BAMBOO HOSPITAL

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1961

This ""Story of a Missionary Family in Burma"" is based on the written records of Albert and Cora Henderson, as well as Katherine Read's memories of her parents (and her childhood) in Burma where they stayed for forty years. The Hendersons, young, dedicated to their (Baptist) missionary work and devoted to each other, went to Burma in 1893 and settled at the mission of Mongnal- believed by the natives to have been built on haunted grouped. In the first four years, only two patients came to Dr. Henderson for treatment. Then the Sawba sent him his bulldog who needed an extraction, then an elephant for minor surgery, and finally appointed him as his official physician-in-chief. In time the natives came to trust him particularly after his conversion of the local Witch Woman. They were left with infants to rear (whose mothers had died in childbirth and according to native custom should have been killed) and started an orphanage which grew from 1 to 60 children; they taught hygiene as well as school, brought up their own family of three, and made many lifelong friends as well as converts before moving to another province.... The glow of good deeds in the darker world of poverty, superstition and evil spirits gives this its warmth and human interest, although it is not as exceptional a story as say Alan Burgess' The Small Woman (Dutton).

Pub Date: June 15, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION