“We are failing here”: American Medical Missionaries in Iran and the Second World War

The Presbyterian Mission to Iran was established in the mid-nineteenth century with the primary goal of evangelism. However, missionaries quickly realized the spiritual utility of medicine and began to provide medical care through ad hoc dispensaries and clinics. These provisional medical services were replaced by modern hospitals at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1943, American medical missionaries had been active in Iran for over a century and were operating six hospitals and six nursing schools. They had come to define themselves as central contributors to the expansion of hospital-based health care in the country. In the interwar period, they had developed institutions that offered high-quality surgical services. The war transformed American medical missionaries’ perceptions of their ability to offer first-rate medical care. After being exposed to British and American military medicine in Iran during the war years, some American missionary nurses and physicians began to argue that mission medicine was no longer feasible. Furthermore, the experience of war radically altered the work of medical missionaries in Iran. The influx of refugees to Iran from Eastern Europe required American medical missionaries to shift their focus from surgery to emergency and public health services, including the provision of adequate nutrition and measures to prevent the spread of epidemics. As more and more patients sought health care, American missionary physicians and nurses became overworked. They also found it increasingly difficult to obtain medicines and supplies during the war and often had to improvise with the materials that were available, which contributed to their inability to maintain high standards of medical care. This paper explores the impact and challenges that American medical missionaries faced during the war years. Drawing on missionary letters, medical reports and hospital statistics, I argue that the war restricted American missionary medicine in Iran and transformed American medical missionaries perceptions’ of their ability to offer first-rate care.