In 1908, while still in his final year of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA, Dr Paul Harrison had decided he would come to work in the Arabian Gulf.
When his shocked friends asked why he was throwing away a promising career in the USA to go away thousands of miles, into harsh desert lands, he said it was his calling. Young as he was then, barely 25, he wanted to serve as a missionary doctor.
âI wanted to pit the Christian way of life against human troubleâ and âI wanted to pit modern medicine against its toughest jobâ, he said in the very first page of his book Doctor in Arabia, which was published in 1940.
His first book, however, The Arab at Home, was already published by 1924.
After his training in surgery at Johns Hopkins, and his work at Boston for a year, he joined the âArabian Missionâ which was partnering with the Dutch Reformed Church of America. The organisation, based in New York, was helping establish orphanages, bookstores, schools, hospitals and churches, in the Arabian region.
In 1910, he reached Busrah, in current day Iraq to undergo training in Arabic. He learnt classical Arabic as well as a dialect of southern Iraq. It is written that âPaul Harrison could chat comfortably in the heavy drawl of the Bedouinâ as well (The Arabian Mission Story by Lewis R Scudder III, page 349).
In 1919, the Spanish Flu pandemic hit the region while Dr Paul Harrison was heading the Mason Memorial Hospital in Bahrain (now called the American Mission Hospital).
He was called to Riyadh to save the lives of the royal family members. Sadly, some had died by the time he reached there with his nurses, paramedics and medical supplies; yet, he set up camp and treated hundreds of patients in Riyadh.
Ibn Saud, the ruler of Riyadh, and the Nejd region in 1919, and Dr Harrison became life-long friends. Ibn Saud, who would later become the first king of Saudi Arabia in 1932 under the official title of King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud; the father of the current Saudi ruler King Salman.
In 1931, after Paul Harrisonâs first wife had died, he married Ann, the widow of Henry Bilkert. While also working for the Arabian Mission, Henry Bilkert was shot in a Bedouin battle in the geographic region between Kuwait and Iraq.
After their marriage, Paul and Ann continued to serve in the region till the 1950s.
In the 40 years he was here, Paul Harrison not only led the American Mission hospitals of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Muscat but also led medical camps in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Trucial States.
After 40 years in the Arabian peninsula, he and his wife retired in 1954 to go to stay at Penney Farms, run by the company JC Penny, a retirement home in Florida, where he died in 1962, at age 79.
Send us your companyâs news today and they could be featured on ABCâs Community News tommorow.
