/3S9 
 
 Medical Missions 
 How TO Strengthen Them 
 
 FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF 
 THE FOREIGN MISSIONS CONFERENCE 
 OF NORTH AMERICA 
 THE OPENING SESSIONS 
 GARDEN CITY. NEW YORK 
 JANUARY II, 1916 
 
 FOREIGN MISSIONS CONFERENCE 
 
 25 MADISON AVENUE 
 NEW YORK 
 
Tuesday Afternoon 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONS AND HOW TO STRENGTHEN 
 
 THEM 
 
 WILLIAM W. CADBURY, M.D., CANTON, CHINA • 
 
 It was not until Peter Parker, in his Ophthalmic Hospital in 
 Canton, proved the power of the appeal of the healing of the 
 body that medical missions first came to be recognized as a 
 vital and essential part of modern missionary propaganda; 
 since then medical missions have steadily developed until now 
 there are nearly one thousand missionary physicians (at least 
 one-fifth of whom are women) conducting six hundred and 
 seventy-five hospitals and nine hundred and sixty-three dis- 
 pensaries. 
 
 Last March, 1915, a group of those interested in medical 
 missions met and urged the Committee of Arrangements of the 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America to make a 
 place on its program for the discussion of this important 
 branch of missionary activity. Under the impulse of that 
 meeting the Secretary of the Conference wrote to the medical 
 missionaries of all Moslem and non-Christian lands asking two 
 leading questions : 
 
 One: What are your chief difficulties in attaining your 
 ' aims as a physician? 
 
 Two: What lines of inquiry do you suggest as a means of 
 strengthening the medical missionary work? 
 
 The present paper is an attempt to correlate the answers re- 
 ceived in order to have an understanding of the sentiments of 
 those actually on the job. 
 
 The answers may be grouped as follows : 
 
 CHIEF DIFFICULTIES IN ATTAINING AIMS 
 
 A. 
 
 Lack of Proper Staff and Assistants. 
 
 Lack of men and women physicians to properly care for existing in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 Lack of medical assistants, both foreign and native, trained nurses, 
 dentists and business managers. 
 
 Lack of consulting physicians due to isolation. 
 
 More patients than the average doctor can properly handle. 
 
 Physicians are encumbered with a great mass of non-medical work — 
 too many things to do. 
 
 Insufficient financial backing of medical work already undertaken. 
 
 Lack of sympathy and support of non-medical colleagues. 
 
B. 
 
 Complaint of Tendency tozvard Lozver Standards. 
 
 Tendency to become satisfied with low medical standards and un- 
 scientific work. 
 
 Failure to study and keep abreast of medical progress. 
 
 Lack of interest in research work. 
 
 Insufficient practical experience before going to the field. 
 
 Lack of spiritual growth on the part of the doctor. 
 
 Tendency to neglect the evangelistic for the medical work and 
 vice versa. 
 
 c. 
 
 Lack of Proper Buildings and Equipment. 
 
 Lack of buildings, surgical instruments and medical supplies. 
 
 Lack of a medical library — books, periodical literature and pamph- 
 lets. 
 
 Many letters speak of the lack of the necessary parapher- 
 nalia for properly treating the sick. The hospital buildings are 
 often hopelessly inadequate. For several years I worked in a 
 hospital made of bamboo mats with room for less than twenty 
 patients. 
 
 D. 
 
 Native Inertia and Opposition. 
 
 Superstition and ignorance of native populations. 
 
 Advanced state of disease in many patients. 
 
 Competition with native quack doctors. 
 
 Unreliability of assistants. 
 
 A number of missionaries refer to the ignorance and super- 
 stition of the people and in some cases of lack of confidence 
 in the foreign doctor as a decided hindrance. The native quack 
 doctor is a competitor hard to'overcome. 
 
 Great quantities of inferior drugs and patent medicines are 
 for sale in the native markets — unsanitary surroundings in 
 which the missionary must live and the poor quality of food 
 obtainable — conditions found in all uncivilized lands. 
 
 E. 
 
 Lack of interest in America. 
 
 The theory often expressed that medical work is only a means to- 
 ward evangelization and should never be considered as an end or 
 message in itself, has operated against its proper support and devel- 
 opment. 
 
 The home constituency is uninformed, hence indifferent, to the needs 
 of medical missionaries. 
 
 In some instances the complaint is made that missionary 
 physicians at home on furlough are not permitted to solicit 
 funds for their hospitals for fear that money will be diverted 
 from the evangelistic work as a whole. 
 
 2 
 
REPLIES SUGGESTING MEANS OF STRENGTHENING THE MEDICAL 
 MISSIONARY WORK ^ 
 
 Maintenance of high quality in staff and assistants. 
 
 More and better prepared physicians are wanted. 
 
 Missionary physicians should have the best possible preparation and 
 post-graduate work when practicable. 
 
 Candidates for medical work should have had a course in a hos- 
 pital and be equipped with a specialty before leaving home. 
 
 The missionary physician should be an all-round practitioner, not 
 too much of a specialist. 
 
 Missionary doctors should have full opportunity to acquire a good 
 working knowledge of the language. 
 
 Medical missions must be self-perpetuating and expansive through 
 producing efficient devoted native workers. 
 
 Medical missionaries must be sound physically, have the 
 best medical training, of broad vision and judgment and quali- 
 fied spiritually. They must love the people among whom they 
 work. 
 
 The doctor should reduce the number of patients to those 
 that he can properly handle, his aim being a high grade of 
 work rather than the number of patients enrolled. The term 
 of service on the field should not be more than five years, and 
 when on furlough he should be enabled to do graduate work. 
 
 Time should be allowed for research work and study. 
 
 The authority of the medical missionary should be recog- 
 nized by the mission in all things pertaining to the medical 
 work in which he is engaged. There should be hearty co- 
 operation between the physicians of the mission and the other 
 missionaries, so that their health may be carefully guarded 
 while on the field. I have seen missionaries break down 
 physically when two or three doctors were on the field, with- 
 out the latter knowing anything about it. 
 
 Other suggestions regarding the efficiency of missionary 
 physicians and assistants have largely to do with hospitals, 
 equipment and better organization. 
 
 Better Hospitals, Equipment and Organization. 
 
 There should be at least two doctors and one foreign trained nurse 
 capable of training others in each hospital. 
 
 There should be a hospital superintendent — a non-medical business 
 man. i 
 
 The absence of trained nurses in mission hospitals is a 
 real source of inefficient work. An active campaign should 
 be started to secure well-trained young women to consecrate 
 themselves to this service, not for the purpose of doing actual 
 nursing, but to establish training schools in all mission hos- 
 pitals, so that the nursing may be raised from its present de- 
 
 3 
 
plorable condition in many institutions to a high standard. 
 There are many hospitals where there is no trained nurse, and 
 the native helpers who are supposed to do the nursing are sim- 
 ply workmen who can do little more than scrub floors, and 
 they do not do that very well either. A physician does not 
 make a good superintendent of nurses. There must be a 
 trained nurse to serve as a superintendent of nurses. I have 
 tried to act in that capacity myself, and feel my inability. 
 
 The work done should be of such high standard that it will 
 commend Christianity, be medically efficient and contribute to 
 medical science. 
 
 Less denominationalisnj should rule in medical work. Where 
 two or more hospitals exist in one city or section, there should 
 be greater co-operation, permitting the men in that neighbor- 
 hood to specialize in one field of medicine for that particultar 
 section. This is a point I feel to be of great importance, the 
 combining of the medical work on the field. I know of towns 
 where there are two hospitals or three hospitals under separ- 
 ate mission boards, and each doctor has to be a surgeon, a 
 medical man, an eye specialist, a skin specialist, and do all the 
 work himself ; whereas he might easily arrange with the men 
 working in the other two hospitals to share his work by becom- 
 ing a specialist in one phase of the work. This would certainly 
 enhance the quality of the work done in that section. 
 
 Up-to-date union hospitals, laboratories and medical schools 
 should be established in centers to train native men and women 
 as physicians, surgeons, pharmacists, nurses and mid-wives. 
 The medical work of each mission should be unified and bet- 
 ter systematized. A central laboratory should be established 
 in each section or country. A large central hospital should be 
 located in the chief city of the district occupied, with branch 
 hospitals or dispensaries in market towns. Financial co-oper- 
 ation with the people should be cultivated and public health 
 propaganda carried on. 
 
 There is urgent need for the better financing of hospitals 
 and medical schools. Dr. Simon Flexner remarked at the 
 close of his recent visit in China, that the hospitals did not 
 lack this or that but they lacked absolutely everything neces- 
 sary^ for the making of modern scientific hospitals. It must 
 be clearly recognized that no medical school can depend entire- 
 ly upon its paying patients for clinical material. There must 
 also be a free ward where students may obtain practical experi- 
 ence in diagnosis. At least one-half of the budget of a medi- 
 cal school must be provided by other sources than the fees 
 from the patients and students. 
 
 4 
 
Better publicity and organisation at the Home Base. 
 
 Publicity in the home lands by means of (a) a special de- 
 partment in medical journals, (b) letters sent out periodically 
 telling of the work. 
 
 A medical man on every missionary board. 
 
 A secretary at the home base to raise funds and have gen- 
 eral oversight of the medical work or a medical auxiliary. 
 
 A greater effort should be made to arouse the interest of the 
 medical profession of Europe and America in this great work. 
 The doctor on the mission field has an abundance of clinical 
 material of the greatest interest to the medical professors at 
 large. By frequent contributions to medical periodicals and by 
 addresses before medical societies at home much can be done. 
 But in order to do this there must be less routine work for the 
 doctor to do. 
 
 In this connection I wish to quote from Dr. F. W. Peabody, 
 a representative physician of Boston, who visited many mis- 
 sionary hospitals and medical schools of China in 1914, as a 
 member of the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foun- 
 dation : 
 
 “I have been thinking of how to get the medical missionaries 
 in closer touch with the medical profession in America. Why 
 are they not in close touch ? The trouble is on both sides. The 
 profession in America know very little as a whole of China, 
 India, etc., and the conditions of work there, and I do not 
 believe that the missionary spirit has appealed to medical men 
 very broadly. The American profession has got to be made 
 to be interested — it will not become so without some active ef- 
 fort. 
 
 The result will be the sending out of men with larger per- 
 sonal contact with the best hospitals and medical men in 
 America; frequent returns for work in good hospitals at home; 
 writing good stuff for American Medical Journals; interchange 
 between the countries by having good men go out for limited 
 periods — young men to assist in schools and hospitals and 
 older men to teach for a year or two.” 
 
 The Mission Boards themselves should realize the mag- 
 nitude of the medical side of their work. Every Board that 
 maintains doctors on the field should have at least one physi- 
 cian as a member- The Medical Auxiliaries of the Society 
 for Propagating the Gospel, the Church Missionary Society, 
 the Wesleyan Missionary Society and the Baptist Missionary 
 Society, should be carefully investigated and some similar 
 body appointed. 
 
 5 
 
The funds of the medical work should be distinct from those 
 of other departments. A joint investigating committee repre- 
 senting different societies and composed of representative medi- 
 cal men should be selected and sent to the various mission 
 fields. By this means the defects of the work would be more 
 clearly emphasized and could more definitely be brought before 
 the medical profession at large. 
 
 The China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation 
 has shown the great advantage of medical men visiting the 
 missionary hospitals. The Presbyterian Board has recently 
 sent out some physicians to investigate their medical work, and 
 similar commissions sent out from year to year would be of 
 great help in advancing medical missionary work. 
 
 The Boards carrying on medical work should also co-oper- 
 ate more intimately with one another at home and should pre- 
 sent the cause of medical missions as a single unit. 
 
 Medical missions are now recognized as an important part 
 of the missionary propaganda. The Boards must stand on the 
 side of progress and see that their hospitals and medical 
 schools keep pace with the medicine and surgery of Europe 
 and America. Let the Christfan prove the superiority of his 
 religion, by his superior knowledge and skill in the practical 
 application of it to the needs of the sick. 
 
 Discussion 
 
 The Chairman ; You have already in your hands a pamph- 
 let giving the letters from the medical missionaries relative to 
 their chief' difficulties, with suggestions as to the means of 
 strengthening the medical missionary work. 
 
 The next speaker is Dr. B- C. Atterbury. 
 
