Medical missions in China by Catholic and Protestant physicians and surgeons of the 19th and early 20th centuries laid many foundations for modern medicine in China. Western medical missionaries established the first modern clinics and hospitals, provided the first training for nurses, and opened the first medical schools in China.[1] Work was also done in opposition to the abuse of opium. Medical treatment and care came to many Chinese who were addicted, and eventually public and official opinion was influenced in favor of bringing an end to the destructive trade.[2] By 1901, China was the most popular destination for medical missionaries. The 150 foreign physicians operated 128 hospitals and 245 dispensaries, treating 1.7 million patients. In 1894, male medical missionaries comprised 14 percent of all missionaries; women doctors were four percent. Modern medical education in China started in the early 20th century at hospitals run by international missionaries.[3]
Traditional medicine in China has an ancient history. Daoists developed breathing exercises, and some vegetable and mineral remedies, but their efforts were made in hopes of gaining immortality rather than for providing therapy. Buddhism brought new ideas on the cause of disease to China, emphasizing the part played by the mind. Buddha himself is reported to have said to Chi Po "You go and heal his body first, I will come later to treat his mental suffering."
An early Yuan dynasty portrait of Su Shi, by Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫.
There is no evidence that the Nestorian Christian mission of 635A.D. or its later mission under the Yuan dynasty, or the Franciscan Mission of 1294 under John of Montecorvino, engaged in any medical missionary work.
In 1569 the Catholics founded the "Santa Casa de Misericordia" in Macau. In 1667 the Hospital of St. Raphael was founded there as well. The latter is still under the auspices of the Santa Casa, as is also the Lara Reis Cancer Clinic, Praia Grande, Macau.
Jesuit Missions took part in medical work in the 17th and 18th centuries. Xu Guangqi, a Chinese minister, was converted by Matteo Ricci, and baptized with the name of Paul. Jesuit missionaries used a pound of cinchona bark obtained from India to successfully treat the Kangxi Emperor and members of the court for malaria. Brother Bernard Rhodes arrived in China in 1699 and operated a dispensary from his house. The Court officials remarked about him: "He talks little, promises little and performs much ... his charity extends to everybody, to poor as well as rich. The only thing that discomforts us is that we cannot induce him to accept the least reward".
Protestant medical missions
The first western medical effort in China was the foundation of a public dispensary for Chinese at Macau in 1820 by the Robert Morrison and John Livingstone, who was a surgeon to the East India Company. Although Morrison was not a medical practitioner, he had studied briefly at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. One of the objects of Morrison's dispensary was to discover whether the Chinese Pharmacopoeia "might not supply something in addition to the means now possessed of lessening human suffering in the West." Morrison stealthily purchased a collection of over 800 volumes of Chinese medical books, along with a collection of Chinese medicines. A Chinese physician, Dr. Lee, directed the dispensing of medicines, with a herbalist in attendance to explain the properties of articles supplied by him.
Peter Parker
A significant moment occurred in 1828, when Dr. Thomas Richardson Colledge, a Christian surgeon of the East India Company, opened a hospital in Canton (the Canton Hospital). Colledge believed that Christians had a duty to help the sick in China, but he was never able to devote his time fully to medical missionary work. He corresponded with the existing Protestant mission societies, and in 1834 Dr. Peter Parker, the first full-time Protestant medical missionary, who Colledge mentored, was able to open a hospital at Canton in connection with the mission of the American Board.
Parker quickly realized the need for trained Chinese help, and trained his first medical student Kwan Ato in 1836. Parker introduced both ether and chloroform anesthesia to China. His medical school is most remembered because of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who studied there in 1886 for one year before returning to resume his studies in Hong Kong.
