Scudder family of missionaries in India

[1][better source needed] John Scudder Sr., born in Freehold Township, New Jersey, on September 3, 1793, was India's first medical missionary.

[2] He went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1819, and founded Asia's first Western medical mission in Panditeripo, Jaffna District.

[3] Scudder and his wife, Harriet, had six surviving sons and two daughters; all became medical missionaries and worked in South India.

[4] In 1836, Scudder and another clergyman began a mission in Madras to establish a printing press to publish the New Testament and tracts in the Tamil language.

[6][7][better source needed] David, influenced in boyhood to go to India by the work of John Scudder Sr., arrived in Madras on June 26, 1861.

In 1850, Henry founded a mission at Arcot for the board of the Dutch Reformed Church; the following year, he opened the Wallajapet dispensary.

Henry's publications include Liturgy of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church (Madras, 1862); The Bazaar Book, or the Vernacular Teacher's Companion (1865); Sweet Savors of Divine Truth (an 1868 catechism), and "Spiritual Teaching" (1870).

[citation needed] In 1864, his health failing in India, he returned to the United States and performed pastoral work for nearly 20 years.

[11] Jared Waterbury Scudder, born in Panditeripo in 1830, graduated from Western Reserve College in 1850 and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1855.

He published Tamil translations of Henry M. Scudder's Spiritual Teaching (Madras, 1870), Bazaar Book (1870), and History of the Arcot Mission.

[citation needed] Silas Downer Scudder (born in Ceylon on November 6, 1833) graduated from Rutgers University in 1856, studied medicine, and was licensed to practice in New York City.

[10][citation needed] Ida S. Scudder (December 9, 1870 – May 24, 1960) dedicated her life to Indian women and the fight against plague, cholera and leprosy.

[14][better source needed] After seeing famine, poverty and disease in India as a girl, Ida intended to marry and live in the U.S. following her education at a Massachusetts seminary.

Although the Reformed Church in America was originally the school's main funder, when Ida agreed to make it coeducational it obtained the support of 40 missions.

She trained in radiology before moving to Vellore for more than 30 years of service at the Christian Medical Colleges (CMC) and Hospital, founded by her aunt Ida S. Scudder.

Ida B. founded the hospital's diagnostic radiology and radiotherapy departments, and was influential in CMC's transition to coeducation and its affiliation with the University of Madras for the first two years of its M.B.

Scudder retired from surgery in 2001, and went to live and work with the Capuchin Sisters of Maua on the western slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro near the village of Sanya Juu.

[23][24][better source needed] In 1920, Galen Fisher Scudder (a graduate of Princeton University and Cornell Medical School) arrived in India.

Galen donated part of his government salary to the Ranipet hospital, where he returned in 1947 with surgical equipment and a large sterilizer.

A wing was added to the hospital for the X-ray machine, laboratory and blood bank, and four private male wards were built.