FAMOUS WOMAN DOCTOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21414, 11 February 1933, Page 18

FAMOUS WOMAN DOCTOR

WORK AMONG LEPERS DEATH RECENTLY ANNOUNCED The death was reported recently from Pichpali, the Leper Hospital settlement outside Nizamabad, of Dr. Isobel Kerr, the Scottish medical missionary, who made this famous institution the most prominent centre in South India for the treatment of leprosy and for training in diagnosis and treatment. Since Sir Leonard Rogers, at the Leper Research Centre at Calcutta, discovered the way to remedy and, in early casos, to cure leprosy by the injection of the essential principle of chaulmoogra oil, Dr. Kerr, working in ciose co-operation with Dr. Ernest Muir, Sir Leonard Roger's, successor, probably did more than any other person to demonstrate the immense value of the discovery and to prove that, in her own words, "no child need grow up a leper." Dr. Kerr was born at Fochabers-on Spey in 1875. She graduated M.B. and Ch.B. at Aberdeen in 1903. and went to India with her husband, the Rev. George M. Kerr, who is superintendent of the Wesleyan Mission station at Nizamabad. She had charge for 12 years of the mission hospital there until the foundation of the Dichpati home, where husband and wife worked devotedly ever since. In 1923 she was awarded the Kaisar-i-llind gold medal in recognition of her services. Personally, Dr. Kerr was a modest, quiet, and very lovable woman. Professionally, she was a, keen, sound, skilful and devoted doctor, who rendered great service to India.