Dr.Rukhmabai Raut
(November 22, 1864 - September 25, 1955),
First Indian woman to practice medicine in colonial India
Rukhmabai (or Rakhmabai) (born November 22, 1864 -
September 25, 1955), was an Indian woman who became one of the first
practicing women doctors in colonial India. She was also at the heart of
a landmark legal case which led to the enactment of the Age of Consent Act,
1891. She was married off at the age of eleven to a nineteen year old
groom Dadaji Bhikaji Raut. She however continued to live in the house of
her widowed mother Jayantibai who then married Assistant Surgeon Sakharam Arjun.
When Dadaji and his family asked Rukhmabai to move to his home, she
refused and was supported in her choice by her step-father. This led to a
long series of court cases from 1884, a major public discussion on
child marriage and on the rights of women. Rukhmabai wrote numerous
letters in the newspapers under the pseudonym A Hindu Lady,
winning the support of many and when she expressed a wish to study
medicine, a fund was created to support her travel and study in England
at the London School of Medicine. She subsequently went to England and
returned to India as a qualified physician and worked for many years in a
women's hospital in Rajkot.
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