Anna S. Kugler, M.D. — A Pioneer Christian Medical Missionary to India

ANNA S. KUGLER, M.D. (1856 – 1930) A PIONEER CHRISTIAN MEDICAL MISSIONARY TO INDIA.

The Bible – Nearly one-fifth of the four Gospel accounts which portray the ministry of JESUS to healing the sick. Out of 3,779 verses in those four Gospels, 727 relate specifically to the healing of physical and mental illness and the raising of the dead. Jesus had more compassion on the sick than any other need in human life. There are many mass healing events recorded in the Gospels but there are 31 individual healings. Jesus chose Luke a Gentile to be his disciple, who was practicing medicine in Antioch. In today’s context practicing physicians and surgeons are second to none with other professions.

When Joshua ( Phani ) Pilli called me just a few days ago asking me to pen an article for his upcoming UECF 20th Anniversary Celebrations souvenir and he specified it should be about Kugler Hospital and Missionaries. I did not hesitate even a single second because that is my top most priority that I pursued in my entire life saving Kugler Hospital. Actually, it is a privilege and honor to pen this article about such Great Servant of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was born to a Physician and Surgeon in a hospital that Dr. Kugler startedatRentachintala in Guntur District namely Lutheran Hospital of Rentachintala.

Dr. Kugler was born in Ardmore, Pennsylvania to a prominent family. Her father Charles Kugler served for a time in the Pennsylvania State Legislature. After high school and graduated from the Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1879. Her first job was at Pennsylvania State Hospital Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1880 as First Assistant Physician. She interned there for two years

in the women’s department. She along with her family worshipped at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

In 1882, she received a letter from Rev. Adam D. Rowe, a missionary of the General Synod serving in India, in which he conveyed to her the urgent need for medical care for the Indian Telugu Women of The General Synod. At once, she took that as an invitation and call from God the

Almighty and prayed aboutthat open door to become a Pioneer Christian Medical Missionary to India.

Dr. Kugler immediately made an application to the Board of Foreign Missions for an appointment as a Medical Missionary. Her application was referred to the Executive Committee of the Women’s Society Who decided that they were not yet ready to undertake medical work, but would send her to Guntur Synod to teach and to do Zanana work. That is to teach Muslim women as a teacher.

She readily accepted their offer to do Zanana work

even though that was not her profession or calling. She agreed to go to Guntur, with the condition that she be allowed to minister to the sick whenever the opportunity comes. She was commissioned and ready to sail to India when a fellow parishioner gave her one hundred dollars specifying to buy medicines to the poor. She used that one hundred dollars to

buy Medicines during her brief stopover in

England. Finally, she reaches Madras ( Chennai ) in

India and from there she sailed to her final

destination via Buckingham Canal and reached

Guntur on Thanksgiving Day Of 1883 that is

Thursday November29th, 1883.

After arriving in Guntur, she was not long in

finding patients. She started treating them on the

Verandah of the Missionary Bungalow in

MangalaMandiram where she was residing. Soon, the patients flocked when it became known that a woman doctor arrived from America. In December of 1885 after just two years of her arrival in Guntur, she was finally appointed as a Medical Missionary. She immediately began planning for an outpatient dispensary which she started in 1886. From 1889 to 1891 she was back in the United States on a furlough, she used the time to complete her Post Graduate work in treating women and children and labored on her vision to build a hospital in Guntur.

When she returned to India she was able to

purchase a 16 acre plot of land next to the

Missionary Bungalow where she initially started

treating patients with the donations by the

goodwill she had earned and also with the help

from her fellow missionaries who raised money

towards the construction of hospital main

building.

The hospital was opened on June 23rd, 1897. It was a 50 bed hospital and was regarded as one of the best in India during that time. Then she started opening medical dispensaries in other villages through out Andhra Pradesh including the Lutheran Hospital in Rentachintala. In Guntur the hospital was called The American Evangelical Lutheran Mission Hospital. With the funds she raised and the offerings from The Zimmerman Chapel she added a maternity ward, a children’s ward and an operating room with the state of the art medical equipment.

While on furlough in the United States in 1927, she wrote “ Guntur Mission Hospital “ an autobiography intended as a guide to future medical missionaries. In recognition of her relentless work treating the poorand needy sick, the British Raj bestowed her the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal twice on her both in 1905 and 1917. This is an award of distinction bestowed on civilians of any nationality who

rendered services to The British Raj.

She died at her own hospital on July 26, 1930. She was buried in Guntur. Shortly before her death she met and said to Dr. Ida Scudder the founder of the famous Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, Tamilnadu” I would like to get well and work longer for I would like to feel I had served India for fifty years, and I have served only forty seven “. But the LORD took her home in the same year in 1930.

After her death the hospital she had envisioned and had helped to become a reality was renamed as Kugler Hospital in her honor. Many Christians and Non-Christians who are dedicated worked at the Hospital since her death. In 1961, it grew to a 165 bed full pledged hospital in the State of Andhra Pradesh and the then Honorable Governor of Andhra Pradesh Shri. Bhima Sen Sachar and his wife visited the hospital to acknowledge it’s stand-alone as one of the best hospitals in Andhra Pradesh.

Unfortunately, due to poor leadership at Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church and lack of committed and dedicated Medical Professionals, the hospital fell in the hands of wrong people for its closure in 2005. This is because of many reasons, with outdated infrastructure, poorly financed for medical work, lack of modern medical equipment and dedicated staff. Irrespective all these disarray a few dedicated and committed people are praying and working 24/7 to reopen and renovate this hospital to a full pledged Super-SpecialtyHospital in the State of Andhra Pradesh with a 100 seats Medical College. Please pray for us and join us for HIS GLORY! Those that desire and seek to join must be impelled by the LOVE

FOR CHRIST and desire for winning souls to HIS Kingdom. We must commit ourselves to her motto “Ourselves Your Servants for Jesus sake “.

Emmanuel P. Kuraguntla, B.S.

New Jersey, USA.

gideongnt@gmail.com