 B. C. Atterbury, M.D., New York, formerly of Peking, 
 China : I was very much interested in reading in the paper the 
 other day a remark made by one of the leading English gen- 
 erals. He said thait modern warfare depended nowadays, — 
 very different from ancient times, — not so much on the number 
 of men employed as it did upon a large supply of ammunition. 
 And he went on to say that a great change had taken place in 
 the methods of warfare from the olden times. A wonderful 
 change has also taken place in missionary methods all along the 
 line. 
 
 I well remember, when I was out in China, an old school 
 missionary with a long beard and a black cravat and a frock 
 coat, — magnificent man he was; I am not saying anything 
 against him, — a man who was strong on all the theology of his 
 denomination. He was looking at one of these young mission- 
 aries who had just arrived from America. This younger man 
 
 6 
 
had on a colored cravat, and just an ordinary suit of clothes. 
 He was able to talk about golf, and about lawn tennis, and he 
 had a vocabulary along these lines, though he didn’t seem to be 
 very strong on denominational theology. This old time mis- 
 sionary said to me in a whisper: “When I was a young man 
 and went out as a missionary, they sent out men.” Now, his 
 inference was that this young fellow just from America was 
 not a man. And I can’t help but think, friends, that to cope 
 with the present day proiblems of missionary work, and th^ 
 increased intelligence of the natives of these various countries, 
 to keep pace with the more modern ideas of what real Chris- 
 tianity is, that possibly that young fellow was better fitted than 
 that older man. 
 
 A wonderful change has taken place in medicine during the 
 past few years. Why, among these young graduates in medi- 
 cine, I feel like an old mossback. They are talking in terms 
 that some of us older doctors know very little about. A revolu- 
 tion has been witnessed in the whole range of medical science. 
 I am reminded of a story of a patient that went to a specialist, 
 and asked him to give his opinion as to what he should do to 
 get back his health ; and the specialist told him, “What you 
 want to do is to take all the. exercise you can. Be out in the 
 open air. Use your muscles and get just as strong as possible.” 
 The patient went away. The next week he went back to the 
 same specialist, who looked him over, and, forgetting that he 
 had seen him the week before, said, “Why, what you want to 
 do is to sit quiet. You must not take any exercise. Just sit 
 down as quietly as possible, and do not worry and do not fret ; 
 do not move any of your muscles any more than you can help.” 
 So the patient said, “Why, doctor, last week you told me that 
 I must move around all I could, take all the exercise possible.” 
 And the doctor said, “Well, you see medical science during 
 the past week has made wonderful progress.” That is the 
 way it is during even the short time that some of us have lived 
 in this world ; medical science has made wonderful progress. 
 
 The letters from the medical missionaries published in this 
 little pamphlet agree along three points, and just the points I 
 hope will be thoroughly discussed this afternoon. These 
 answers come from specialists. They do not come from men 
 who are talking hot air, as they say. They are from men and 
 women who know what they are talking about and who are 
 speaking from practical experience. 
 
 The first thing upon which all these answers agree is that 
 there has got to be some change, a decided advance in the 
 methods hitherto employed in conducting medical work. 
 
For instance, Dr. Venable of Kashing says: “I do not wish 
 to disparage the medical mission work of the past, but I be- 
 lieve the time has come for making radical and sweeping 
 changes in our work in the direction of consolidation or con- 
 centration. We have spread out too thin.” Dr. Norton, of 
 Korea, writes : “The time has come when we can no longer 
 get along with the scanty outfit and slipshod methods of even 
 ten years ago. I think every hospital should be outfitted to do 
 the most careful and scientific work.” Dr. King, of Banza, 
 Congo : “A doctor goes through years of long, hard prepara- 
 tion, then on the field finds his hands tied through lack of hos- 
 pital equipment, and he finds that he must do part of the work 
 of a minister and part of the work of a trained nurse.” 
 
 Then there was a second response which is practically unan- 
 imous. All feel there is a lack of financial support. TTiis is a 
 universal difficulty felt by medical men. Dr. Powell, of China, 
 says : “My difficulty is chiefly a financial one.” Dr. Witt, 
 Hunan : “I feel keenly the lack of funds.” 
 
 Dr. Hollenbeck, of Africa : “My difficulties are scanty sup- 
 plies and hospital equipment.” 
 
 I think these excerpts are enough to show the second 
 point, that all our medical men feel somehow or other they 
 must have more financial support in order to conduct their 
 hospitals as they should be, in order to bring them up to the 
 fnodern standard. And the governments too are beginning 
 to demand a higher standard. Some way must be found to 
 increase their financial support. 
 
 The third point upon which they all agree is that they must 
 have more assistants in every hospital. This means no hos- 
 pital should be left with only one man. A one man hospital is 
 out of date. A friend was telling me the other day that while 
 he has been away something like nine months from his field 
 his hospital is shut up, a fine hospital with a fine plant, because 
 he is the only man in it. He had to go on a furlough, and his 
 hospital was closed. 
 
 We also need at least one trained nurse in every hospital, 
 and also facilities for training natives. Listen to two or three 
 extracts on this point. 
 
 Dr. St. John Ward, Beirut, Syria: “Lack of satisfactory 
 assistants is the real difficulty.” Dr. Allen, China: “Lack of 
 trained nurses. Also every hospital should have a superinten- 
 dent to attend to details.” 
 
 Dr. King, of Banza, Congo: “I believe the greatest success 
 lies in the medical education of the natives.” 
 
 Dr. Judd, China : “Short handed. Till recently no colleague.” 
 
 8 
 
Dr. Calverley, Arabia : “The lack of trained native assist- 
 ants is being met in some places by establishing union medical 
 schools, but as yet little has been accomplished along this line 
 compared with what should still be done.” 
 
 I could go on reading many more of these extracts, but I 
 think they show very clearly these three points. First there must 
 be some change in the method of conducting medical work. 
 Second, there must be some way devised to give better finan- 
 cial support to our medical missionaries. They need hospitals, 
 they need libraries, they need better instruments. And third, 
 every hospital should have at least two doctors and a trained 
 nurse, with facilities for training natives to do the detail work. 
 
 I often think this whole missionary work is like the human 
 body and its members. We are the body, but the head, the 
 brain is the Lord, who animates the whole. The hand cannot 
 say to the foot, “I have no need of you,” and the clerical man 
 must not say to the medical man, “I have no need of you.” 
 All are necessary. And if I were going out as a missionary 
 now I do not know which profession I would choose in order 
 to do the most good. All are necessary, and in order to make 
 them efficient the hand must be kept up to the highest point 
 of efficiency, the foot kept in the same healthy condition and 
 all parts of the body under the direction of the Head. 
 
 The following letter from Dr. Robert C. Beebe to the Secre- 
 tary of the Conference was before the Conference in print : 
 
 CHINA MEDICAL MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 
 
 5 Quinsan Gardens, Shanghai, 
 
 Oct. 20, 1915. 
 
 My Dear Air. Grant : — 
 
 The accompanying resolutions were passed at the last meeting of 
 the Executive Committee of the China Medical Alissionary Association. 
 
 The work being undertaken by the China Aledical Board of the 
 Rockefeller Foundation brings about new conditions for medical mis- 
 sionary work in China. That Board proposes to establish one or 
 more medical schools, working in co-operation with the missionary 
 societies, where young men can have as good advantages in pursuing 
 a medical course, as can be found in the United States or Europe. 
 
 They also propose to assist a certain number of mission hospitals, 
 bringing them up to a higher level of equipment and general efficiency, 
 where the graduates from their schools shall be obliged to serve at 
 least a year as internes. 
 
 That these schools shall be a distinct addition, as designed, to mis- 
 sionary endeavor, those of the teaching force should be men of mis- 
 sionary spirit who are willing to give their lives to the work of regen- 
 erating China. The opportunity to supply such men is open to the 
 missionary societies of the United States and Great Britain. The 
 need is immediate and urgent, and the work of finding men of superior 
 training and consecrated spirit cannot be undertaken too soon. 
 
 9 
 
If the schools and hospitals supported and aided by the China 
 Medical Board fail in manifesting an active Christian spirit, it will 
 be because of the character of the men connected with them. 
 
 The China Medical Missionary Association hopes that the home 
 boards will fully realize the opportunity and responsibility that now 
 rests with them in face of this new situation. 
 
 If suitable men are not forthcoming from the missionary societies 
 the China Medical Board will be obliged to seek their own candi- 
 dates. These men may be quite unobjectionable from a missionary 
 point of view, still it is very desirable that doctors coming out for 
 work under the China Medical Board have affiliation with some mis- 
 sion on the field. They should be missionaries with a missionary 
 spirit 
 
 Will you please bring the accompanying resolutions before the 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America and ask their careful 
 consideration of the same. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 ROBERT C. BEEBE.. 
 
 P. S. Dr. N. Worth Brown of our Medical School in Nanking 
 intends to be at your Conference in January, and we have asked him 
 to represent us should it be necessary. 
 
 I remember with pleasure our association in the work of the. gen- 
 eral missions conference in New York. I am now in Shanghai, and 
 if I can be of any service to you I will be glad to do anything in 
 my power. 
 
 The Chairman: There is a set of resolutions in the hands 
 of Dr. N. Worth Brown, from the China Medical Missionary 
 Association. We will hear these now. 
 
 N. Worth Brown, M.D., Nanking, China; There is also a 
 message from the Association, a very brief message, to this 
 Conference from the China Medical Missionary Association, 
 an organization including in its membership of 435 physicians 
 almost without exception all of the medical missionaries in 
 China. It is my privilege to present to you this message and 
 these resolutions. 
 
 For many years this Association has held biennial meetings 
 for the purpose of discussing the scientific and administrative 
 problems of medical missionaries. The China Medical Jour- 
 nal is its official organ and has been of great assistance in 
 stimulating the advancement of professional ideals. The ac- 
 tivities of the Association cover a number of important fields. 
 Its Publication Committee is concerned chiefly with the trans- 
 lation of medical literature and to this work one physician 
 gives his entire time. The Council on Education, the Com- 
 mittee of Public Health and the Research Committee are all 
 promoting activities in their special departments. The Ex- 
 ecutive Committee, of which Dr. Beebe is the Secretary with 
 headquarters at Shanghai, has done much toward the co-ordin- 
 
 10 
 
ation of Medical work and in a large measure determines our 
 policies in educational and other questions of general concern 
 to the medical body. 
 
 For the past few years there has been a growing movement 
 toward the intensive development of existing medical work, 
 and to this end co-operation and amalgamation have been 
 strongly agitated and in many cases have already become ef- 
 fective. Perhaps the best example is at Nanking where seven 
 American mission boards have united in the maintenance of 
 one medical school. The union of existing hospitals has in 
 several instances become possible with a commensurate in- 
 crease in the effectiveness of the combined effort. 
 
 The function of medical missions in China has changed. 
 They should no longer be regarded as a temporary expedient 
 to open the way for the preaching of the Gospel but as an 
 integral and co-ordinate part of the work of the Christian 
 Church in China and as such should be placed on a permanent 
 basis. To become self-perpetuating, this form of Christian 
 service must eventually be taken over by the Chinese Church 
 and the medical work done by Chinese physicians. To train 
 men for this work and to prepare physicians for leadership in 
 the medical profession is a problem \vorthy of further con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Missionary societies are responsible for the existence of ten 
 medical schools in China. Some of these, considering their 
 very limited resources, are doing fairly creditable work, but 
 their development has only begun. To those who appreciate 
 the refinements of modern medical education and the stand- 
 ards to which schools of high grade should attain, our present 
 facilities seem hopelessly inadequate. To continue medical 
 education of an inferior grade will place our graduates in a 
 class below that of men from non-Christian schools and bring 
 discredit to the missionary cause. The question is not, “How 
 many schools should be conducted if we had the necessary re- 
 sources.” but, “How many efficient schools can we have with 
 the resources availalble.” Should not we have a definite policy 
 with regard to this issue, which, in its application, would elim- 
 inate the less efficient schools, concentrate our combined efforts 
 on the most important districts and unite our forces w'henever 
 possible with philanthropic agencies which are in sympathy 
 with Christian missions. 
 