In 1835-36 Parker and Colledge and a few Christian foreign residents formed the Medical Missionary Society of China. In a little time the news of Parker's mission spread. Public preaching was not permitted in China, and foreigners were restricted to residence at the Thirteen Factories at Canton. But the new hospital appealed to the Chinese in spite of their suspicions. In a Chinese village, married women would sit all night in the streets in order to get a chance in the line of patients crowding upon the doctor the next morning. When the First Opium War closed Parker's hospital in 1840, 9,000 severe cases had been relieved besides uncounted minor ones.[5]
In 1839 there were only two missionary physicians in China; by 1842 more reinforcements had arrived. 50 years later there were 61 hospitals and 44 dispensaries, 100 male and twenty-six female physicians, with a corps of trained native assistants connected to the missionary endeavor. Before the spread of Western methods in China, the Chinese generally had had little knowledge of surgery, but demand for surgical treatment soon far exceeded the capacity of the mission hospitals. In the annual reports of the hospitals in 1895 it was reported that annually no fewer than 500,000 individuals were treated and about 70,000 operations performed, of which about 8,000 were for serious conditions. At first the Chinese had to learn to have confidence in the surgeons, and submit calmly to the severest operations. A patient's relatives were consulted, and usually there were no resentments expressed if a dangerous operation failed.[6]
The motives that brought physicians to China to work in mission hospitals were often a puzzle to the Chinese in the beginning. According to an 1895 dissertation by Charles Estes Sumner, the patients, who were being treated with gentleness and skill that seemed almost miraculous to them, often felt that the religion that had inspired such work must be good. He explained that a few showed no gratitude, thinking that they have rendered a service in allowing a foreigner to treat them, and that many had no desire to accept the religion of their doctors, though some did. It was his belief that many patients converted to Christianity after they returned to their distant homes.[6] This account paints an Orientalist picture of the Chinese and their ingratitude to an assumed noble Christianity, which is indicative of early Western paternalism in regards to the treatment of Asians.
Western medical literature in the Chinese language was first provided by the medical missionaries, and native physicians were trained in Western methods for the first time by them as well.
Due to the social custom that men and women should not be near to one another, the women of China were reluctant to be treated by male doctors of Western Medicine. This resulted in a tremendous need for female doctors of Western Medicine in China. The Women's Foreign Missionary Society hoped alleviate the suffering of Chinese women by sending Dr. Lucinda L. Combs the first female missionary to Peking (Beijing) China in 1873. Dr. Combs also established the first hospital for women and children in 1875. The first Women's Hospital in Shanghai, Margaret Williamson Hospital, was opened in 1884 by Elizabeth Reifsnyder. Subsequently, female medical missionary Dr. Mary H. Fulton (1854–1927)[12] was sent by the Foreign Missions Board of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to found the first medical college for women in China. Known as the Hackett Medical College for Women (夏葛女子醫學院),[13][14] this college was located in Guangzhou, China, and was enabled by a large donation from Mr. Edward A.K. Hackett (1851–1916) of Indiana, USA. The college was dedicated in 1902 and offered a four-year curriculum. By 1915, there were more than 60 students, mostly in residence. Most students became Christians, due to the influence of Dr. Fulton. The college was officially recognized, with its diplomas marked with the official stamp of the Guangdong provincial government. The college was aimed at the spreading of Christianity and modern medicine and the elevation of Chinese women's social status. The David Gregg Hospital for Women and Children (also known as Yuji Hospital 柔濟醫院[15][16] was affiliated with this college. The graduates of this college included Lee Sun Chau (周理信, 1890–1979) and WONG Yuen-hing (黃婉卿), both of whom graduated in the late 1910s[17][18][19] and then practiced medicine in the hospitals in Guangdong province.
There were peculiar dangers even in this humanitarian work. In times of trouble, stories were circulated that the foreign doctors plucked out human eyes to make charms. The Yangzhou riot of 1868 was caused by this kind of misunderstanding.[20] When the Bubonic plague broke out in Canton and Hong Kong in summer 1894, a rumor was started that foreign doctors were killing the people by scattering scent-bags, one whiff of which would cause death, and at one point a general uprising was being planned to kill the foreigners.
Most of the early mission hospitals began with often only one medical missionary, and no other trained staff. One of the first mission hospitals was the "Chinese Hospital" operated by the London Missionary Society in Shanghai, founded by Dr. William Lockhart in 1844 (who had opened his first Chinese missionary hospital in Dinghai in 1840, while the island of Zhoushan was occupied by British troops).[21] It was later known as the "Shantung Road Hospital" and the "Lester Chinese Hospital".
