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{{Infobox person
| name = Eva Lombard
| birth_name = Evangéline Louise Lombard
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1890|2|2}}
| birth_place = [[Eaux-Vives]], [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1978|1|8|1890|2|2}}
| death_place = [[Thônex]], [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]]
| education = [[University of Geneva]] (MD, 1918)<br/>[[London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine]] (1920-1921)
| occupation = [[Physician]], [[missionary]]
| known_for = Director of hospital in [[Udupi]], [[India]]
}}
'''Evangéline "Eva" Lombard''' (2 February 1890 – 8 January 1978) was a Swiss [[physician]] and [[missionary]] who worked in [[India]] for the [[Basel Mission]]. She was one of the first Swiss women to direct a hospital in India and served as director of a women's and children's hospital in [[Udupi]], [[Karnataka]], from 1923 to 1954. <ref>{{cite web | last1=Bornet | first1=Philippe | title=Two Swiss Female Doctors in Karnataka: Medicine and Religion between India and Switzerland | work=Interweaving histories: Itineraries between India and Switzerland (1900-1950) | date=January 2023 | url=https://www.academia.edu/114240204 }}</ref>

== Early life and education ==
Eva Lombard was born in [[Les Eaux-Vives]], [[Geneva]], to Victor Jacques Lombard, a [[banker]] who had abandoned his career to work as a [[chaplain]] in Genevan penitentiary establishments (notably the prisons of Saint-Antoine and l'Evêché), and Elisabeth née Toméï, from [[Riga]], who taught reading and writing to female prisoners. She grew up with her older sister, Bénédictine Rita Lombard, in a family involved in banking activities and imbued with [[evangelical Christianity]]. Her grandfather, Alexandre Lombard, had played a major role in maintaining Sunday as a day of rest.<ref name="HDS">{{HDS|014454|Eva Lombard}}</ref>

After completing her schooling in [[Geneva]] and obtaining a federal [[matura]] at [[Calvin College]], Eva Lombard began medical studies at the [[University of Geneva]] in 1912, which she completed with a [[doctorate]] in 1918. She was active in Christian student societies and participated in meetings in [[Constantinople]] in 1911 and [[Mohonk Mountain House]] ([[New York (state)|New York]]) in 1913 as a delegate of the [[World Student Christian Federation]]. Eva Lombard remained unmarried and childless.<ref name="HDS" />

== Medical training and mission work ==
Wishing to engage in mission work as a physician, she went to [[London]] to attend courses at the [[London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine]] (1920-1921). Eva Lombard shared the conviction of her father, who was persuaded he had experienced a miraculous healing in 1889 and was convinced of the divine capacity to act on human bodies.<ref name="HDS" />

From 1921 to 1954, Lombard worked in [[Kanara]] (State of [[Karnataka]]), on the western coast of India, first under the auspices of the Evangelical Canarese Mission – a [[French-speaking Switzerland|Swiss Romand]] organization that had taken over the activities of the [[Basel Mission]] in India after the [[World War I|First World War]] – then, from 1927, under the Basel Mission itself.<ref name="HDS" />

In June 1923, after familiarizing herself with hospital management in [[Mysore]] and the [[Kannada language]], she inaugurated a new hospital for women and children in [[Udupi]], of which she became director, financed largely by a donation from her mother. The hospital evolved from a small six-bed structure to an important regional institution, having 200 beds at the beginning of the 21st century and renamed [[Lombard Memorial Hospital]]. Eva Lombard worked from 1957 to 1960 in another hospital in the region, at Mandagadde, before retiring until her death at the Abbey of [[Presinge]] near Geneva (a rest home belonging to the [[Deaconess|deaconesses]] of [[Bern]]).<ref name="HDS" />

With [[Elisabeth Petitpierre]], Eva Lombard was one of the first Swiss female missionaries to have directed a hospital in India for many years.<ref name="HDS" />

== Writings and advocacy ==
The letters regularly sent to her family testify to the difficulties encountered and her progressive discovery of local society. A selection of her first missives, with a choice of photographs, was published in German translation in 1924 under the auspices of the Evangelical Canarese Mission, which was then concerned with finding support in the German-speaking part of the [[Swiss Confederation]]. Through her lectures given in Switzerland, notably to the [[Swiss Association of University Women]], on her activity and on the situation of women in India, Eva Lombard can be considered as the representative of a [[feminism]] imbued with both [[Protestant]] values and [[colonialism|colonial]] thought patterns.<ref name="HDS" />

== Bibliography ==

* Lombard, Eva: ''Etude sur un cas d'hydrocéphalie interne chronique'', doctoral thesis, University of Geneva, 1918.
* Lombard, Eva: ''Excursion médicale au pays de Mysore'', 1922.
* Lombard, Eva: ''Briefe einer Missionsärztin'', 1924.
* Lombard, Eva: "Le travail médical parmi les femmes au sud de l'Inde", in: ''Annuaire des femmes suisses'', 1929, pp. 44-55.
* Lombard, Eva: ''Quelques Conseils d'Hygiène à celles qui partent en Mission'', 1939.
* Lombard, Eva; Salins, K.A.: ''Silver Jubilee of the Basel Mission Hospital, Udipi, 1923-1948'', 1949.

== References ==
{{Free-content attribution
| title = Lombard, Eva
| author = Philippe Bornet
| publisher = [[Historical Dictionary of Switzerland]]
| source =
| documentURL = https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/014454/2025-08-25/
| license statement URL =
| license = CC-BY SA
| howto =
| this =
}}{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lombard, Eva}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1978 deaths]]
[[Category:Swiss medical doctors]]
[[Category:Swiss missionaries]]
[[Category:University of Geneva alumni]]
[[Category:People from Geneva]]
[[Category:Swiss Protestants]]
[[Category:Medical missionaries]]
[[Category:Swiss women medical doctors]]
[[Category:Swiss medical researchers]]

Eva Lombard - Revision history

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