 It seems providential that just at this critical stage in the 
 development of medical education, the Rockefeller Foundation 
 should have seen this unusual opportunity for service in China. 
 You are all familiar with the report of the special Commis- 
 
 II 
 
sion which visited us in 1914. As a result the China Medical 
 Board was organized, representatives of which have recently 
 that, the institutions established will be, in the words of its 
 recommendations of the original commission. The members 
 of this Board appreciate the work already done by missionary 
 agencies and are prepared to co-operate with them so fully, 
 that, the “institutions established will be, in the words of its 
 Chairman, “distinctive contributions to missionary endeavor.” 
 Already the Peking Union Medical College has been taken 
 over by this Board and a large representation on its Board of 
 Trustees has been given to co-operating societies. The Medi- 
 cal Departments of the University of Nanking and of St., 
 John’s University, together with the Harvard Medical School 
 of China, have agreed to unite and become amalgamated with 
 the school proposed for Shanghai. The Yale school in Chang- 
 sha will probably receive substantial assistance from this source. 
 
 In order to conserve our medical interests and to perpetuate 
 the work already begun should not we co-operate with the 
 China Medical Board so heartily and so effectively that the 
 institutions established and conducted under its management 
 will in reality be active agents in the propagation of our Faith 
 and impress upon the leaders of the future medical profes- 
 sion of China the high moral motives imparted in the teach- 
 ings of our Master? 
 
 With this message I have the following resolutions, Mr. 
 Chairman, to present, from China, the resolutions adopted at 
 a meeting of the executive committee of the China Medical 
 Missionary Association held in Shanghai, October 12, 1915. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CHINA 
 MEDICAL MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION 
 
 Resolved, That we call the attention of the Foreign Missions Con- 
 ference of North America to the unique opportunity and urgent need 
 now presented to the churches to provide medical men to fill appoint- 
 ments in the medical schools and hospitals at present being estab- 
 lished and developed by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller 
 Foundation, and that we impress upon the Boards the very great 
 importance of providing as soon as possible an adequate number 
 of such Christian medical men, in order that these institutions, which 
 promise to exert such great influence throughout China, may, from 
 the beginning, be maintained on a thoroughly Christian basis. 
 
 Resolved, That the Foreign Missions Conference of North America 
 be asked to co-operate in securing a suitable man who shall give his 
 whole time to the work of finding candidates for medical missionary 
 service in China, of advising them in their home preparation and 
 of directing them to the boards of the different churches. 
 
 12 
 
Resolved, That the Foreign Missions Conference of North America 
 be further asked to make provision for the expenses of such a man 
 and that he be instructed to work in the closest possible co-operation 
 with the China Medical Missionary Association. 
 
 Resolved, That we call their attention to the fact that the work 
 of the China Medical Board will make necessary in all our mission 
 hospitals better equipment and a higher grade of general efficiency. 
 That care must be taken that the influence and work of our mission 
 hospitals do not suffer, in the estimation of the Chinese, by com- 
 parison with the work of other agencies. That our hospitals must 
 have men of the highest Christian ideals, thorough professional train- 
 ing and administrative ability, and that we suggest as helping to bring 
 this about that when practicable, in cities having more than one 
 mission hospital, the union of medical work under one administra- 
 tion be secured. 
 
 The Chairman: You have the message and the resolutions 
 from the China Medical Missionary Association before you 
 for your consideration. You will have it in mind in your dis- 
 cussions whether you are prepared to adopt by action here or 
 whether you desire to refer such resolutions to the Business 
 Committee for its recommendations later. 
 
 Rev. Arthur J. Brown, D D. : I venture to call your atten- 
 tion to the fact that this is a part of the report of the Com- 
 mittee of Reference and Counsel. You will notice the third 
 paragraph. The Committee received, after going to press, an 
 important communication from the Rev. E. C. Lobenstine, 
 D.D., Secretary of the China Continuation Committee. That 
 was officially sent to the Committee of Reference and Counsel 
 with a request that the Committee of Reference and Counsel 
 adopt it. It having arrived after the last meeting of the Com- 
 mittee of Reference and Counsel, it is in the hands of a sub- 
 committee of that Committee, of which James L. Barton is 
 chairman, and you will notice on page 14 : “These requests of 
 the China Medical Board and the China Continuation Com- 
 mittee arrived too late for consideration at the last meeting 
 before this report had to go to press. The Committee will 
 bring in recommendations regarding them at this session of the 
 Conference.” This matter is on the docket to be considered 
 at a meeting at 6:15 this evening, at which time Dr. Barton 
 expects to present some recommendations which will be pre- 
 sented to the Conference as part of the report of the Commit- 
 tee of Reference and Counsel tomorrow. 
 
 The Chairman: Will Dr. Brown kindly tell us from what 
 document he is now reading? 
 
 Dr. a. J. Brown : The preliminary reports of the Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Dr. George Heber Jones : It is the document which is in 
 
 13 
 
the hands of all the members of the Conference entitled “Pre- 
 Conference Reports,” on page 13, at the bottom of the page. 
 
 The Chairman : I understand then the Committee of Ar- 
 rangements has placed upon the docket a question which is to 
 be reported upon by the Reference and Counsel Committee. 
 That being the case, we will know exactly what procedure to 
 take, namely, to take no action upon the resolutions, but to 
 have them reported through the proper committee. 
 
 Dr. Brown : I may say the Committee of Reference and 
 Counsel hasn’t the smallest interest in handling the matter. It 
 appears in the report simply because it was sent to the Com- 
 mittee through the chairman and was handed to Dr. Barton 
 through the Committee, but we have no interest in handling it. 
 I say this simply for information. 
 
 The Chairman : It will be a matter of information to 
 know just where we are, in reference to the resolutions. They 
 are clearly in the hands of a committee and will be reported on 
 in the usual order. We have before us then the whole sub- 
 ject, the formal address having been presented and these reso- 
 lutions as a part of our information. Are there any further 
 communications? I have heard that there may be some sug- 
 gestions from Dr. Avison. 
 
 Dr. E. L. Smith : The recommendations that you have just 
 referred to are contained in this four-page letter to the Foreign 
 Missions Boards, which was, I think, sent out by Mr. Grant 
 in April last. [The letter referred to is quoted in full below.] 
 
 There was held in New York on the 16th of March last 
 a conference of those who are interested in medical missions 
 and some of the physicians in New York who were also in- 
 terested, but who were not missionaries. Partly as a result of 
 that meeting there were framed some recommendations to 
 this Conference. Perhaps I might indicate in a few words 
 what these recommendations are. They come to us under 
 the name of Dr. Avison, by whom I think they were presented. 
 
 The first one is : “The first element of the plan recommend- 
 ed by this Conference would be the co-operation of all boards 
 and all the medical work of a given region.” That point is 
 emphasized because of the duplication to which our attention 
 has already been called this afternoon, — three or four phy- 
 sicians in a field, no one of them specialists, each duplicating 
 the work of another- Hospitals, two or three in a field, but 
 not efficient, as they would be were they combined. The co- 
 operation of all boards and all the medical work of a given 
 region is therefore the first element of this new policy recom- 
 mended. 
 
 14 
 
Second: “The separation of funds for medical work from 
 those for general work.” This is something quite different, 
 the recommendation that the funds used by the various mis- 
 sion boards for medical work be separate from the funds of 
 those boards which are used for general work. 
 
 Third : “The appointment of, first, a secretary at the home 
 base to have general oversight of the medical work and the 
 raising of funds for this special phase of medical activity ; 
 and, secondly, a home base made up largely of professional 
 men whose professional standing and high Christian character 
 would secure the highest ideals for the work. 
 
 “A medical mission work thus planned and supported would 
 doubtless attract the gifts of many not otherwise interested in 
 mission work, and the work thus be carried on at a much high- 
 er standard, without encroaching upon the funds of any other 
 forms of mission enterprise, but rather win new contributors 
 to all the funds. This opinion is formed by the experience of 
 those boards in Great Britain which have given the plan of 
 separate funds for medical work a fair trial.” 
 
 These, Mr. Chairman, are the suggestions which come to 
 us under the name of Dr. Avison, and I move that they be re- 
 ferred to the Business Committee, to be taken into consider- 
 ation by that committee in the framing of any possible recom- 
 mendations that they may make to the Conference at a later 
 time. 
 
 FOUR-PAGE LETTER 
 
 To the Foreign Missions Boards, in re Medical Missions: 
 
 An informal meeting attended by a few medical missionaries, physi- 
 cians practicing in America, and several board secretaries and board 
 members was held at the Peg Woffington Coffee House, New York, 
 March 16, 1915. The object of the meeting was to consider methods 
 for strengthening the medical missionary work. A special committee 
 nominated and elected by the meeting was appointed to bring the mat- 
 ters under discussion to the attention of the foreign missions boards, 
 the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, the Medical Sec- 
 tion of the Edinburgh Continuation Committee and such other organ- 
 izations as should be informed. 
 
 The committee charged with this duty is as follows : Dr. O. R. Avi- 
 son. Chairman, medical missionary, Seoul, Korea; Dr. A. J. A. Alex- 
 ander, Presbyterian Church U. S., South. Spring Station, Ky. ; Dr. 
 William Seaman Bainbridge, surgeon. New York; and W. Henry 
 Grant, Secretary Foreign Missions Conference. 
 
 In consideration of the informal and unofficial character of the meet- 
 ing, the Committee in presenting the following matters to the boards 
 for their consideration desires that they be regarded rather as sugges- 
 tive than as definite recommendations. 
 
 I. In reply to the question as to “How can medical men in this 
 country be most successfully approached and interested in our medical 
 
 15 
 
missionary work.” suggestions were made by doctors practicing in 
 America. The first emphasized the need of publicity through medical 
 journals and public meetings, large and small. The second called at- 
 tention to the respect gained for medical missionaries through their 
 personal reports of interesting cases and their evident desire to per- 
 fect themselves in their profession by post-graduate work during their 
 furloughs. 
 
 II. The committee would call your attention to the action of the 
 Medical Missionary Conference held in connection with the World 
 Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, 1910. 
 
 “This Sectional Meeting of Medical Delegates, medical missionaries, 
 and other medical practitioners interested in the medical aspects of 
 missionary work, is of opinion that there is urgent need of some means 
 of communication between the medical missionaries in the field and 
 medical workers at home, whether in the department of medical mis- 
 sions or in the health department, and considers that this can best be 
 done by drawing together the existing organizations in the mission 
 field and in the homelands, and requests the committee which has or- 
 ganized the present medical conference to take this matter into con- 
 sideration, and to take such action as may be required to achieve the 
 desired result.” 
 
 III. The following extract from the Report of the Committee of 
 Reference and Counsel to Foreign Missions Conference of North 
 America, January, 1915 : 
 
 “Four societies have separate arrangements for maintaining and ad- 
 ministering medical missions : 
 
 “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has had a medical 
 mission fund for five years, kept entirely distinct from the ordinary 
 funds. It is responsible for all the medical work carried on by the 
 society, and since its inception no grant has been made from the gen- 
 eral fund towards medical missions. There is, however, a trust fund 
 for building hospitals, which is administered by the governing body 
 and partly meets the needs for hospital buildings. The medical fund 
 is under the direction of a special committee, and in the judgment of 
 the society, since the policy of having a separate fund and committee 
 for medical work was adopted, the fund has increased at an average 
 rate of £2,000 per annum, the medical department has been the means 
 of winning considerable increase in support of the general fund, the 
 efficiency of the work abroad has been promoted. 
 
