From Dias to Doctors: The Medicalisation of Childbirth in Colonial India

Abstract

Kipling was paying tribute to the Vicereine who established the Fund associated with her name. This was an organisation which employed medical women (or 'lady doctors') to run a chain of hospitals and dispensaries all over India and Burma. Established in 1885, the avowed aims of the Dufferin Fund were to provide medical tuition to Indian women, medical relief to Indian women, and trained female nurses and midwives for women and children in hospitals and private homes.