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In April 1883 an 18-year-old woman from western India boarded a ship at Calcutta for New York, to study medicine in a country she had never seen. Three years later she graduated. Less than a year after that she was dead, a month short of her twenty-second birthday. This post sets out what records from her own time say about Anandibai Joshi, where later accounts differ, and what a student working towards a hard goal can take from her.
Who was Anandibai Joshi?
The earliest full account is The Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee, published in 1888 by the American writer Caroline Healey Dall, who drew on Anandibai's letters. Its opening synopsis gives the key dates: born on 31 March 1865, with the childhood name Yamuna; married to Gopal Vinayak Joshee on 31 March 1874, her ninth birthday; and renamed Anandabai at marriage. American records use the spelling Joshee; in India she is usually Anandibai Joshi.
Child marriage was customary then. What was unusual was that Gopalrao, many years older than her, insisted that his wife be educated. A 2024 review in the Journal of Medical Biography describes how he taught her at home, and also notes that he could be harsh and at times violent towards her, something Anandibai herself later wrote about in her letters to him.
Why did she decide to study medicine?
The same review describes the turning point. At 14 she gave birth to a son who lived about ten days, and she saw how little medical care was available to women. Very few doctors were women, and many women would not be examined by a man. No medical college in India then accepted women, so the couple looked abroad.
In 1880 Gopalrao wrote to an American missionary, Royal Wilder, asking for help. Wilder published the letter, and Theodicia Carpenter of Roselle, New Jersey, read it and wrote to Anandibai. Their letters over the next few years led to the invitation to study in America. Before leaving, Anandibai gave a public talk at Serampore explaining why India needed women doctors, and promised to keep her customs abroad.
What happened in Philadelphia?
Dall's synopsis records that she sailed from Calcutta on 7 April 1883, "the first unconverted high-caste Hindu woman to leave her country", and landed in New York on 4 June 1883. She enrolled at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, which Drexel University, its successor, describes as one of the world's first medical schools for women, founded in 1850. A photograph from 1885 in Drexel's archives shows her with two fellow students from Japan and Syria.
Her graduation thesis, on "Hindu Obstetrics", ran to about fifty pages, according to Dall. She graduated on 11 March 1886, which Dall describes as making her "the first Hindu woman to receive the degree of medicine in any country". In a letter, she described walking onto the stage at the Academy of Music to face an audience of three thousand. Drexel notes that Queen Victoria, then Empress of India, sent the college a letter of congratulation.
What happened when she returned?
Dall's synopsis records that on 1 June 1886 she was appointed physician-in-charge of the female wards of the Albert Edward Hospital in Kolhapur. But her health had been failing in America. She sailed from New York on 9 October 1886 and died in Poona on 26 February 1887. Drexel's account says she died of tuberculosis a year after graduating, without ever having practised medicine.
Was she India's first woman doctor?
It depends on what you count, and it is worth being precise. Anandibai was the first Hindu woman to earn a medical degree, and among the very first Indian women with a degree in Western medicine. In the same year, 1886, Kadambini Ganguly qualified from Calcutta Medical College and went on to a long career in practice. Our post on Kadambini Ganguly tells her story. Both firsts are real; they are firsts of different kinds.
What can a student take from Anandibai's way of working?
Write your reasons down. Much of what we know comes from her letters, in which she set out again and again why she was doing this. Writing a few lines about why your goal matters helps on the days when motivation runs out.
Ask for help, and keep asking. Her path opened through a letter to a stranger, a reply from another stranger and years of correspondence. Teachers, seniors and mentors can only help if you write to them.
Take your health seriously. Her story is also one of illness that worsened during years of pressure, cold and an unfamiliar diet. If you are unwell, see a doctor early; exam preparation is never a reason to wait. If the pressure feels like too much, talking to someone helps, and India's free Tele MANAS helpline is available on 14416.
Many readers of her story are preparing for a career in medicine themselves. If you are studying the biology behind topics such as reproduction or infectious disease, the Fermi Concept Library covers every concept in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computing, each with its own lesson. Parents may also find our guide on talking with children about STEM careers useful.
Read the first chapter of Dall's free biography this week and note one line in Anandibai's own words that stays with you.