 “The Church Missionary Society established a medical mission auxili- 
 ary fund in 1886, but this was not at first a success ; but in 1891, a 
 medical auxiliary committee was formed to raise money and make 
 grants for special things required over and above grants made from 
 the general funds of the society. The responsibilities of this auxiliary 
 were enlarged from time to time, until in 1909, it undertook the whole 
 of the expenditure in maintaining the medical missions of the society, 
 including the provision of buildings, and no part of the general fund 
 of the society is allotted to medical mission work. The result of the 
 appointment of this auxiliary has been most encouraging. The funds 
 at their disposal have increased from £1,400 in 1892 to £42,819 in 1912. 
 The secretary writes : T am confident that it is a most important matter 
 to have a special medical mission fund, as it induces people to give who 
 would not give to ordinary mission work. Unfortunately, there some- 
 times seems to be a competition between the medical and other funds, 
 and this feeling should be guarded against as far as possible.’ 
 
 i6 
 
“The Wesleyan Missionary Society has a separate medical fund and 
 finds that many people are willing to give to this work to whom ordi- 
 nary mission appeals' do not come home. At present, their separate 
 fund does not come anywhere near the amount which they annually 
 spend on medical mission work. The balance is taken from the gen- 
 eral funds of the society. The administration of the medical fund is 
 not in the hands of a separate committee, though there is a board of 
 physicians to advise the society in regard to medical expenditure. The 
 ideal to which we are working is to obtain a medical fund that will be 
 amply sufficient for the maintenance of all such work that the society 
 carries on, including the salaries of missionaries, the necessary buildings 
 and all other costs inevitable to such work. When we reach that mark 
 I think it exceedingly probable the committee here would put the man- 
 agement of medical mission work into the hands of a separate commit- 
 tee, having its own secretary and carrying on its own work, subject al- 
 ways to the general committee of the society; but that is a goal that is 
 at present, I am sorry to say, out of sight 
 
 “The Baptist Missionary Society has a special medical mission auxili- 
 ary fund which is kept quite distinct from the general funds of the 
 society, and is administered by the Auxiliary Committee. The medical 
 mission work is entirely dependent upon the funds which the medical 
 mission auxiliary may be able to raise for its prosecution. The admin- 
 istration of the medical mission fund is in the hands of a special com- 
 mittee appointed by the committee of the society, and reporting all its 
 actions to it for confirmation. In regard to the value of the fund as an 
 auxiliary of the society, the secretary writes : ‘The medical mission fund 
 has manifested a very definite growth during the past eleven years. In 
 its first year it only totalled £432. At the end of its eleventh year in 
 March, 1913, the total income was £11,706. The contributions thus ob- 
 tained were almost wholly new-found help elicited through the presenta- 
 tion of the special medical mission appeal. As to the judgment of our 
 committee upon the advantage or otherwise of having a medical mis- 
 sion auxiliary, there is a preponderating opinion in favor of the course, 
 though it is equally true to say that there are some who would like to 
 see no separate funds and no special appeal.” 
 
 IV. The Memoranda Concerning Co-operation in Medical Mission 
 Work presented by Dr. O. R. Avison of Korea to the meeting, March 
 16, 1915; 
 
 “(1) A medical missionary plant cannot be made to yield the best 
 results as a missionary agency without at the same time being itself 
 developed to a high state of medical efficiency representing a high pro- 
 fessional standard of work. 
 
 “(2) While some of our medical institutions have been considerably 
 improved in recent years, many of them still have very inferior build- 
 ings, inadequate equipment, too few workers and insufficiency of funds 
 for current expenses. 
 
 “(3) While our dispensaries and hospitals as they have existed have 
 served a useful purpose in introducing the Gospel to large numbers 
 and may continue to do this service for some time to come, it is evi- 
 dent that as government institutions of a better type are established and 
 our poorer ones are seen in comparison, ours will lose in influence and 
 must be improved to meet the new conditions ; and while the simple 
 hospital service has accomplished much, it is manifest that a greater 
 and more permanent service can be done by producing a body of 
 Christian native practitioners, trained in modern methods who will still 
 
 1/ 
 
more widely extend the service and be men of influence in all the com- 
 munities in which they may live, conbining in themselves strong Chris- 
 tian faith, a thoroughly scientific knowledge and an ability to serve 
 their fellow-men through their profession in a most useful way and in 
 manifestation of the loving spirit of Christ — and so is seen the need 
 for thoroughly scientific and modern medical teaching as a part of our 
 missionary activity. 
 
 “(4) While any single hoard may equip, man and support one or 
 more hospitals in any given field, it is evident that each board cannot 
 provide and carry on in each field a medical teaching institution such as 
 present-day ideals call for, but this can be done by all the boards unit- 
 ing in establishing and conducting one such institution in each field. 
 
 “(5) It must be noted, however, that up to the present time the 
 boards working separately have not been able to establish and conduct 
 even the simple hospitals and dispensaries in an effective way, and even 
 in these elementary forms of work co-operation is desirable. 
 
 “(6) Furthermore, if we are to be allowed by Government to con- 
 tinue in this branch of work, great advances must be made in all our 
 medical plants, and we have no alternative but to face this situation and 
 remodel our plans and methods in such a way as will enable us to 
 bring the standard of all our medical institutions at least up to the 
 point of efficiency required by Government. A plan for reorganizing 
 our medical work which is to a considerable extent the outcome of sug- 
 gestions made by doctors, board secretaries and others is herewith sub- 
 mitted for consideration. This plan would call for ; 
 
 “The co-operation of all the boards in all the medical work of a 
 given region. 
 
 “The separation of funds for medical work from those of the general 
 work. 
 
 “The appointment of 
 
 “(a) A secretary at the Home Base to have general oversight of the 
 medical work and the raising of funds for this special phase of mis- 
 sionary activity. 
 
 “(b) A Home Base Advisory Committee made up largely of medical 
 men whose professional standing and high Christian character would 
 insure the highest ideals for the work both in professional standards 
 and evangelistic methods and at the same time enlist and hold the 
 confidence of those able and willing to give to a work plainly worthy 
 of their interest. 
 
 “(c) Field Committees of the medical men of given districts to ad- 
 vise the missions and boards as to location, standard, equipment and 
 manning of the various hospitals and to pass upon their budgets. 
 
 “A medical mission work thus planned and supported would doubt- 
 less attract the gifts of many not otherwise interested in mission work, 
 and the work thus carried on at a much higher standard without en- 
 croaching upon the funds for other forms of missionary enterprise, 
 but rather winning new contributors to all the funds. This opinion is 
 confirmed by the experiences of those boards in Great Britain which 
 have given the plan of separate funds for medical work a fair trial.” 
 
 The committee believes that the departmentalizing of medical mis- 
 sionary work by the boards, under the general supervision of medical 
 committees on the field and the co-operation of physicians in America, 
 will go far towards strengthening the medical work of the missionary 
 boards, relieving rather than adding to their heavy budgets while giving 
 them a more direct control of the medical work as a whole. 
 
 i8 
 
The Committee of Arrangements for the Annual Conference was 
 also requested to make a place on the program at its next meeting for 
 the discussion of the matters contained in this document and to ap- 
 point some one to present the same. The chairman and the secretary 
 of the Committee of Arrangements agreed to recommend to the com- 
 mittee that Medical Missions should be made a special topic at the next 
 Annual Conference. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 W. Henry Grant, 
 
 For the Committee. 
 
 The Chairman: You hear the motion of Dr. Smith. 
 What is your pleasure? You may remark upon it, discuss it 
 at this time, or make this reference and proceed to discuss the 
 generail question. Is there a second to the motion to refer? 
 
 Dr. George Heber Jones: I was wondering, Mr. Chair- 
 man, if the Committee of Reference and Counsel are to con- 
 sider the matter, if it might not be well to have these papers 
 first go to them, the proposals of Dr- Avison and those that 
 came from the China Medical Missionary Association, so that 
 they could have the whole matter before them ; and when they 
 bring it in, have it then referred to the Business Committee. 
 
 The Chairman: I have no judgment in the matter. I 
 think that procedure would probably unify the action and 
 bring all the elements together. 
 
 Dr. Smith : I will change that motion to that effect. 
 
 The Chairman: Dr. Smith changes his motion. As 
 many as favor this motion will say “Aye.” It is carried. 
 
 The general subject is still before you with all this material 
 which has been presented, and the discussion is open. 
 
 Rev. Arthur C. Baldwin : I would like to ask one ques- 
 tion, and I would like to have an answer from the missionaries 
 themselves. Do they believe in this equipment, this increase of 
 their material forces, so much that they are willing to concen- 
 trate in order to have it? 
 
 We are sadly aware that our resources from this end 
 are pretty well defined. We may grow' in ten years, 
 but we do not grow very rhuch in one year. Now, with that 
 marked definition of income, are the missionary bodies will- 
 ing, when they come to a choice of one good hospital or two 
 poorly equipped hospitals, to choose the one good one? Are 
 the missionaries willing, if they are to choose between two doc- 
 tors for one hospital, or two hospitals each having one doctor 
 only, to choose the one hospital with two doctors? If the field 
 has so much money for the year for all its work, educational, 
 evangelistic, medical, and for training and all the rest, — are 
 they willing to deny themselves something in evangelistic and 
 educational work in order to strengthen the medical work? 
 
 19 
 
That is to say, do all missionary bodies believe in this neces- 
 sity enough to cut of¥ somewhere else in order to do a more 
 intensive work, a better equipped work than they have before? 
 
 It seems to me that the boards have probably erred in ex- 
 panding too far. We have reached out here and there 
 and the other place. We have put the flag up way 
 ahead, and now we are saying to our churches. Come 
 up to this line where we ought to entrench, but the churches 
 are not coming up very fast. Shall we bring the flag back 
 to the line where they are? Of course we want as missionary 
 boards to bid the churches to come up, but I think it comes 
 to this practical application: if the missionary bodies are not 
 going to make some modifications in order to intensify, that 
 the boards should resolve not to extend in the future, — not 
 another new hospital until we have adequately equipped the 
 hospitals and the work we already have. 
 
 E. St. John Ward, M.D., of Beirut, Syria : I am secretary 
 and treasurer of the Medical Missionary Association of Tur- 
 key. I regret very much that the announcement of this meet- 
 ing came at a time when it was almost impossible to get our 
 Association together to convey an official message to you. I 
 feel that we have a very distinct message, and I feel it incum- 
 bent upon me to give it, because I am the only man here per- 
 haps who can do it. 
 
 I desire to speak of our great need for men, because our 
 hearts are bleeding these days. Four of our best medical 
 missionaries in Turkey have died within the last month from 
 typhus fever, — a terrible blow to the work. If we were short 
 of men before, we need them more and more after this terrible 
 loss, and most of you know what Turkey is going through these 
 days. 
 
 In answer to the remarks made by the last speaker, I would 
 say that the Medical Missionary Association of Turkey be- 
 lieves in concentration. It does not believe in diffused work 
 in all parts of the country. Perhaps that is due to local con- 
 ditions in Turkey. There are already a great many native 
 doctors who are going to the interior places, and it is no longer 
 a mere question of getting some sort of medical help to every- 
 body. It is getting the right kind of medical help in the right 
 spirit to the people who can be touched by the message of the 
 gospel ; and that is our purpose there. And we believe to in- 
 crease our efficiency in the Near East we must concentrate 
 wisely. In that respect we must have men of the best quality. 
 I have been interested in the few months that I have had here 
 in America in going among medical schools trying to find out 
 
 20 
 
why men are not coming forward and going into medical mis- 
 sionary work ; and I want to say one or two special things 
 along that line, because they are practical points, and I think 
 they ought to influence those of you who are looking for medi- 
 cal men. 
 
 A remark was made to me by a man in the graduating class 
 of the Columbia Medical School. He said ; “I do not want 
 to apply to a missiionary board because they want little tin 
 gods on wheels.” I looked a bit surprised and said : “What 
 do you mean?” “Well,” he said, “I can’t measure up to the 
 qualifications which they put down in their papers. It is im- 
 possible for anybody to do that.” You people must realize 
 that there is no one quite so humble as a good medical man. 
 He knows his own deficiencies, he knows his own limitations ; 
 and if you want to get the best men, do not make your quali- 
 fications in print quite so high, but study the type of man you 
 have got, note his spirit, and the interest he puts into his work. 
 
 There is a strong tendency in the medical profession today 
 toward specialization. If you will take that interesting and 
 illuminating pamphlet, “The Profession of Medicine,” which 
 has just been published by the Harvard Medical School, you 
 wiH be surprised to find how large a proportion of the recent 
 graduates of medical schools are going into specialties. It is 
 a tendency which the missionary boards must face. I went 
 among the medical schools and spoke to a number of students 
 and asked them why they were not applying for positions in 
 the foreign field. They said, “I want to do this specialty,” or 
 “I want to do that specialty.” I said, there is a chance for 
 you on the field to specialize. In many hospitals they want 
 both a surgeon and a physician ; in some schools they want a 
 man who is a bacteriologist ; in another place they want a man 
 who is an eye specialist.” Their eyes opened and they said : 
 “Is that the situation? We didn’t know there was any place 
 in the mission field for specialists.” I think we must face this 
 tendency to specialize, and that is one reason why there will 
 be a distinct adantage in this element of concentration. 
 
