The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 61

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

61

comes, subscribed one thousand rupees, or about
three hundred and fifty dollars, for a hospital.
Friends at home followed, and the wonderful medi-
eal career of Dr. Anna Kugler was fairly begun.

At first the doctor had often to submit to in-
dignities from bigoted high-caste Hindus, in whose
eyes she was an out-caste. She wrote: “It is true
that it was not pleasant to be constantly reminded,
as one entered the high-caste Hindu homes, that one
was an unclean object, defiling everything one
touched. It was not pleasant to have all the bed-
clothes put on one side while one examined the
patient or to have a very ill patient taken out of
bed and brought out into the courtyard because the
doctor was too unclean to go inside. * Neither did
one enjoy stooping down and picking up the medi-
cine bottle because one was too unclean to take it
directly from the hand of a Brahman. But it was
all in the way of opening up the path for those who
came later.” In these homes she is now honored.

When she went to America for her first fur-
lough, she had already won her way so far that the
people of every class expressed their deep apprecia-
tion of what she had done, and when she returned,
three rich men of Guntur gave a hundred rupees
apiece for the new hospital property. But it was
hard in those days to get money for a hospital for
women. Dr. Kugler was determined that the In-
dians themselves should do a part; so she toured
among the villages, treating the people’s ailments
and gathering money. Little by little the hospital
became a reality. First a fine site was bought, then
the dispensary was built, then the hospital. itself.
All the time she was continuing her deep interest in
the schools and in other mission-work, for her sym-
pathy was as broad as the need of the people.» After
a time a nurse came from America. Then another
American doctor was sent out. After fifteen long
years of struggle she had “the finest mission hos-
pital in all South India,” with a children’s ward,
maternity block, chapel, nurses’ home, and dis-
pensary. In four years the patients treated in the
dispensary numbered 100,779. Nearly eight thou-
sand operations were performed, and over fifteen
hundred children were born in the hospital.

Two typical instances of the influence of
Dr. Kugler were recently told by Mrs. McCauley,
one of her fellow-missionaries. :

In a second-class railway carriage on the train
from Guntur to Bezwada sit a Brahman gentleman
and his wife and a missionary lady, all traveling by
night mail to Bezwada. After a little friendly in-

quiry the Brahman gentleman tells the missionary
the story of his recent visit to Guntur: —

“Yes, madam, my wife and I have been staying
here in Guntur for the past month in order that my
wife might have treatment at Kugler’s hospital.
My wife has not been well for a long time, and
I have spent much on native doctors, all to no avail.
Finally a friend of mine in our town in the Kistna
district urged me to bring her here to Dr. Kugler
for treatment, and I am glad to tell you that to-day
she is going home well. Yes, Dr. Kugler is a god-
dess, madam, no ordinary woman. We think she
must be an incarnation of Lakshmi [Goddess of
Healing]. Otherwise, how could she do all the
wonderful things she does? I am quite powerless
to express my gratitude to her for all the pains she
took to cure my wife.

“Yes, she told my wife much about Jesus Christ,
whom she seems to love very much. When I was
a student in college, I, too, learned about Jesus
Christ, but I did not know before I met Dr. Kugler
that any one could be so self-sacrificing for the sake
of any god. Why, madam, she used to get up any
time in the night and come to my wife’s bedside to
see how she was, and she herself came every Sunday
afternoon and talked to my wife about Jesus Christ
and how He could heal her if she sought Him.
Well, I intend to try to follow Him more myself
after this; for I have seen how He can send a
woman out to this country from far-away America
to give her life and all she is to help the women of
this country, just because she loves Jesus Christ.”

The scene changes. This time a poor Sudra
woman is just leaving the hospital with her little
eight-year-old girl, who had been badly gored by an
angry buffalo. The child’s face was torn partly off
by the buffalo, and the whole cheek had been skil-
fully sewed up by Dr. Kugler; and now, after
several weeks, the mother is starting out to return
with her little girl, who is entirely healed, to her
village some thirty miles away. The poor mother,
after presenting some fruit anda couple of rupees,
as her offering to the hospital, falls at Dr. Kugler’s
feet, with her hands clasped, and says: “O, Amma,
what are these small gifts compared with all I owe
you! I am a poor worm. You are a great and
powerful mother. You have had compassion on
me and have healed my child. She would have died
but for you. Even had she lived, she would have
been terribly deformed, and I should never have
found a husband for her. Now she is going out
with only a slight scar. This is all due to your