T

CHAPTER XV.

MEDICAL MISSIONS IN CHINA.

HE Chinese republic furnishes the greatest field in the world for medical missions. More than one-third of the physicians, hospitals and dispensaries supported by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions are in China. The fact that the Presbyterian church has a larger medical force in China than any other missionary orgnization is not so surprising when we recall that the first missionary sent to China by this Board was a physician.

Beginnings of Missions

It was on June 21, 1844, that D. B. McCartee, M. D., arrived in Ningpo. For many years he gave his time to dispensary and itinerating work and helped to establish the first Presbyterian church in China. "Thus," says Dr. J. C. Garritt (Jubilee papers of the Central China Pres. Mission) "from the first as so often since in other parts of China, the medical missionary opened the way for the clerical, disarming suspicion and inducing a friendly feeling toward the foreigners and a willingness to hear their teachings."

China's

Medical Needs

China, with one-fourth of the world's population, is in dire need of the modern physician. Except the few

COMMENCEMENT HACKETT MEDICAL COLLEGE, 1912

Dr. Sun Yat Sen, in Center, Delivered Address. Dr. Mary H. Fulton, 3rd at His Right, in Charge

who have been trained by foreigners, her native doctors have very little scientific knowledge; their medicines are vile concoctions; they know nothing of modern surgery; they are ignorant of the germ theory of disease. The average Chinaman, particularly in the north, is dirty in person, wears dirty clothes, lives in a dirty house and travels through dirty streets. He is afflicted with plague, cholera, smallpox and periodically the famine sweeps away millions, while chronic diseases of various kinds cause untold suffering. To rescue this numerous population from the bonds of physical misery, China has supplied herself with a horde of ignorant, superstitious doctors, whose remedies usually serve to aggravate disease. The dawn of the new day in this republic has ushered in a demand for the best medical skill and medical missions are being put to a severe strain to heal disease, to educate native physicians and to train nurses according to modern methods.

Medical
Education

Especially in the line of medical education China is prominent. The Presbyterian Board is engaged in such instruction in five separate institutions, four of which are union schools and plans are being developed for work in a sixth institution. Yet these six are all too few for the great work which requires to be done before China shall be adequately supplied with medical aid.

The Presbyterian work in China is divided into seven missions, as follows:-Hainan, South China, Hunan, Central China, Kiang An, Shantung and North China. We will consider the fields in the above order.

Hainan

I. THE HAINAN MISSION.

Resting on the bosom of the sea just off the mainland lies the Island of Hainan. It is an integral part of Kwang Tung Province but has the distinction of being the southernmost bit of Chinese soil and is almost like another land with its tropical climate, diverse tribes and primitive peoples. The three centers of the Presbyterian medical work are at Hoihow, Nodoa and Kachek.

Hoihow was opened in 1881 by Mr. C. C. Hoihow Jeremiasson who used medical missionary methods and whose work was taken over by the Presbyterian Board in 1885. Dr. H. M. McCandliss was sent to Kiung Chow, the capital, where he began work in an old ancestral hall. Eleven years later a hospital was built three miles distant at Hoihow the port where the medical work was centralized. The building of this brick hospital was an economic success of the highest type,-$4,000 gold paid for the eighty-five bed hospital, the doctor's residence, a gate house and two kitchens. Other small buildings have since been added. It is a missionary hospital in the strictest sense. Applicants must agree to spend an hour a day studying the catechism, New Testament and hymns if they wish to become in-patients. A French and a Chinese hospital are available for those who will not agree to these requirements. Patients who smoke opium are required to take the opium treatment which usually cures them in from fifteen to twenty days. For ten years or more until the new church was completed Dr. McCandliss preached in the chapel each Sunday. In its sixteen years of service the hos