Thomas A. Dooley. Examining an ill child in northern Laos. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109669).
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Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III (1927-1961)
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Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III (1927-1961), medical missionary
James Terence Fisher
Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III (17 January 1927–18 January 1961), medical missionary, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Thomas A. Dooley, Jr., a railroad executive, and Agnes Wise. Dooley was raised in a devoutly Catholic, upper middle-class Irish-American family in St. Louis. After enrolling at the University of Notre Dame in 1944, Dooley enlisted in the navy’s corpsman program and served at a naval hospital in New York. In 1946 he returned to Notre Dame and in 1948 entered St. Louis University Medical School, where he was known for impulsive acts of kindness to young hospital patients. A careless student, he was forced to repeat his final year of medical school before graduating near the bottom of his class in 1953. He reenlisted in the navy and served his residency at Camp Pendleton, California, prior to duty at the naval base in Yokusuka, Japan. In August 1954 Dooley was assigned to temporary duty on the USS ...
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Gulick, Luther Halsey (1828-1891), missionary physician and administrator
David M. Stowe
Gulick, Luther Halsey (10 June 1828–08 April 1891), missionary physician and administrator, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the eldest son of Peter Johnson Gulick and Fanny Hinckley Thomas, missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). After early years in Hawaii, Gulick was sent to the mainland for education. He graduated from Auburn Academy, New York, attended the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and on 9 March 1850 received the M.D. from New York University. While a medical student he engaged in city missionary work and began attending lectures at Union Theological Seminary. On 5 October 1851 he was ordained as a Congregational minister at Broadway Tabernacle, New York City. Two weeks later, on 29 October, he married Louisa Mitchell Lewis, who had been educated at Rutgers Seminary, New York City, had spent two winters in North Carolina teaching, and before her marriage was doing city missionary work in New York. They had seven children....
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Hepburn, James Curtis (1815-1911), medical missionary, oculist, and lexicographer
Sam Alewitz
Hepburn, James Curtis (13 March 1815–21 September 1911), medical missionary, oculist, and lexicographer, was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel Hepburn, a lawyer, and Ann Clay, the daughter of the Reverend Slator Clay. Hepburn received his early education at home and at the Milton Academy. At the age of fourteen he matriculated as a junior in Princeton College, from which he graduated in 1832. He began his medical studies with Dr. Samuel Pollack of Milton, Pennsylvania, and then attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, from which he graduated with an M.D. in 1836. In 1835 he was awarded an A.M. by Princeton College....
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Judd, Gerrit Parmele (1803-1873), physician, medical missionary, and Hawaiian government official and adviser
Lela Goodell
Judd, Gerrit Parmele (23 April 1803–12 July 1873), physician, medical missionary, and Hawaiian government official and adviser, was born in Paris, New York, the son of Elnathan Judd, Jr., a physician, and Betsey Hastings. Being the eldest son of a physician, Judd took an early interest in the medical profession and attended medical school in Fairfield, Herkimer County, where he received his M.D. in 1825. In 1826 Judd dedicated his life to the missionary cause as directed by the Boston-based Congregational American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). At this time the board was recruiting missionaries for the third company to join the Sandwich Islands Mission in Hawaii in the fall of 1827....
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McLean, Mary Hancock (1861-1930)
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Mary Hancock McLean. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine (B018336).
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McLean, Mary Hancock (1861-1930), physician and missionary
Elizabeth D. Schafer
McLean, Mary Hancock (28 February 1861–17 May 1930), physician and missionary, was born in Washington, Missouri, the daughter of Elijah McLean, a physician, and Mary Stafford. She enjoyed a privileged childhood. Her father wanted her to succeed academically; he hired a private tutor and provided Mary with an ample allowance throughout her life. At age thirteen she enrolled at Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri. In 1878 she transferred to Vassar College, from which she graduated two years later. McLean aspired to be a physician like her father and was accepted at the University of Michigan Medical School, an institution then more receptive than others to female students....
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Parker, Peter (1804-1888), medical missionary and diplomat
Amalie M. Kass
Parker, Peter (18 June 1804–10 January 1888), medical missionary and diplomat, was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, the son of Nathan Parker and Catherine Murdock, farmers. The member of a family of devout Calvinists, Parker had a series of religious experiences at the age of fourteen or fifteen that reinforced his overwhelming fear of sin but promised salvation through Jesus....