 Now a few words in regard to equipment, in which I am a 
 strong believer. If a man is going to do good work he must 
 have good equipment. There is no sense in a man going out 
 to the foreign field and doing poor work. When I went out, 
 though I was going into pioneer work, I told the Board very 
 frankly that I thought it was good economy to give me a good 
 outfit ; and they did, and they never regretted it. 
 
 But I think there is a limit to it. My heart is not in the 
 medical work simply because it is medical, just simply because 
 
 21 
 
it is dealing out pills or doing operations. My heart is in the 
 medical work because it is going to bring about the kingdom of 
 Christ in the foreign field. Medical missions are especially 
 important in Moslem lands, where we have that problem which 
 is perhaps the greatest problem of the Christian Church in 
 these days, — the problem of Islam, and we want equipment, 
 but the equipment is a means to the end : to get at the people ; 
 to show forth the spirit of Jesus Christ in our work. There- 
 fore I should advise that fewer hospitals be established, but 
 they should be well equipped with all essentials, — nothing extra, 
 perhaps, but all the essentials, — and that they should be care- 
 fully nurtured so that they will conduce to that ultimate pur- 
 pose of the missionary cause in the foreign field. This can 
 be done a great deal better than it has been done in the past, by 
 careful concerted action. 
 
 There should be an interdenominational organization on the 
 field to co-ordinate the various features of the work, help in 
 the purchase of supplies, and advise in regard to building. I 
 have appreciated perhaps nothing better in my position as 
 secretary and treasurer of the Medical Missionary Association 
 than to have letters from medical missionaries from Denmark, 
 Germany, England, asking my advice about building, about 
 buying materials, or about the kind of a sterilizer. That form 
 of co-operation can be done through the local organization, as 
 it is done in China through the China Medical Missionary 
 Association, and is done in Turkey in a small measure through 
 our medical missionary organization. 
 
 I think there should be the same element of co-opera- 
 tion in this country. There are many pieces of apparatus 
 which are very expensive. They are in a sense essential. But 
 it may be so arranged that one man who has the specialty for 
 a particular kind of disease, — we will say kidney disease and 
 bladder disease, — should not be deprived of the right of hav- 
 ing a cystoscope and the electrical apparatus necessary. Per- 
 haps his neighbor in the next town or city cannot afford that, 
 but he can send his cases to the man who has the cystoscope. 
 That is merely a concrete example of how co-operation can 
 take place. And it may be arranged to advantage at the home 
 base as well as on the field. 
 
 We are planning in the period of reconsitruction which is 
 bound to follow the war in what we call the Near East, to 
 make a new start in the line of co-operation, which will be 
 international and interdenominational ; to make a start which 
 shall look into the future, co-ordinating hospitals with medical 
 schools, co-ordinating preparatory schools with the medical 
 
 22 
 
schools and colleges, and following up the graduates of the 
 medical schools and seeing that they go back into their homes 
 to carry out in their lives the spirit of the teachings which 
 they have had in the schools. We have conducted this work 
 by a sort of hit or miss policy, and it has meant a great deal 
 of failure in the past. I think we can do a great deal better, 
 and I hope that we can make a new start as soon as this war 
 is over. It is for that purpose that we are approaching the 
 Rockefeller Foundation, hoping it will do in Turkey and the 
 Near East what it is now doing or promising to do in China. 
 
 J. D. Van Buskirk, M.D., of Seoul, Korea: I speak for 
 Korea where there are between thirty and forty medical mis- 
 sionaries and an auxiliary of the China Medical Missionary 
 Association. We have a Union Medical College, in which I 
 am working, in which four Presbyterian, two Methodist bodies, 
 and the Church of England are co-operating. That shows 
 how much we are willing to get together on the field ; and we 
 are trying to get the work on that basis well established, to 
 make that one place a centre to which the others can come and 
 receive help. 
 
 We realize that there is need in other lines, and we are not 
 trying to take a thing from anybody else. What we are after 
 this afternoon is not to ask the clerical brethren or the school 
 men to sacrifice for the medical work ; it is how can we de- 
 velop the resources of America to get more for us all? — to 
 get libraries in the schools and colleges, to get more preachers, 
 and to get better places, to get more equipment for the hos- 
 pitals. Instead of dividing the loaf we want to get more loaves. 
 
 We want, again, to get a definite idea as to what we are 
 going to do, — a policy; and I think that this Conference could 
 do nothing better than to propose a definite policy for medical 
 missionary work. Do we believe that it is right and necessary 
 to have two men in one institution, two doctors and nurses 
 at least there? If so, after this committee has reported, let 
 us bring in recommendations to the boards to work to that 
 ideal and get there as fast as we possibly can. Have a policy 
 and work towards it. 
 
 Each board should have a committee studying its medi- 
 cal work and its problems, — ^that is, specializing in medical 
 mission work. That will develop the policy for that board. 
 The boards of North America in round numbers send ten per 
 cent, of their men into medical work, but I have not found yet, 
 in some of the mission boards at least, one doctor of medicine. 
 I "think that one of the biggest forward steps that could be 
 made would be for each board to get a doctor and hitch him up 
 
 23 
 
to its medical problem. You have lawyers, merchants, bankers, 
 preachers on the boards. There are consecrated doctors who 
 love the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you get them harnessed 
 there will be some help coming for the medical missionary 
 work. 
 
 The plan of the Rockefeller Foundation to establish medical 
 schools in China is the biggest opportunity that has come before 
 the churches of America along medical missionary lines ; and 
 if the churches of America do not send medical missionaries 
 to fill those places, other men will be sent. It is our oppor- 
 tunity to mold the medical life of a nation, and that nation 
 one-quarter of the people on this earth. 
 
 In Korea we face a critical situation. The Japanese Gov- 
 ernment is establishing adequately equipped medical institu- 
 tions. I know places where they have a staff of four or five 
 doctors, trained nurses, pharmacists. X-ray apparatus and all 
 the modern appliances of a hospital, in a government institu- 
 tion, while mud-walled, straw-thatched buildings represent the 
 cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. That may for a time suffice, 
 but we cannot afford to do inferior work in His name. In 
 His name only the best is good enough, and to obtain that let 
 us all get together and work together. Put us in touch with 
 the doctors in your churches, and you will not have to take 
 away from anything else. It will be developing new resources, 
 - — an asset, not a liability. 
 
 Dr. R. B. Tuesler, of Tokyo, Japan: A very fundamental 
 question, to my mind, was raised by the first speaker. I do 
 not think there is any question that we will have to concentrate, 
 but we shall have to shut up hospitals and medical schools, so 
 called, that do not teach the gospel, because not only do they 
 not represent Christianity, but they become a distinct drag 
 upon our work as missionaries. 
 
 I remember well the mayor of Tokyo saying to me, “Doctor, 
 how it is possible that Christianity is in earnest in China when 
 its hospitals are so thoroughly inadequate and its medical in- 
 struction, except in a few schools, such an absurdity? We our- 
 selves for philanthropic purposes are undertaking to introduce 
 among the Chinese medical education for their uplift, and we 
 are far ahead in equipment and standards of what your Ameri- 
 can churches attempt there.” That was a severe criticism, yet 
 I think it is true. In other words, it is absolutely essential 
 that we close up every hospital that is not adequate to meet 
 the needs of modern medicine, and concentrate. It would be 
 much better from my standpoint, and I think from the stand- 
 point of the men actually in the field, to concentrate our men 
 
 24 
 
in centres and equip them adequately. We are not in mission 
 lands as medical men only to save the immediate sick within 
 our hospital walls, but we are there as medical educators, 
 and according to our degree of education is our degree of 
 success. We cannot possibly save all the lives of China or 
 Japan or Korea, but we can raise up there properly educated 
 native doctors and nurses to save their own people, and it is 
 incumbent upon us that we do it in such a way that there will 
 be no criticism of Christian methods and equipment, as there is 
 today. 
 
 As an illustration, up to a year ago we treated 200 cases a 
 day. We had fifteen doctors and twelve nurses to help us, 
 and we found we could not give them proper attention, and 
 we cut the cases down to 150, — that is to each physician, — 
 and I believe it would be better if we cut them down still 
 more. We cannot see more than 50 or 60 cases a day and do 
 them justice. It is better to see three of them and treat them 
 successfully and demonstrate to our assistants the value of 
 thorough treatment than to undertake to run a cheap hospital 
 with sod roofs and paper walls. 
 
 Rev. L. D. Wolf, D.D. : The British medical staff has medi- 
 cal departments all over India. All the universities of 
 India also have regular curricula in medicine, and of course 
 medical practitioners must measure up to the standard set by 
 the government- But so far as medical missionaries are con- 
 cerned in India there is really no difficulty provided they are 
 thoroughly well trained. It must be understood, however, 
 that the ISritish government does lay down certain require- 
 ments. 
 
 There is an effort being made now in the Madras Presidency 
 to start a medical school among the women. It has been 
 agreed to by eight societies, a telegram concerning which 
 reached me before I left home ; and they propose to do things 
 in a way which I am quite sure will be in consonance with 
 the plans of the British government. They will not do any- 
 thing except as their medical curricula shall correspond to the 
 standards set by the government. The ladies who are planning 
 this have lived so long in India and have worked so sympa- 
 thetically with the Britsh government that no difficulty will 
 arise from lack of co-operation with the government. 
 
 All that has been said so far in the discussion has reference 
 particularly to Korea, China, and Japan. There must be separ- 
 ate findings when we are considering medical work in India, 
 because of the large medical work under the British govern- 
 ment as well as the mightier call that comes to the women of 
 this country to enter into medical work for women in India. 
 
 25 
 
Rev. Canon S. Gould, M.D. (Church of England in Can- 
 ada) : I was very much astonished to hear that the British 
 government in India was putting hindrances in the way of 
 medical missionary work. The first point in the letter referred 
 to is solely concerned with the diplomas, the professional stand- 
 ing of the individual medical missionaries. It was my privi- 
 lege to go to the Turkish Empire in 1897, and I found the first 
 thing I had to do was to take my diplomas to Constantinople 
 and there take the Turkish diploma admitting me to the prac- 
 tice of medicine, and that was solely a matter of diploma- And 
 I presume that New York, as well as every other state in the 
 Union has its own law concerning professional standing, and 
 everyone bringing an extraneous diploma or standing, no mat- 
 ter whether higher or lower, has to conform to that local stand- 
 ing. 
 
 The second point referred to the British government’s medi- 
 cal system, with its hospitals and dispensaries and so-called 
 traveling dispensaries being established for the villages ; and 
 then says, very properly I take it : “The good these institu- 
 tions might do is hindered oftentimes by the spirit of trade in 
 the natives on the staff.” As a medical missionary of some 
 years standing I found that one of the great obstacles we had 
 to overcome in our native schools was that very spirit of trade ; 
 that on the sly they were selling medicines which were medi- 
 cal mission property ; that they were taking advantage of their 
 position ; and therefore I take it that that statement has to do 
 with the frailty which is common to human nature, particu- 
 larly on the foreign mission field. 
 
 I may say that one of our projects is the establishment of 
 a hospital ; and I interviewed the commissioner of the district, 
 and not only did the government not put any obstacle in our 
 way, but it gave us more than one-half of the land as a free 
 gift, on the sole condition that it be used for medical mission- 
 ary purposes. 
 
 I do not think that the speaker, of course, intended to con- 
 vey any reflection whatsoever. He had taken an isolated 
 statement, I presume, from one of the letters, and had drawn 
 from that a general deduction which was not stated as care- 
 fully as it might have been. I trust that the Conference will 
 bear with me when I add that I think there is no greater sub- 
 ject which can possibly be brought before this Conference than 
 the subject of medical missions, the plan of missionary work of 
 which our Lord Himself is the great exemplar, who preached 
 the kingdom of God and healed the sick in all their villages 
 and their cities. And whether it be by concentration, w hether 
 
 26 
 
it be by careful co-operation between different boards, whether 
 it be by the bringing in of the assistance of such a magnificent 
 foundation as the Rockefeller Foundation, whether it be by 
 this way or by that way, I think there lies before the Church 
 a great double objective in the realm of medical missions: First, 
 to do that which our Lord did, heal the sick, heal them in 
 order that they may ibe brought into His kingdom ; and, second- 
 ly, to set up in those countries certain great technical institu- 
 tions on the side of the practical Christianity, virtue and char- 
 ity of the faith which we possess, and through these produce a 
 trained native medical profession. 
 
