1. Dr Jean Isabelle Dow 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 province of China.
27 Facts About Jean Dow
1. 2.
Jean Dow played an important role in treating visceral leishmaniasis disease and in creating female specific hospitals where women could be treated as first-class citizens.
3.
Jean Dow graduated from high school at the age of thirteen and went on to study at the Model School in Mount Forest to become a teacher.
4.
From 1885 to 1891, Jean Dow taught at her father's school in Fergus.
5.
In 1891, no longer wanting to be a teacher, Jean Dow enrolled in the University of Toronto's Trinity College where she studied medicine.
6.
Not wanting to practice medicine in Canada, Jean Dow chose to take her medical skills to the Canadian Presbyterian Church Mission in the Honan province of China, otherwise referred to as the North Honan Mission.
7.
In 1891, Jean Dow joined the Presbyterian Women's Foreign Missionary Society which recruited women to engage in missionary service abroad.
8.
Notably, Jean Dow critically thought about the impact of her missionary work.
9.
For thirty years, from 1895 to her death in 1927, Jean Dow served as a surgeon and as a member of the North Honan Mission.
10.
In 1895, immediately after her graduation from the University of Toronto's Trinity College, Jean Dow was appointed by the Presbyterian Women's Foreign Missionary Society to join the North Honan Mission as a medical missionary.
11.
Jean Dow arrived at the mission on September 30,1895 to take the place of the late Dr Lucinda Graham, who had died of cholera.
12.
Notably, due to cultural traditions, Jean Dow was only allowed to see female patients.
13.
Jean Dow learned Chinese and was able to converse in it fluently with her female patients.
14.
Jean Dow argued for gender separation in medical hospitals so that women's medical care could take first priority.
15.
Jean Dow opened similar operations in 1904 and 1913 by repurposing vacated male hospital buildings for her female patients.
16.
Jean Dow was adamant about treating women and men in separate facilities believing it improved the medical care for women.
17.
Dr Jean 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.
18.
Jean Dow viewed her clinical work as her way of serving God.
19.
Several times during her tenure in the North Honan Mission, Jean 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.
20.
In 1901, in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, Jean Dow left Honan China to study Tropical Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.
21.
In 1909, Jean Dow took another furlough to continue her tropical medicine studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
22.
Jean Dow was one of two women in her graduating class.
23.
Jean Dow died in China on January 16,1927, at the age of 56, after a short unknown illness.
24.
Mackay, who spoke at Jean Dow's funeral, did not mention her contributions to the medical field, but spoke about her physical beauty and her outstanding Christian character:.
25.
Jean Dow could speak but her words were always impersonal.
26.
For twenty years, Jean Dow was the only female physician and surgeon practicing in North Honan.
27.
Jean Dow was one of the first women to be admitted onto the North Honan Mission's executive committee.