In 1850, William Welton established a medical mission at Fuh-chow which was expanded following the Black Stone Hill anti-religion unrest. Birdwood Van Someren Taylor was charged by John Wolfe to open iteinerant and mobile dispensaries at Fuh-Chow (1878), Fuh-Ning (1883), and Hinghwa (1894) his largest.[22][23][24] Taylor established medical education programs in each which led to the Union Medical College in 1911 where Taylor was the Founding Principal.[25] Union was started by the Church Mission Sociest, American Congregationalists, and MEthodists Episcopalians. Joint medical colleges became the norm starting in 1901.[26]
The Taiping Rebellion interrupted the progress of medical missions until 1865, when mission hospitals and medical schools began to be established and organized more permanently. The Tung Wah Hospital was established at Hong Kong, and the medical services of the Chinese Maritime Customs with their valuable medical reports began during this period. The Customs Medical Service's doctors did not normally treat native patients.
Fuzhounese Hü King Eng on graduation from the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia in 1894.
Sir Patrick Menson was on the staff of the "Amoy Missionary Hospital". He discovered Paragonimiasis during his service there. In 1866 the Revs. Hong Neok Woo and E. H. Thompson, D.D., of the American Episcopal Church Mission, founded the early St. Luke's Hospital. In 1871 Dr. James Gait of the Church Missionary Society arrived in Hangzhou to found a hospital, later known as the Kwang-Chi Hospital, which was greatly developed under the later Dr. David Durean Main, and before World War II, with its associated leprosarium and tuberculosissanatorium, had a total of 459 beds. In 1875, Sigourney Trask received funding from the Methodist Episcopal Church mission to build a woman's hospital in Fuzhou, which had 1,208 registered patients by the end of its first year. Trask taught a local Fuzhounese student Hü King Eng, who she later arranged for to study medicine in the US. Hü then returned to practise in Fuzhou in 1895 and trained local Chinese women in western medicine.[27]
Medical mission work in Taiwan was begun by the Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell in 1865. Maxwell was the father of two notable medical missionaries to China, Profs. James Preston Maxwell and James Laidlaw Maxwell, Junior. Preston worked as professor of gynecology at the Peking Union Medical College, and James Junior worked in the former China Medical Association and as Far East Secretary of the Mission to Lepers. James Junior finally returned to China early in 1949 to serve as a leprosy specialist at Hangzhou, as well as acting as professor of medicine in the Zhejiang Medical College. He died there in 1951, and had earned the respect of the Government of the People's Republic, which was represented at his funeral. The "Maxwell Memorial Centre" at Hay Ling Chau, Hong Kong, is named after him.
Of the 500 hospitals in China in 1931, 235 were run by Protestant missions and 10 by Catholic missions. The mission hospitals accounted for 61 percent of Western trained doctors, 32 percent of nurses and 50 percent of medical schools. Already by 1923 China had half of the world's missionary hospital beds and half the world's missionary doctors.[31]
By 1937 there were 254 mission hospitals in China, but more than half of these were eventually destroyed by Japanese bombing during World War II or otherwise due to the Second Sino-Japanese War or the Chinese Civil War. After World War II most of these hospitals were at least partially rehabilitated, and eventually passed to the control of the Government of the People's Republic of China, but are still functioning as hospitals.
Christianity has been present in China since the early medieval period, and became a significant presence in the country during the early modern era. The Assyrian Church of the East appeared in China in the 7th century, during the Tang dynasty. Catholicism was one of the religions patronized by the emperors of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, but it did not take root in China until its reintroduction by the Jesuits during the 16th century. Beginning in the early 19th century, Protestant missions in China attracted small but influential followings, and independent Chinese churches were also established.
Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital (AHNH) is an acute district general hospital managed under the New Territories East Cluster of the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong. Established by the former London Missionary Society in 1887, it was the first teaching hospital in Hong Kong to train Cantonese locals in Western medical science. It moved to its current location in Tai Po in 1997.