 Rev. E. Kirrmann (Medical Missionary Institute, Tubin- 
 gen, Germany) : I am deeplv interested in the medical mission 
 problem, and I have studied this problem in China, and there- 
 fore I would suggest, to meet this present change in the medi- 
 cal mission work, to help in building up the modern hospitals 
 and medical schools, to bring more S3'stem into this great and 
 important part of mission work at home and on the field, we 
 should have a special committee for medical missions with a 
 general secretary. 
 
 The task of this Committee would be to investigate thor- 
 oughly the existing work that has been done up to the present 
 time by the representatives of the different missionary boards 
 and by the medical societies on the mission field ; to build up 
 with all the different forces the medical mission work at home 
 and on the mission field according to a clear and definite policy. 
 Such a policy on a sound base would not only avoid double or 
 different plans, and save men, time and money, but should 
 easily increase the necessary funds and the number of qualified 
 candidates to man the hospitals and medical schools. 
 
 We would suggest that each mission board with medical 
 work should be represented in the Committee for Medical 
 Missions by a member who is qualified and interested in this 
 branch of mission work, and that the General Secretary need 
 not necessarily be a medical man, but an organizer who has 
 a full understanding for the spiritual as well as for the prac- 
 tical and scientific side of the medical mission work. 
 
 A united and concentrated activity must come. The task 
 in the medical mission work is too immense and extensive to 
 be done without a united definite plan- If we wait too long 
 and do not at once unite all our forces under a definite plan, 
 we will lose many opportunities, and eventually lose our in- 
 fluence in the East ; and such a loss will be a serious one to our 
 mission work. 
 
Murray Galt Hotter, M.D., of Washington, D. C. : I am 
 alleged to be the only medical member of a foreign mission 
 board represented in this Conference. I am not prepared to 
 defend or deny the allegation ; and I am not a delegate, and 
 only speak by courtesy of the Conference. 
 
 It seems to me. Sir, that we have had presented here this 
 afternoon, and strongly emphasized, two great needs, with the 
 suggestion of how this Conference may at least begin to com- 
 pass thefee needs. The first need is a thorough reorganization, 
 perhaps even radical, of our whole method of dealing with 
 medical missions. The second need is greater support to medi- 
 cal missions, financially and in the matter of personnel. 
 
 The means by which this Conference may get at these 
 needs is suggested in the form of a Committee on Medical 
 Missions, with perhaps a secretary who shall devote his entire 
 time and attention to the subject and act as a clearing house 
 for all information both as to conditions in the field and con- 
 ditions and pK>ssibilities in this country. 
 
 There is one phase of the work in which I am especially in- 
 terested and which in fact brought me to the Conference. Hith- 
 erto in our medical missions we have devoted ourselves largely 
 to hospital and dispensary work, to the curing of individuals. 
 Now it seems to me that we should branch out and devote our 
 attention, at least a large part of it, to methods and means 
 curative of conditions rather than of individuals alone. I 
 would not for one moment minimize the need of the care of 
 individuals, but we all know that the future of medicine and 
 medical practice is along preventive lines. 
 
 Dr- Van Buskirk referred a moment ago to medical work 
 as an asset of the mission board. It is a point which Mr. Grant 
 emphasized at our little conference on Saturday night, saying- 
 that the boards did not recognize what a tremendous asset 
 they had in their medical work. 
 
 Now, if we could send to man the hospitals and direct the 
 dispensaries trained sanitarians, who will educate the people 
 in matters of public and personal hygiene and sanitation, we 
 shall, I fancy, make a great and favorable impression in the 
 lands in which we work, especially upon the powers that 
 be. That would have to be guided, as already indicated in 
 the discussion about conditions in India. In India, where 
 the British government has made considerable progress and 
 dominates in the management of affairs, the work of the mis- 
 sionaries could perhaps be only co-operative; and that would 
 be of course the case in Japan. In China, however, and I 
 fancy in Moslem lands, the missionary sanitarian might 
 
 28 
 
undertake new work on his own initiative ; and it seems to 
 me that in considering this very important phase of missionary 
 work, this possibility should be taken into account. The best 
 missionary to undertake this sort of propaganda is not of 
 necessity a physician. That is not my own opinion, but an 
 opinion expressed in the Pan-American Conference in Wash- 
 ington last week, — that the medical man, trained as a medical 
 practitioner, is by no means the best sanitarian. His whole 
 work lies along curative lines, while the work of the sanitarian 
 lies along preventive lines. There is a great field for mission- 
 ary work and activity along the line of sanitation. 
 
 J. S. Chandler, of India : The British government in South 
 India has been a great help to medical work. 
 
 The harmony between the government hospital in Madura 
 and the mission hospital was shown in the case of one of our 
 English doctors who was a great help to the Christians. The 
 hospital was not a rival of our mission hospital- It was a 
 mile and a half away, in a large city of 135,000 people. The 
 Christians on that side of the city were treated by this Eng- 
 lish doctor, and they came and said, “Why, he is just like a 
 mission doctor,” he was so careful and kind in his treatment 
 of them. 
 
 I should like to second all that has been said as to the need 
 of efficiency, but at the same time I should regret to see “one 
 doctor hospitals” knocked in the head. If one doctor hospitals 
 are to be knocked in the head, three-quarters of the British 
 medical work would have to cease. The British government 
 has a very effective system of medical work in all its dis- 
 tricts. Every governmental utiit has a hospital, and that hos- 
 pital is presided over by one English doctor, and they never 
 expect to have more than one, and yet they manage to keep 
 up very efficient hospitals, one for each of these districts. But 
 the point is not so much that there should not be more than 
 one doctor, which in their system is all they expect to have, 
 but that if that one goes away they put another in his place, 
 and there is no intermission. The trouble with many mission 
 hospitals is that when one doctor has to take a furlough or 
 has to be absent, there is no one to take his place, and then 
 you have a “no doctor” hospital. That is the weakness of 
 the one doctor hospital. It is better to have two doctors, 
 but rather than put out of existence many a useful mis- 
 sion hospital that has only one doctor, it is far better to keep 
 them, but keep one doctor there, if possible, and let there be 
 no intermission. 
 
 Do not forget that many a -mission has had its one doctor 
 
 ^9 
 
hospital through all its existence, and the work of that hos- 
 pital in Madura, for instance, is worth too much to be put 
 down as inefficient. It is not inefficient. And yet there is 
 weakness in the fact that where there is only one doctor, ac- 
 cording to missionary methods, when that doctor is away there 
 is no doctor. 
 
 I should like to raise a question about the call for a non- 
 medical business superintendent for a hospital? I have been 
 superintendent of a hospital, and I am non-medical, but I 
 should have done my work much better if I had been a medi- 
 cal man. I do not quite appreciate the necessity of having 
 a non-medical superintendent in a hospital- It seems to me 
 that they should be all medical men. 
 
 Clarence D. Ussher, M.D., Van, Turkey; As the last 
 speaker has just said, there are a great many places where 
 there are one man hospitals, and I cannot believe any one de- 
 sires to lessen the number of hospitals. When our hospital 
 at Van was started it was the only hospital in a district as 
 large as the whole of New England, New York, Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey combined; and the field is not very much 
 lessened today, although the American Board has put three 
 other missionary physicians in that field. Our nearest neigh- 
 bor, Dr. Atkinson, who died Christmas Day, of typhus, was 
 250 miles away ; the next one 450 miles. 
 
 Regarding retrenchment in other branches of the work 
 for the sake of the medical work, I think there will be no 
 need of it. The medical work has an entrance to the people 
 that perhaps no other branch of the work has, and we have 
 seen results in Turkey when a medical missionary got in 
 touch with the people that put the evangelistic work in touch 
 as it has not been in twenty or thirty years of merely evan- 
 gelistic and educational work. 
 
 The problem of self-support is an important one for medical 
 institutions. We started our hospital in Van in a rented house, 
 very ill equipped for a hospital, with about a dozen wooden 
 bedsteads, and went ahead with the work. At first the people 
 would not send any patients to us. The thought of going 
 to a hospital was utterly obnoxious until, finally, the city found 
 a poor beggar dying by the roadside of pneumonia, and then 
 they said, “Here is a chance to try that hospital so they 
 sent him into the hospital, thinking if he died, there was 
 no harm done, he was going to die anyway, and they could 
 see how he was treated. The Lord cured him, and so with the 
 next one, and we soon got so in touch with the people that 
 the medical work of Van has gotten along with only $100 from 
 
 30 
 
the American Board- It has contributed to the Board a plant 
 worth more than $12,000, and has been self-supporting in all 
 but its work for the f>oor. If that could occur in so impover- 
 ished a country as Turkey, and especially the region of Van, 
 in which I have seen six massacres, and the Ottoman 
 government use every means in its power to destroy the 
 financial ability of the Christian people of the country, — if 
 that is so there, it seems to me it can be so to a very large 
 extent elsewhere. 
 
 The hospital was not well equipped. There was only one 
 physician ; and when that physician, after ten years of con- 
 tinuous service, could not stand it any longer, and the station 
 insisted on his going home, the hospital had to be closed and 
 twenty-two employees discharged and let go, where they could 
 not be recovered to the work, simply because there was no one 
 to take his place. And today, because the physician in Erzerum 
 has had to leave that place to go to Constantinople, there is 
 no physician for the work there. 
 
 John A. Snell, M.D., Soochow, China ; The work in 
 China impresses me as having gone through a period of prepa- 
 ration or foundation building, and now the opportunity is be- 
 fore the Church of America and of the world to build upon 
 this foundation a grand superstructure. There is scarcely a 
 medical centre in China but what has this foundation, — some 
 few have a pretty good superstructure, — and we can now build 
 on these foundations ideal modern medical institutions that 
 will serve to represent the real Christian work. As has been 
 suggested by our friends from Korea and Japan, we cannot 
 afford to represent Jesus Christ with an inferior work, but we 
 must as representatives of the highest ideal and character like- 
 wise take to them the very highest in modern medical science. 
 The Chinese are ready to support the medical work, and in 
 most sections throughout China they can support it. We must 
 take advantage of this great opportunity and build up a model 
 work after which the Chinese can pattern their own work. 
 
 Bishop Lambuth : We have been very much sobered in 
 hearing that four men have fallen during the last month 
 and other medical missionaries and nurses are in jeopardy 
 every hour in the Near East as well as elsewhere. 
 
 The Chairman; I have asked Dr. McLean to close this 
 (Session of the Conference with prayer. May God bless us in 
 the consideration of the very wonderful suggestions which 
 have come to us today and the vision we have had of the larger 
 work which He wants us to do. 
 
 31 
 
Prayer By Dr. McLean : Our Father, we praise Thee 
 for the Great Physician who went about doing good, teaching 
 and preaching and healing every manner of sickness and every 
 manner of disease among the people. We bless Thee that 
 He Himself could say of His work, the blind see, the lepers 
 are cleansed, the lame walk, the dead are raised up and to 
 the poor the gospel is preached. We praise Thee, O God, 
 for His sympathy with all who suffer anywhere and every- 
 where; and we bless Thee, O Lord, for those who have 
 caught His spirit, for those who have gone out to relieve 
 suffering and to reveal Christ and the Father to the peoples 
 with whom they have had to do. We bless Thee for the 
 medical missiosaries here today and for what they have taught 
 us concerning the work on the field. We bless Thee for 
 those who are not here today but at work on the field, and 
 it is there we ask that Thy blessings in fullest measure may 
 rest. Wilt Thou assist them in all of their undertaking today 
 for Thee, to stir up the churches at home, to enlist new work- 
 ers for the field, and to carry on Christ’s work in the hos- 
 pitals and dispensaries. 
 
