“I have done all that I could” - DailyWearForMedicine.com

                                                             By Ramana Annamraju MedBricks

“I have done all that I could”

   These are the last words of Dr. Anandi Gopal Rao Joshi ( First Indian Physician in America in 1883)

While the first overhead electric wires are being deployed in Roselle, New Jersey by Thomas Edison, the new immigrant from India, barely 18  was arriving in the same town.  She was trying to get admission into medical school in the United States. The year is 1883. To give the context of that period, Thomas Edison is at his prime age, India is under British rule, Queen Victoria is at the helm. India’s famous freedom fighter Gandhi, not so famous then, still in high school. Automobiles were not even invented, Trains and horse buggies are the modes of transportation.  Johnson and Johnson just started producing, gauze band-aids for wound care. That is the period, first Hindu woman reached American shores by ship accompanied by missionaries, defying all the customs and traditions that prevailed during that era.

  Her name is Anandi Gopal Joshi, a traditional Hindu Marathi woman. She got admission into the second-ever established women’s medical college in America. It was situated in Philadelphia downtown, called "Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania",  now part of Drexel University Medical Campus.  Anandi Joshi was not afraid of wearing sarees and jewelry. She became an instant celebrity in American Press.  According to her autobiographer, feminist non-fictional writer  Caroline Dall, whom she met and corresponded frequently. Dall describes in her book, Joshi was a fluent speaker of English and non-apologetic in expressing her Indian traditions.  .  .

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Joshi is a prolific writer and speaker, way more mature for her age.  . In a series of letters to her host family in New Jersey, she describes her experience in medical school,  “ The lectures useful and interesting to every in- dividual, the subject being Practical Hygiene. It was timely and benefitted me as well as the general public. He had a large audience. The day after, my work began; I have to attend all the lectures except those on Materia Medica and Surgery, which I take up next year. I work from fifteen to sixteen hours”.

Doctors can relate to her long hours. Even subjects, she is referring to still look familiar.  Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and pharmacology.  Materia Medica is a Latin word for Pharmacology.  Dr. Joshi might have learned the medicines of those days,  still ring a bell to us, which are all plant-based, quinine, digitalis, and cocaine. Quinine is used for treating fever, digitalis is for edema, and Cocaine is for pain. Surgeries involve most cesarian sections. Cadavers and skeletons are widely used as part of the study.

   After spending three years at the school, she presented a final dissertation titled  “ obstetrics among Hindoo Woman”. It is not truly scientific but she writes with a force, that  "Ayurveda", the field of medicine practiced in India, can not be easily dismissed. She writes “  As the importance of obstetrics can be measured only by the value of life and health, and both being of paramount consequence it is deserving of most careful study.  When we realize how difficult and vast the subject is, it is not surprising to find so many great minds thoroughly absorbed in its magnitude from time immemorial.

Since our study naturally embraces the cause and effect, race, habits, climate[,] influences, and means of assisting Nature in her operations, we must not entirely overlook the history of past ages, and consider the superior minds, which labored, with marked success, in the same field of investigation, under the promptings of the same motives, as far back as 15 century B.C.  ( She is referring to Sushruta Samhita and other Vedic medical literature) They may enable us to the better appreciation of the science and pay due respect to the discoveries, theories & mode of application of remedies of minds of different nations at different times.  I, therefore, need not apologize for choosing this subject".

While embracing modern medicine, she might be referring to the most controversial subject of those times, “C sections”. Present microbiome research shows the overdone C sections can contribute to autism spectrum and other childhood diseases.

 Officially she became “Dr” Joshi in 1885 and moved to Boston’s, New England Women’s hospital to get more clinical experience.

Unfortunately, she was struck with Tuberculosis, and moved back to her hometown; Pune, India. Shortly after arriving, she died on February 26, 1887.

 

In 2015 Sarah Ross Kapit, a historian in her dissertation for Ph.D., describes the short life of Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi in glowing terms. She describes how well she struck the balance between Eastern and Western Medicines with courage and resolve against some of the prevailing views of Christian missionary agendas.

If history is any lesson, Vaccines and overall science should be free from all political and religious ideologies. We as humanity owe gratitude to this unwavering woman of past years, Dr. Anandi Rao Gopal Joshi

To celebrate the life of this remarkable Indian woman, we are releasing the T-shirt   and other merchandise on Amazon

Here is the link   Tote bag  buy on Amazon click here Buy on Amazon or click on the tote bag 

Further info visit www.DailyWearForMedicine.com

On a personal note, this T-shirt, and a Bag with patented art, are created to represent my unshakable faith in medicine and overall science.

I hope you share the same and honor your profession and inspire the next generation of physicians and other allied healthcare professionals by supporting this endeavor. It is a truly great gift to give knowledge! Shop for other products !! The US patented!