Doctor Mary in Arabia

About this book

Until fairly recently, Islamic women rarely received professional health care, since few women doctors had every practiced in Arabia and their culture forbade them from consulting male doctors. Not surprisingly, Dr. Mary Bruins Allison faced an overwhelming demand when she arrived in Kuwait in 1934 as a medical missionary of the Reformed Church of America. Over the next forty years, "Dr. Mary" treated thousands of women and children, faithfully performing the duties that seemed required of her as a Christian - to heal the sick and seek converts. These memoirs record a fascinating and unusual life. Dr. Allison briefly describes her upbringing in a deeply religious family and her professional training at Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The heart of the book is devoted to her experiences in Kuwait, where women of all classes, including royalty, flocked to her care. In addition to describing many of her cases, Dr. Allison paints a richly detailed picture of life in Kuwait both before and after the discovery of oil transformed the country. Her recollections include invaluable details of women's lives in the Middle East during the early and mid-twentieth century. They add a valuable chapter to the story of modern medicine, to the largely unsuccessful efforts of the Christian church to win converts in the Middle East, and to the opportunities and limitations faced by American women of the period. . Dr. Allison also worked briefly in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and India, and she includes material on each country. The introduction by medical anthropologist Lucie Wood Saunders and physician John Clarke Saunders situates Dr. Allison's experiences in the context of Middle Eastern and medical developments of the period.