 We bless Thee, O God, for those who have given their 
 lives to this cause and who have died in the service. Let 
 Thy blessings be upon their dear ones. Wilt Thou bless them 
 with Thy wondrous grace, and raise up others speedily to take 
 their places. Remember those in danger today, O Lord. Wilt 
 Thou shield them from every form of injury. May their lives 
 be precious in Thy sight, and be prolonged, that they may 
 carry on the Lord’s work even more effectively in the future 
 than in the past. 
 
 And, our Father, may the churches at home be concerned 
 about this work- May they continually know more and more 
 about it, and may they be seeking to supply the funds necessary 
 for its maintenance and its enlargement, for the equipment of 
 every hospital and every dispensary. And, O Thou God of 
 the harvest, wilt Thou raise up others, we pray Thee, as 
 they are needed for this cause. And remember the mis- 
 sionaries. Help them in their work, we pray Thee. Help 
 those who are seeking to introduce sanitation among the 
 nations and prosper their work, we beseech of Thee. 
 
 And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love 
 of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. 
 Amen. 
 
 33 
 
Tuesday Evening 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONS AND HOW TO STRENGTHEN 
 
 THEM 
 
 (Continued) 
 
 DAVID BOVAIRD, M.D., NEW YORK 
 
 There are three things I would like to say on the subject of 
 how to strengthen medical missions. There is needed in 
 the mission field the best medical men that we can com- 
 mand, the best in the strictest sense of that word, not 
 alone in their character, not alone in their faith, but in their 
 scientific attainments as well. I am perfectly sure that what 
 Dr. Butterick has to say to us tonight will open to every 
 one of us a vision of possibilities before the medical profes- 
 sion of America, a vision that is so vast, that is so weighted 
 with magnificent possibilities that we shall feel that the best 
 men that we can command are none too good for the cause 
 for which he speaks. 
 
 I have always had a high opinion of the medical missionary. 
 The opportunity to become really closely acquainted with his 
 work, with the demands upon him, not merely upon his time, 
 but upon his ability, upon his energy, upon his devotion, — 
 all these things have greatly intensified my admiration for 
 the men who have so nobly done their parts in the great 
 field of medical mission work. I am perfectly sure that the 
 demands that are to be made upon the medical missionaries 
 of the coming generation are heavier' still, and that the best men 
 that we can command will not be more than equal to them. 
 
 Doubtless more than one will say. How are we going to 
 get the best men ? One of the most interesting ex- 
 periences during our journey in the East was a visit to 
 the International Committee’s Y. M. C. A. in Shanghai. 
 One of the astonishing things about that establishment is that 
 they have a boys’ department in that particular institution 
 which numbers almost as many members as any boys’ depart- 
 ment belonging to the Y. M. C. A. in this country. You ask 
 them how they got those Chinese boys, and the secretary of 
 that branch will tell you that they got the Chinese boys by 
 calling them to service. Would you believe it, that that was 
 the call to which the Chinese boys would answer? Is there 
 
 33 
 
not a call to service in the work of medical missions the like 
 of which can hardly he equalled by any other call that the 
 world hears at the present day, and shall not our best men 
 be equal to it? I believe devoutly that they will when they 
 hear it, when they realize the possibilities of the work, the 
 possibilities that lie in their devotion to it at this time. We 
 need the best men that can be had in America. 
 
 And having the best men, they need equipment. It is a 
 waste of men to send them out to do their work without ade- 
 quate equipment. In the cold, hard way of the world that 
 has been demonstrated to us beyond question by the experience 
 of the British people and the Allies within the last year of 
 warfare. At one time they lacked men, at another time they 
 lacked munitions, and they could not hope to meet the situa- 
 tion before them until they had rallied both men and muni- 
 tions. It is exactly so in our medical work. We need men, 
 and those men need equipment. The marvelous develop- 
 ment of modern medicine has been attended with an elabora- 
 tion of apparatus and hospital equipment that really staggers 
 one even when he is closely in touch with the work. But 
 there is no escaping the fact that the work cannot be done 
 as it should be done without elaborate apparatus and equip- 
 ment ; and if the work of a medical missionary is to be done 
 as it should be done in the interests of the cause we all love, 
 we must not only send the best men, but those men must have 
 equipment, and just the very best that we can furnish them. 
 And you and I and every other man or woman who stays 
 behind in America should feel it to be part of his duty to see 
 that these men who go to the front have the means that they 
 ought to have for the doing of the work. 
 
 And finally, having the men and their equipment, and 
 having the work done as I believe it will be done if we have 
 these things, then we must make that work known. Two of 
 the most striking experiences that we had in China were at 
 opposite ends, one in Mukden, one in Hang-chow, where we 
 found two wonderful medical missions conducted by men who 
 as boys had been friends in Glasgow, who had been educated 
 together, who had walked hand in hand together and had 
 finally gone into the work of medical missions together, one 
 located in the far north. Dr. Christie at Mukden, and Dr. 
 Main at Hang-chow. We learned that one of the secrets of 
 the power of those men was that every week of their lives 
 for forty years they had written letters which they exchanged 
 from one to the other, but letters which had gone far and 
 wide to every person which either one of them could number 
 
 34 
 
among his friends or acquaintances. Those letters had gone 
 out every week for forty years, keeping not only the men in 
 China, but the men in the home land, in close touch with the 
 work that was being done, keeping them always familiar with 
 its development, with its needs, with all its trials, with all its 
 joyful experiences, making them to participate in the work 
 that was being done in China. And I believe that one of 
 the great secrets of the success of those two missions lies in 
 just that fact; and as practical men, every one of us who has 
 any knowledge of business in the United States knows how 
 much of it depends upon the right sort of publicity. We 
 should use just exactly the same means in the spread of the 
 knowledge of what the medical missionary is doing and in 
 developing behind every medical missionary that we have 
 in the field a group of people who are vitally interested in the 
 success of that mission and that missionary, who will take a 
 keen personal interest in what he is doing and make him know 
 it, — not merely in their contributions to his work, but in their 
 sympathy which will oftentimes go just as far, if not farther 
 than direct financial contribution. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF RECENT TOUR IN CHINA 
 
 REV. WALLACE BUTTRICK, D.D. 
 
 Director China Medical Board, Rockefeller Foundation 
 
 Mr. Chairman and my dear Eriends: It is a very great 
 honor that you do the China Medical Board in inviting me 
 to speak to you tonight. I received a wireless message at 
 Honolulu from the honored Secretary of this body asking me 
 if I would speak here tonight, and I at once wired him that I 
 would. If I had been in New York I probably should have 
 made some excuse, for I do not like to make public addresses. 
 Particularly do I dislike to make public addresses at the begin- 
 ning of any task which I am undertaking. 
 
 The China Medical Board is at the very beginning of its 
 work. Its plans are not yet defined, its program is not marked 
 out, and I am reminded of that passage in the first book of 
 Kings which says, “Let not him that girdeth on his armor 
 boast as he that putteth it off.” I have had many years 
 experience in an executive position, as Secretary of the Gen- 
 eral Education Board. I have a story to tell about that work 
 which is not without interest. Now I am coming to a new 
 task in my old age, a new task about which I know very little 
 and I cannot say much that will be definite. I fear that I 
 cannot say much that will be highly satisfactory to you. I 
 
 35 
 
come, however, because I want to know you and I want 
 you to know me. I come because I am convinced that if we 
 work together at all it can only be on the basis of mutual con- 
 fidence and mutual respect, and therefore we must meet and 
 know one another if we are going to work together. 
 
 Now, the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Founda- 
 tion did not spring into being all at once. It was in 1908 
 or ’09 that through the University of Chicago Mr. Rockefeller 
 sent out a commission to the Orient to study its educational 
 conditions and needs. That commission had for its chair- 
 man my long time friend and old schoolmate. Rev. Ernest 
 DeWitt Burton, D.D., of Chicago, and with him were asso- 
 ciated Dr. T. C. Chamberlain and his son, Professor Chamber- 
 lain. They made a voluminous confidential report, which I 
 have had the pleasure of reading within the past year, which 
 is of very great value as a survey, a preliminary survey of 
 the whole situation. 
 
 Later, some two and a half years ago, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., 
 invited a group of men, perhaps twenty or thirty of us, to a 
 three days’ conference regarding what might be done in the 
 way of education in China ; and that conference, with cer- 
 tain smaller conferences which followed it, reached the con- 
 clusion that there might be a field, there might be an oppor- 
 tunity to aid in promoting medical education in China. So a 
 commission was sent out, with President Judson of Chicago 
 as its chairman, and associated with him Dr. Francis W. 
 Peabody of the Harvard Medical School in Boston and Mr. 
 Roger S- Greene, then the consul-general in Hankow, China, 
 and the son of Dr. Greene of Kyoto and Tokyo in Japan, 
 well known in the missionary work. This commission made 
 a report which has had a wide circulation. Several thousand 
 copies have been sent out. The Rockefeller Foundation adopt- 
 ed the recommendations of that report in substance, and 
 referred them to a new board, auxiliary to the Foundation, 
 and gave that board the power to modify those recommenda- 
 tions in any or every particular; and while I was absent in 
 the south on one of those delightful journeys amongst the 
 people of the south, where I always like to go a little better 
 than anywhere else in the world, they chose me as Director, 
 in addition to my work as Secretary of the General Educa- 
 tion Board; and when I got back to New York I found that 
 I had a new job, with a whole bundle of recommendations and 
 a sort of program marked out. 
 
 Now, I have long been interested in missions. I was a 
 Baptist parson for twenty years. I have entertained a great 
 
many missionaries in my home. I count amongst my dearest 
 friends missionaries in almost every land where missionaries 
 operate. I have been a member of all the missionary boards 
 of our denomination, and at the time of my appointment was 
 a member of the Finance Committee of the North- 
 ern Baptist Convention. So I am not without that general 
 knowledge of missions and interest in missions and sympathy 
 for missions which every Christian layman ought to have. 
 But as to knowing specifically and definitely and accurately 
 and thoroughly the work which needed to be done in China 
 I felt myself like a child. How could I, sitting in New York 
 in an office, surrounded by a board of men quite as wise as 
 myself, devise and execute plans in far away China? 
 
 Now, I am still a believer in a special Providence. A year 
 ago last December, my friend Dr. Abbott, of Portland, Maine, 
 asked me to ask Dr- William H. Welch and Dr. Simon Flexner 
 and my associate. Dr. Abraham Flexner, to come down to 
 Maine and go with him for a week or ten days into the 
 woods. These men accepted the invitation and we went down 
 and landed up at Dixville Notch in New Hampshire, where, 
 with the thermometer ranging usually below zero, and in 
 those piney woods and the delightful surroundings that remind- 
 ed me of my own home up near the North Pole at the top 
 of New York, we had a delightful week together. 
 
 Now, of course, I made the opportunity grist for my hop- 
 per. I talked with those medical men, — they were all medi- 
 cal men, — diligently. Two of them were members of our 
 board and Dr. Abraham Flexner is our associate in the 
 office of the General Education Board. And in the course of 
 a week I said, “I think it will be impossible for me to under- 
 take this work unless Dr. Welch and Dr. Flexner will go out 
 to China with me.” Now, I suppose it is generally understood 
 that they are in the front rank of the profession in America ; 
 and they looked at each other and smiled at my presumption. I 
 knew when I got back to New York and told Mr. Rockefeller 
 and my associates of the China Board that I proposed to 
 take them out to China, they would smile and wonder why I 
 didn’t ask the President of the United States and the Secretary 
 of State to go with me to China. But presently we had a 
 meeting of the China Medical Board, and I moved that the 
 board should invite these two men to go out to China with 
 the secretary, and the motion was carried, and they were 
 both present, and Dr. Flexner said, “Dr. Welch, if you will 
 go, I will.” And Dr. Welch said, “If Dr. Goodnow,” — who 
 sat there, — “will let me go, I will;” and Dr. Goodnow said, 
 
 37 
 
“You may go,” and it was all consummated, and we went out 
 to China. 
 
 Now you know what that did for us immediately. It gave 
 us standing in the medical profession in America. The medi- 
 cal doctors of America were heretofore saying, “Who are 
 these people that go up against this city ? Who are these men 
 who are going to attack the medical problem in China? 
 A couple of superannuated preachers, and Dr. Mott, who 
 is a great missionary, and Mr. Rockefeller and Frank Good- 
 now, — a few of these men who are going out to reorganize 
 something in China.” But the minute that it was announced 
 that Dr. Welch and Dr. Flexner, — one the head of Johns 
 Hopkins medical faculty, and the other the head of the Rocke- 
 feller Institute for Medical Research, — thought this of suf- 
 ficient importance to go out to China, immediately the medi- 
 cal profession of Amreica, and I think the intelligent general 
 public, said, “Really, this is something serious. This is some- 
 thing worth while.” So as a bit of strategy this bit of good 
 luck that I tumbled into was not so bad. 
 