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Savage, Thomas Staughton (1804-1880), Episcopal clergyman, missionary, and physician
Donald S. Armentrout
Savage, Thomas Staughton (07 June 1804–29 December 1880), Episcopal clergyman, missionary, and physician, was born in Middletown (now Cromwell), Connecticut, the son of Josiah Savage, a ship owner and trader, and Mary Roberts. He was raised a Congregationalist in a wealthy family and attended Yale College, from which he graduated in 1825. He received his M.D. from the Yale Medical School in 1833 and then traveled extensively throughout the United States. Savage then entered the Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, from which he graduated in 1836. He was ordained deacon on 17 July 1836 and priest on 23 October 1836....
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Scudder, Ida Sophia (1870-1960), medical missionary and founder of the Vellore Medical College
Robert Stuart Jumonville
Scudder, Ida Sophia (09 December 1870–24 May 1960), medical missionary and founder of the Vellore Medical College, was born in Ranipet, India, the daughter of John Scudder II, a medical missionary, and Sophia Weld. Scudder was born into the third generation of a missionary family that would eventually boast more than one thousand years of combined service abroad....
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Scudder, John (1793-1855), first medical missionary from the United States
Gary J. Bekker
Scudder, John (03 September 1793–13 January 1855), first medical missionary from the United States, was born in Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey, the son of Joseph Scudder, a lawyer, and Maria Johnston. As a child Scudder often roamed the streets of Freehold gathering kindling for poor people. He earned a degree from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1811. In 1813 he married Harriet Waterbury; they had thirteen children, three of whom died while very young....
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Seagrave, Gordon Stifler (1897-1965), physician, missionary, and writer
Ann T. Keene
Seagrave, Gordon Stifler (18 March 1897–28 March 1965), physician, missionary, and writer, was born in Rangoon, Burma, the son of Albert Ernest Seagrave, a Baptist missionary, and Alice Haswell Vinton. After spending his early childhood in Burma, young Seagrave came to the United States at the age of twelve with his mother and three older sisters to attend preparatory school in Granville, Ohio. In 1914 he entered Denison University in Granville and three years later received an undergraduate degree in biology. Seagrave went on to the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, interrupting his education to serve in Europe with a medical unit from Hopkins during World War I....
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Swain, Clara A. (1834-1910), physician and missionary
William K. Beatty
Swain, Clara A. (18 July 1834–25 December 1910), physician and missionary, was born in Elmira, New York, the daughter of John Swain and Clarissa Seavey. When Clara was two, the family returned to their former home in Castile, New York. At the age of fifteen, Clara spent a year in Michigan, living with an aunt and teaching at a local school. She then returned to New York and graduated from the Canandaigua Seminary. For the next seven years she taught at public schools in the area....
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Underwood, Lillias Stirling Horton (1851-1921), medical missionary
Youngran Jo
Underwood, Lillias Stirling Horton (21 June 1851–29 October 1921), medical missionary, was born in Albany, New York, the daughter of James Mandeville Horton, a partner in a wholesale firm, and Matilda McPherson. When she was sixteen, Underwood moved to Chicago with her family. Both of her parents’ families included Presbyterian clergymen, and her mother, who had wanted to be a missionary, especially influenced her career choice. In Chicago, Underwood became actively engaged in philanthropic work, visiting the sick in Chicago hospitals. This experience guided her to study medicine and to become a foreign missionary. In 1887 she received an M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Chicago, which became a part of Northwestern University in 1891. She then interned at the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, and she contacted the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions to volunteer for foreign mission work. She was commissioned to Korea, which had been recently opened by treaty to the Western world....
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Van Dyck, Cornelius Van Alen (1818-1895), medical missionary and translator of the Bible into Arabic
Arthur Goldschmidt
Van Dyck, Cornelius Van Alen (13 August 1818–13 November 1895), medical missionary and translator of the Bible into Arabic, was born in Kinderhook, New York, the son of Henry L. Van Dyck, a physician, and Catherine Van Alen. He attended Kinderhook Academy and studied medicine under his father before going to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he earned his M.D. in 1839....
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Whitman, Marcus (1802-1847), medical missionary
Julie Roy Jeffrey
Whitman, Marcus (04 September 1802–29 November 1847), medical missionary, was born in Rushville, New York, the son of Beza Whitman and Alice Green. When Whitman was seven, his father died, and his mother sent him to his father’s family in Massachusetts. Although he returned home at least once, he lived in Massachusetts until he was eighteen. The five years he studied in Plainfield, Massachusetts, were particularly important, for during this period he experienced conversion and began to think about becoming a minister....
