First Desi Woman Graduate Student?

Currently, I am reading a fascinating book of 100, largerly autobiographical, essays by women scientists in India. Some are biographical because the women featured are no longer with us.

One of these essays, that of Anandibai, gave me the goosebumps. Traveling by herself to the U.S. in the 19th century this gutsy lady completed her medical degree. Shortly after, she succumbed to T.B. Despite the fact that she did not get a chance to use her training in medicine, her story which precedes that of the mathematics genius Ramanujan, deserves to be better known.

In Bombay from grades 3-5 we read about a bunch of illustrious folks from history. Pity no one thought to include Anandibai's story. This women's journey back then seems as improbable as a man traveling to the moon in 1960. And again, even a century later, it would have screamed to young girls with educational ambitions "yes, you can!"

Anandi Gopal Joshi (or Anandibai) (1865 - 1887)

The first Indian woman to be trained in Western system of medicine and obtain a medical degree. (Details from Wikipedia)

Joshi travelled to New York from Calcutta by ship, chaperoned by two English female acquaintances of Dr Thorborn. In New York, Carpenter received her in June 1883. Joshi wrote to the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, asking to be admitted to their medical program the first women's medical program in the world.

Joshi began her medical education at the age of 19. In America, her already declining health was worsened by the cold weather and unfamiliar diet. She contracted tuberculosis. She also submitted a thesis on "Obstetrics among the Aryan Hindoos". When she graduated with an M.D. on March 11, 1886, Queen Victoria sent a congratulatory message.