetric issues.

[3] She opened similar operations in 1904 and 1913 by repurposing vacated male hospital buildings for her female patients.

While some experts argued that creating gender specific wards led to worse medical facilities for both men and women, others, such as Dow, disagreed.

[5] In a 1908 speech, Dow described one of her women's hospital as follows: "It is very humble in appearance, a row of native buildings.

Work goes on native principles, that is, that women provide their own bedding, friends to wait on them, food, etc., latterly a small fee has been charged to prevent those coming from curiosity.

Today the hospital stands in a unique position and while first of all evangelistic, its outlook and aim is also educational.”[1] One of Dow’s greatest accomplishments during her missionary career was her contributions, via clinical studies, to visceral leishmaniasis disease research.

[6] Largely unrecognized for her contributions, Margaret Griffith is one of the few to give Dow credit for her research: Dr. Dow was among the first to isolate the microscopic organism which causes the disease, and in subsequent years the Women’s Hospital entered upon a new actively as methods of treating this scourge were introduced, necessitating repeated and prolonged courses of extravenous injections.”[1]Dr. Ernest Struthers, a medical missionary who joined the North Henon Mission in 1912, describes one of Dow’s cases in the fall of 1926 where she saved a boy with visceral leishmaniasis disease.

[2] Dow received recognition from the Chinese government for her work during the Famine of 1920-21 and was credited for saving over 400 mothers and children.

Religion was incorporated into Dow’s medical missionary work, and in fact, medicine was, in some ways, a vehicle through which she was able to evangelize others.

[7] Several times during her tenure in the North Honan Mission, Dow took furloughs in order to deliver speeches in churches about her missionary work or to enroll in post graduate courses to study the latest advancements in tropical medicine.