In the early 19th century, Western colonial expansion occurred at the same time as an evangelical revival – the Second Great Awakening – throughout the English-speaking world, leading to more overseas missionary activity. The nineteenth century became known as the Great Century of modern religious missions.
Griffith John was a Welsh Christian missionary and translator in China. A member of the Congregational church, he was a pioneer evangelist with the London Missionary Society (LMS), a writer and a translator of the Holy Bible into the Chinese language.
The Medical Missionary Society in China was a Protestant medical missionary society established in Canton, China, in 1838.
The growth and development of the American Presbyterian Medical Mission in Weixian, Shandong is an instance of the growth and influence of rural, missionary medicine in China. Moreover, the medical mission at Weixian exemplifies the shift from medicine being a component of evangelism to being able to exist as its own entity.
Clara A. Swain was an American physician and Christian missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She has been called the "pioneer woman physician in India," and as well as the "first fully accredited woman physician ever sent out by any missionary society into any part of the Non-Christian world". Her call to service in India fell from a need to have a female physician provide quality medical care to high-caste women, that were religiously secluded to zenana. Supported by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Swain left the United States in 1869, for Bareilly, India, where she spent the next twenty-seven years of her life treating women and children from illnesses, while simultaneously working to evangelize natives.
Mary Hannah Fulton was a medical missionary sent to South China by the Presbyterian Church. She began her work by setting up a dispensary in Kwai Ping, then continued by working with the Canton Hospital. She set up a college to train women in medicine, the Hackett Medical College for Women, and served as the dean there. In addition, she preached the Presbyterian faith and ultimately began a multi-denominational Christian congregation in Shanghai. There she also translated English medical volumes into Chinese. She died in Pasadena, California at the age of 72.
Dr David Duncan Main (1856-1934) was a British doctor, best known for his medical missionary work in Hangzhou, the capital of the south-eastern Chinese Province Zhejiang, during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was superintendent of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Medical Mission from his arrival in 1881 until 1927, and principal of the Hangzhou Medical Training College. He was also involved in the formation of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Hangzhou, which focused on preaching the Gospel to non-Christians. Main and his wife, Florence Nightingale Smith, opened over thirty medical buildings during their time in China, as well as a centre for industrial work training.
Mary West Niles was an American physician and missionary. Niles was the first woman missionary physician at the Canton Hospital and opened a school for the blind in China. Niles learned the Cantonese language so she could translate the English Braille system into Cantonese.
Medical missions is the term used for Christian missionary endeavors that involve the administration of medical treatment. As has been common among missionary efforts from the 18th to 20th centuries, medical missions often involves residents of the "Western world" traveling to locales within Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, or the Pacific Islands.
The Canton Hospital (廣州博濟醫院) or Ophthalmic Hospital in Canton, also known as the Canton Pok Tsai Hospital, was founded by Protestant medical missionary Peter Parker in Canton, China on November 4, 1835. Known as Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hospital and Second Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yet Sen University, it treated thousands of patients in need, became the center for the Medical Missionary Society in China, and still exists today as one of the most prestigious ophthalmic institutes in the world.
The Church Missionary Society in China was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East; as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society. The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated.
John Glasgow Kerr was an American medical missionary and philanthropist who helped establish The Canton Hospital, also known as the Ophthalmic Hospital, in Canton, China.
William Burns Thomson was a Scottish medical missionary born in Kirriemuir, Scotland to Christian parents. Thomson dedicated his life to the spread of the gospel and to medical missionary work. His work as part of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society(EMMS) transformed the organization from its focus on the slums of Scotland to an international missionary aid organization. During his time with EMMS, Dr. Thomson advocated for missionaries across the globe, including Dr. Kaloost Vartan of the Nazareth Hospital and Dr. William Jackson Elmslie in Kashmir. Dr. Thomson also served as a pioneer for medical missionary training by creating the original EMMS training school at the Cowgate dispensary. This led to more training schools being created in other parts of the world, like Bombay(now known as Mumbai) and Calcutta(now known as Kolkata), India.
