Shut out of medicine in Canada, Dr. Leonora Howard King blazed a trail in China

Abstract

After being denied the opportunity to study medicine and work at home, Dr. Leonora Howard King became Canada's first female medical missionary to China. Although she attempted to wear both the religious and secular hats handed her by the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, Howard King found that she was too busy meeting the medical needs of destitute women and children to proselytize. She won the favour of Chinese royalty, and after treating hundreds of wounded soldiers during the 1894-95 war with Japan became the first Western woman to become a mandarin, an honour bestowed by her adopted country.