Sept. 29.
"Here to-day doctors gather for the first time in conference under the auspices of the Chinese 'Medical Association: Thus' the crown is placed on the honourable efforts of Foreign and Chinese medical men to grapple with the huge problem of fighting disease and entrenching' public health in this vast country. The amalgamation of the' China Medical Association and the National Medical Association of China is the admistrative sign of this new stage in the campaign, It marks the happy recognition of the common bond between men who are engaged in the noblest work performable on behalf of humanity. The fusion may be said, too, to honour the partnership ' between modern medical science and the genius of-older traditions from which the present generation can learn while applying its own more
Amowledge of medicine in every widely-equipped and informed branch, Without going so far back as to examine the conditions of ancient Chinese medicine or the later arrivals of the Jesuit medical missionaries who opened hospital in Macao in 1669 and gured the Emperor K'ang Hai Tialatia with cinchona bark, it is convenient to point to Dr. Pearson's. introduction of vaccination into Canton in 1805—nine years ry of western medical enter-in China, Pearson opened Ophthalmic. Hospital at! Macao in 1827, where Mors and Livingstone had already been conducting a dispensary.
There followed Dr. Peter Barker from the United States of 'America and with Bridgman and Colledge who, like Pearson and Livingstone, were servants of the East India Company, started the] Medical Missionary' Society of 'China in 1838. 'That may be said to have used ether in 1847, the healthy infant whose birth is to' be formally registered to-day. may be noted that Kuan, student under Dr. Parker, is said to have used either in 1847, the same year in which Simpson first used it in Edinburgh and only a year after Morton had given it in Boston. Just a century ago the ignorance of the medical profession in the wear would seem. astonishingly pathetic were it not for recognition of the strides! made in medical research since! then to the greater enligl ment of the practitioner. Moreover these pioneers in China had to cope with the difficulties of introducing foreign methods into 'a country of intense conservatism and imperfect communications. And progress was necessarily slow. It depended in the main on recruitment to the mission field. From 1834 to 1887 only about 150 medical missionaries shouldered the heavy burden. A great step forward came in the latter year, which will be remembered England for the creation of the institution of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Nurses. Between 1887 and 1890 no less than 46 medical missionaries arrived in China. Yet Dr. Lockhart of the Jopened his hospital in Shanghai, Dr. John G. Kerr, of the American Presbyterian Mission, had, 1855, taken over the Canton Hospital where he was to begin his wonderful career and, forty-three years later, to found the Dr. Coombs Society came to-Peking in 1873 fas the first woman medical missionary. In 1886 the Medical Missionary Association was, founded.
To-day's gathering would not however have been possible if the training of Chinese medical men had been neglected. For a hong time, for various reasons, the pioneers of western medicine were unable to give sustained attention to that work. It was the first conference of the Medical Missionary Association in 1890 that a real' step forward was taken. Dr. Philip B. Cous-and of Edinburgh. University [was appointed Chairman of a [Committee of Education and the Conference urged the importance lof more efficient and systematic teaching. Dr. Cousland_ him: by the compilation of his fami Anglo-Chinese Medical Lexicon, which first appeared in 1908, made a valuable contribution to this educative endeavour. More-lover up to the time of his death in British Columbia just two years ago, he continued to assist the cause of medical education here by his admirable translations into Chinese of standard works. So instruction and training in China have gone to ce-operate in the advance accruing from the increasing land now long standing recourse of Chinese students medical schools in Europe land America, In recent years the efforts of the Rockefeller [Commission which has so greatly' stimulated research and paved the way for the amalgs lof medical schools. He Shanghai the rapidly developed work of the Henry Lester Institute may de specially mentioned, but it should not be forgotten that in the early days valuable individual research, work was carried out by doctors Jattached to the Customs Medical Service. Nor can Shanghai be unmindful of the fact that, in career of some thirty years, the Public Health Department of the International Settlement hi Iworthily contributed to the can: lof preventive medicine. The [Government has come late into the field. Tt is now deriving sistance from the League of Nations. Its chief achievement however must be noted as the establishment of the Plague Prevention Service under Dr. Wu Lien-teh, whose able direction of the Quarantine Service during the cholera epidemic is fresh in the memory. The infant, public health service under Dr. J. Hong Liu has yet to find its feet but it has started with excellent credentials and, in spite of man fest difficulties, it may succeed jin fulfilling the intentions of lits promoters. This brief and necessarily incomplete review of the ground which the gathering to-day is trying to consolidate indicates the general trend of medical effort in China. The field before that effort is enormous. But the mere fact that the new Association has been brought into existence gives hope that the trail blazed by the pioneers will be faithfully follow-led and lengthened to the general benefit of the people of this country.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.