BECKER, CHRISTIAN EDMUND. — Of the Congregation of the Salvatorians, first apostolic prefect of Assam, and later founder of the medical-missionary institute of Würzburg. Born on 22 October 1875 in Elsoff, near Frankfurt am Main; died in Würzburg on 30 March 1937. Having completed his philosophical and theological studies in Rome, he was also ordained a priest there in 1898. He was a professor and later rector of the student residence at Merano. In 1905 he was appointed apostolic prefect of Assam, which he governed until the war of 1914–18, following which he was interned and then expelled from India, together with all his missionaries (1916). Since his return to India was by then considered impossible, he resigned from the office of prefect in 1921. Around that time, German Catholics became deeply interested in the problem of health care in the missions, and B. was invited to put his experience at their service. He published (1921) his pamphlet Ärztliche Fürsorge in den Missionsländern; then, with the support of the missionary Orders and the pontifical works in Germany, he laid the foundations of the medical-missionary institute of Würzburg in 1922. In 1924 he gave courses in missiology at the University of Würzburg, and in 1928 he was appointed honorary ordinary professor at the same university.
B. also placed his activity as a writer at the service of the missionary cause; in 1923 he published the history of his mission (Im Stromtal des Brohmγεματα, Munich; 2nd ed., Aachen 1927); in 1921, a study on the problem of castes in India (Indisches Kastenswesen und christliche Mission, Aachen); he also wrote several biographies of missionaries. Subsequently he dealt with medical-missionary subjects, both in the journal of his institute (Zahrbuch für missionärzliche Fürsorge), beginning in 1924, and in the monograph Missionärzliche Kulturarbeit (Würzburg 1928).