Andrew P. Happer (1818–1894) was a nineteenth-century American Presbyterian missionary who is known for his educational, medical, and religious endeavours in South China. Happer's missionary service lasted from 1844 to 1891, and during this time he worked in the suburbs and city of Canton. In the field of medicine, Happer created two dispensaries, the first was established in 1847 and the second in 1854. He also introduced higher Christian education to the Chinese youth of Canton through opening boarding and day schools, a training school, and eventually the Canton Christian College in the year 1888. Carrying out his duty as a Presbyterian missionary, Happer found the First Presbyterian Church where he was a pastor and converted many Cantonese people to Christianity, published books and other works focusing on Presbyterian faith, translated multiple religious works, and held editor positions for Presbyterian periodicals. After making his impact on the Cantonese people and laying down the foundation for future Presbyterian missions in South China, Happer left China for the last time in 1894.
Omar Leslie Kilborn, was a Canadian medical missionary who greatly advanced Western medical techniques in West China. He was one of the founders of the West China Union University in Chengdu, Sichuan, China and was a member of the Canadian Methodist Church. He was an educator, a leading professor of science and medicine, and the author of multiple medical and linguistic texts.
Colin Strachan Valentine FRSE LLD LRCP LRCSE was a Scottish missionary physician who founded the first medical missionary training institution in India and advocated for the inclusion of women in the medical field. Valentine attended the University of Edinburgh and additionally was a student in the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. Valentine served in the Medical Mission House in Cowgate until the Foreign Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church assigned him as medical missionary to India in 1861. In India, Valentine played an important role in improving the health and society of the regions of Mewar and Jeypore. He founded several educational institutions in Jeypore and instituted significant reforms and policies. After a brief return to Scotland, Valentine established the first medical missionary training institution in India called the Agra Medical Missionary Training Institution in 1881, which educated both male and female students.
Edward George Horder was an English medical missionary to China notable for his work with leprosy patients. As a member of the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), Horder spent 25 years in the city of Pakhoi–now Beihai–building and operating the first mission hospital in the Guangdong province. In addition to becoming the second-largest C.M.S. mission hospital in China, Horder's Pakhoi mission station was the first institution in the region to treat leprosy patients. Even after Horder's departure, the hospital remained a health center in Beihai and was the site of service for a generation of new missionaries. Although the leper wing closed in 1936, the hospital itself still survives as the Beihai People Hospital.
Birdwood Van Someren Taylor was an English physician, teacher and clergyman. He was the second Church Mission Society medical missionary to go to China in 1878, working during the height of the Opium War, with a focus on Fuzhou (Fuh-Chow), Fukien, and Hinghwa. Noted for his work addressing opium addiction and leprosy, Taylor founded mission hospitals in Fukien, including three significant hospitals with the largest in Hingwa. He incorporated medical education into the hospitals and translated English medical textbooks into the local dialects. He also served as the founding Principal of Union Medical College in Western China. Taylor was also known for bringing English lawn tennis to the Fukien area.
References
Austin, Alvyn (2007). China's Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN978-0-8028-2975-7.
Broomhall, Alfred (1981). Hudson Taylor and China's Open Century, Book 1: Barbarians and the gates. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN0-340-26210-9.
Kaiyi Chen. Seeds from the West: St. John's Medical School, Shanghai, 1880–1952. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 2001. ISBN1-879176-38-6.
G. H. Choa. "Heal the Sick" Was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China. Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. ISBN962-201-453-4
Kathleen L. Lodwick. Crusaders against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874–1917. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. ISBN0-8131-1924-3.
Karen Minden. Bamboo Stone: The Evolution of a Chinese Medical Elite. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1994. ISBN0-8020-0550-0.
Guangqiu Xu. American Doctors in Canton: Modernization in China, 1835–1935. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2011. ISBN978-1-4128-1829-2.
Austin, Alvyn J. Saving China: Canadian missionaries in the middle kingdom 1888–1959. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986. ISBN0-8020-5687-3
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