The forgotten Indian woman trailblazer in British medicine

In the early 20th Century, when medicine was still overwhelmingly male and European institutions largely closed their doors to women, a young doctor from colonial India's Bengal broke through one of its most formidable gates.

In 1912, Jamini Sen became the first woman ever admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow - an institution founded in 1599 and long closed to women.

Yet, unlike many pioneers of modern medicine, her story largely disappeared from view.

Now, more than a century later, Sen's remarkable life - spanning palace wards in Nepal, examination halls in Britain and epidemic-stricken towns in colonial India - has been reconstructed in Daktarin Jamini Sen, a new biography by her great-niece Deepta Roy Chakraverti. (Daktarin is female doctor in a number of north Indian languages.)

The biography draws on letters, diaries, a slim journal kept by Sen herself, her article in a journal called Mahila Parishad, and a synopsis written by her elder sister, Kamini. The book restores to history a woman of fierce intellect and radical resolve from pre-independent Bengal.

Born in 1871 in Barisal in the Bengal Presidency as one of seven siblings in a progressive family, Sen's journey began far from Europe's medical citadels.

Educated at Bethune College in Calcutta (now Kolkata), she qualified from Calcutta Medical College in 1897, entering a profession that remained overwhelmingly male and rigidly stratified by race.

Soon after graduating, she accepted an offer that would define her early career: a post in Nepal as house physician to the royal household and head of the Kathmandu Zenana Hospital.

For nearly a decade she practised medicine at the highest level, earning the confidence of King Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah while introducing modern clinical methods within deeply traditional settings.

Her years in Nepal were not without drama.

Amid looming palace unrest and rumours of coups, Sen eventually left the country. The king who had honoured her with a gold watch bearing his crest would soon die, with poisoning suspected to be the reason.

Ambition, however, carried her further.

In 1911, with support from the Lady Dufferin Fund, she travelled to Britain, took a medical licence in Dublin, studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and went on to sit the fellowship examinations in Glasgow.

The Royal College had only just opened its exams to women. In 1912, she passed, becoming the first female Fellow at an institution founded in 1599.

The triumph, however, was incomplete. The college's records note that Sen "was unable to hold office... meaning that her privileges as a female Fellow were restricted compared to those of her male counterparts".

It would take another 11 years for a second woman, Margaret Hogg Grant, to be admitted in 1923.

She then travelled to Berlin in 1912, to further her clinical knowledge at a time when continental Europe was at the forefront of medical research in tropical diseases. This intellectual restlessness defined her career.

"I have a lot of responsibilities towards my sisters in my country," Sen is quoted as saying in the archives of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

Returning to India, she joined the Women's Medical Service and worked in cities including Agra, Shimla and Puri.

In Agra, during local unrest directed at British doctors, Sen was brought in to steady tensions - her presence as an Indian woman physician proved crucial.

Women sought her out specifically; they trusted her. Patients affectionately called her the "saree-wali daktarin sahib" or the sari-clad lady doctor.

In Shimla and Puri she continued working through outbreaks of epidemics and difficult conditions that some colonial doctors resisted.

Many young mothers suffered from post-childbirth sepsis - a crisis she confronted head-on. "The greatest improvement has taken place in maternal cases," she wrote in her journal with quiet pride.

Even in the way she dressed, Sen signalled a quiet modernity.

She adopted a practical working style - a pinned sari and full-sleeved blouse with a lace collar - a departure from older Indian drapes and one better suited to hospital wards than drawing rooms.

Sen's personal life carried its own burdens.

While in Nepal she adopted a baby girl, Bhutu, whose mother had died in childbirth. A single mother during a period largely unforgiving of female independence, Sen balanced professional rigour with private responsibility within the confines of traditional Bengali society. But later, in Calcutta, the child died after a debilitating illness, a devastating personal loss.

A few objects from Sen's life survive today, preserved by her biographer.

Among them are the watch given to her by Nepal's king - which she wore pinned to her sari - a Tibetan tsog spoon gifted in recognition of her medical service and a delicate blue-wing brooch she purchased in London. Only two grainy black-and-white photographs of her remain, now submitted to the Glasgow College archives.

Chakraverti's portrait is of a woman shaped equally by ambition and sorrow - a doctor who confronted racism in pre-independence India and sexism in Britain, yet remained steadfast in her vocation.

"In celebrating Dr Jamini Sen today," Chakraverti writes, "we honour not just a doctor but a trailblazer whose courage laid the groundwork for generations of women in medicine both in India, in Britain, and beyond."

Sen died in 1932. For decades, her name receded into obscurity. In 2024, more than a century after her historic Fellowship, her portrait was finally unveiled in Glasgow - a symbolic restoration of a life that had quietly bent history's arc.

Her story reminds us that the making of modern medicine was never solely a European tale, nor exclusively a male one.

It was also written in pinned saris, palace wards, epidemic outposts and examination halls where a determined Bengali woman refused to step aside.