 The same thing happened when we were on the Pacific, Dr. 
 Welch and Dr. Flexner — I was nothing but cicerone for the 
 party — received wireless messages from distinguished medical 
 and scientific gentlemen in Japan asking if they might give 
 them dinners and welcome them on their shores ; and when 
 we landed. Dr. Tuesler was there with a whole delegation of 
 them, and they entertained us while we were in Japan, and 
 sent us on our way rejoicing. 
 
 Now this is the way the work has come about. The China 
 Medical Board wishes to do something that is reallv worth 
 while to promote the sort of medicine in China which Dr. 
 Bovaird has so accurately defined tonight as the verv best. 
 In order to do it, the Foundation has set aside a sufficient 
 income for the purpose, has organized a board of trustees, and 
 has sent out to China these two eminent men to make a defi- 
 nite survey of the field, to report and recommend just what 
 shall be done. 
 
 Now, my dear friends, you would like to have me tell you 
 just what we are going to do, and I answer I do not know- 
 We have purchased the property at Peking. Purchased isn’t 
 the word to use. We resolved to co-operate with the mis- 
 sionary societies in developing on a high scientific plane the 
 medical college at Peking, and in the course of our inquiries 
 we discovered that one mission, the London Missionary Socie- 
 ty, owned the property, for which they had paid something 
 approaching $200,000; and we felt that if we were going to 
 
 38 
 
take over that work and conduct it, we ought to reinuburse the 
 London Missionary Society for their outlay and with their 
 permission take title to the property. So I went over to 
 England last spring commissioned by our Board, and made 
 arrangements with the London Missionary Society and we did 
 reimburse them to the amount of $200,000 for that property, 
 feeling that it was only just, if a number of societies were to 
 participate with us in managing the college, that one society 
 should not have contributed the entire property. 
 
 There is a Board of Trustees for the college, made up of 
 representatives of these different missionary societies: The 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the 
 American Presibyterian Board, the American Methodist Board, 
 the London Missionary Society, the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the London Medical 
 Missionary Association. Then there are seven trustees select- 
 ed by the China Medical Board, one of whom is John R. 
 Mott, so that the missionaries surely may have a majority of 
 the Board. 
 
 Now I cannot tell you what we are going to do at Peking, 
 because the Board of Trustees has not yet met. I cabled from 
 Yokohama recommending that a meeting of the Board should 
 be called for early in February, and get home to find that 
 it is going to meet on the 24th of January. Now, after the 
 24th of January I can tell you with more frankness and full- 
 ness what the Board of Trustees will do. Now I don’t know, 
 for I am only one of the trustees ; and even if I had some 
 information of what they are likely to do, it would not be 
 in good form for me to say just what they will do in reor- 
 ganizing that college. Suffice it to say that the missionary 
 body is amply represented on the Board of Trustees, and we 
 who are of the China Medical Board are convinced that we 
 shall have to behave ourselves with great circumspection if 
 we have our own way at all in its management. 
 
 As I have just said, we have just made this long journey 
 out there and come back, and we have some reports to make 
 to our Board. These reports have yet to be brought together 
 in my hands and presented to our board, so it is impracticable 
 for me to tell you — impossible, not impracticable, for me to 
 tell you what the China Medical Board is going to do. When 
 we reached Shanghai we found that the institutions in and 
 near Shanghai had had under consideration some sort of pro- 
 posal to the China Medical Board- Their joint committee, 
 which had been created long before we arrived there, met 
 and passed this resolution on the 4th of November, 1915- 
 
 39 
 
“Inasmuch as the China Medical Board of the Rocke- 
 feller Foundation has in view the establishment of a medical 
 school in Shanghai, which shall work in cordial and sympa- 
 thetic co-operation with missionary societies, and in which it 
 is desired to merge existing medical schools, the representatives 
 of St. John’s University and Pennsylvania Medical School, of 
 the University of Nanking, and of the Harvard Medical 
 School of China, in a joint meeting, held in Shanghai, Thurs- 
 day, November 4th, 1915, extend a cordial invitation to the 
 China Medical Board to establish in Shanghai a Medical 
 School which shall be conducted by a board of trustees upon 
 which would be represented the governing bodies of the co- 
 operating schools.” 
 
 That, of course, is a highly satisfactory situation from our 
 point of view, that St. John’s University, Nanking University, 
 the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and the Har- 
 vard Medical School, should themselves voluntarily come 
 together and make this sort of proposal to us. for we do not 
 wish to intrude ourselves upon them, and we should long hesi- 
 tate to establish a school in a place where other schools were 
 existing, lest we might be regarded as trespassers. But they 
 have taken this voluntary motion, and I replied to Dr. Beebe, 
 the Secretary of the Committee : 
 
 Shanghai, Nov. 7, 1915. 
 
 Dear Dr. Beebe : — Thank you for your letter of November 5th, cov- 
 ering the resolution passed by the representatives of St. John’s Uni- 
 versity, the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, the University 
 of Nanking, and the Harvard Medical School of China. This resolu- 
 tion will be presented to the China Medical Board at its meeting which 
 should be held the latter part of January, 1916, and you will of course 
 be promptly advised of any action that the Board may take at that 
 time relating to the matter. 
 
 In the meantime I might add that our Commission feels gratified 
 that these organizations have, through this voluntary action manifested 
 their sympathetic interest in the larger scheme which we have in mind 
 for the promotion of higher medical education in China. 
 
 Thanking you and your associates for your manifold courtesies dur- 
 ing our stay in Shanghai, I am. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 (Signed) Wallace Buttrick,” 
 
 Now that is the situation in Shanghai. 
 
 Our visit to China was not with the idea of visiting all the 
 hospitals of China, nor indeed all of the medical schools, but 
 rather of visiting the places where we had in contemplation 
 the doing of work and some of the larger centres which had 
 hospitals that might contribute to that work by furnishing 
 opportunities for interne service, etc. 
 
 We landed in Japan, and found that schools were not open, 
 
 40 
 
and we had a very agreeable rest and delightful journey in 
 Japan for two weeks. Then we went to Seoul in Korea, 
 where we stayed two days, spending much of our time at the 
 Union Medical College and Hospital, of which Dr. Avison is 
 the head, and where Dr. Mills is the enthusiastic pathologist. 
 Of course it was a very interesting experience for us ; not 
 yet China, but interesting because we could see what Japan 
 was doing for the economic betterment of Korea, and we had 
 some little glimpse and larger appreciation of what the mis- 
 sionaries were doing for Korea. 
 
 Then we went on up to Mukden, and met Dr. Christie, that 
 wonderful man of whom Dr. Bovaird has spoken to you, 
 who is, like Dr. Main of Hangchow, a great apostle of medi- 
 cal missions. As Dr. Welch said of him, it is an inspiration 
 to meet him, and one feasts on the memory of a day with 
 Dr. Christie and a day with Dr. Main. While there we also 
 spent a day at the Japanese hospital. The South Manchurian 
 Railway has a hospital and medical school which in point of 
 equipment and extent, size of hospital and size and equip- 
 ment of faculty, is the superior of all medical schools which 
 we found in China. That is a Japanese school of about the 
 grade of the secondary medical school in Japan itself. There 
 we found two men in bacteriology and pathology who were 
 thoroughly alive to the medical problems of the region, and 
 a very interesting group of men in both hospital and medical 
 school. 
 
 Then we went down to Peking and stayed three weeks, — 
 not all of the time in Peking. There, of course, is the Union 
 Medical School and hospitals, — for there are two of them. 
 Then at the Methodist compound there are two hospitals, — a 
 hospital for men and a hospital for women. At the Presby- 
 terian compound, another hospital; at the Church of Eng- 
 land compound, another hospital ; and various government hos- 
 pitals, and one government medical school. All of these insti- 
 tutions we visited. We were received in receptions by the 
 missionaries, a courtesy which we returned by inviting them 
 to the hotel. We were received by the Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs in his office, and later he gave us a very elaborate 
 luncheon in one of the large halls of the Forbidden City, with 
 a large group of Chinese and European and American resi- 
 dents present- He with the American Minister arranged an 
 interview for us with President Yuan Shi Kai, who received 
 us with great cordiality and expressed great interest in our 
 work. He later sent a check for $1500 down to the college 
 as a token of his appreciation, and has written to us and 
 asked what he can do to help us, whether we would like land 
 
 41 
 
or would like scholarships, and said: “I will direct the 
 young men of China to prepare themselves to enter your medi- 
 cal school, if you establish it at Peking.” I am glad to say 
 that Bishop Bashford told me that he has also made a gen- 
 erous subscription to the Union University at Peking, per- 
 haps $50,000, paying the interest only until the principal is 
 paid. That has all been very recently, and is some indication 
 of the friendliness of the government toward missionary enter- 
 prise and toward our little enterprise also. 
 
 We went down to Tientsin. There we visited — and I felt 
 as though I were on holy ground — the Mackenzie hospital. 
 I remember, twenty-five years ago, reading the life of John 
 Kenneth ]\Iackenzie, and I could hardly believe when I step- 
 ped up into that old building that I was on the place made 
 sacred to my memory by the story of that remarkable man’s 
 life. We also visited the Peyang Medical School and hos- 
 pital, and the Military School and hospital, which is still 
 another institution of the central government of China; and 
 the Methodist Hospital. But the thing which most impressed 
 me for many reasons at Tientsin — and perhaps no single ex- 
 perience in all China impressed me as much — was a visit to 
 that Middle School conducted by Chang Po-ling. I wrote 
 home a letter, which my office had manifolded and sent around ; 
 and Dr. Charles W. Eliot wrote me a letter in reply. In this 
 letter I mentioned Chang Po-ling and my admiration for him, 
 and he wrote back to me and said : “He was altogether 
 the most admirable and interesting man that I met in China.” 
 Now, Chang Po-ling is a Christian of a very earnest and 
 devoted and determined and almost bigoted character. Dr. 
 Mott knows all about his conversion- My recollection of it 
 is that Gailey and one other man made up their minds that 
 Chang Po-ling, then an officer in the navy of China, was 
 the sort of man who ought to be a Christian, and they laid 
 siege to him until he became a Christian. He had a Pauline 
 experience. He can tell you the day and the hour and the 
 minute when the tremendous experience came to him which 
 made him a disciple of Christ. 
 
 Now he has organized this school. There are some eight 
 hundred young men, gathered from nearly every province in 
 China. In equipment, in the quality of instruction, in the 
 poise and strength of the teachers, in their class room exercises, 
 in the work done, in the library, in the cleanness of its dormi- 
 tories, in the charm of its interior court, in the almost mili- 
 tary bearing of that great body of young students, it is the 
 equal of any school I have ever seen in the world, and I have 
 
 42 
 
seen many schools. Every year, from a hundred to two hun- 
 dred of the young- men are under Chang Po-ling’s personal 
 ministry converted to Christianity, there being turned out of 
 that school one hundred and fifty a year who go out all over 
 China stamped with the impress of this remarkable man and 
 themselves earnest Christian young men. 
 
 I asked the question — and it seems everyone asks it who 
 goes there — “How is it these young men are so erect and 
 so military like? Are they inspected every day when they 
 come?” “No,” said Chang Po-ling, “they are not.” “Well, 
 how is it ?” He took me to the entrance and said : “Do you 
 see that mirror ?” “Yes.” “Over it is an inscription in Chinese 
 to the ef¥,ect : ‘Am I properly dressed ? Am I clean and pre- 
 sentable? Am I the sort of man who ought to enter the walls 
 and halls of this school today ?’ ” — something like that over 
 the door. And when any young man comes in, the first thing 
 he does is to turn and face that mirror and inspect himself. I 
 think that is a stroke of genius. Why, that is as good as 
 morning prayers for anybody to stand before a mirror and 
 look himself in the face and in the eye, and say, “Am I a 
 man fit to go out into the world?” Now that is a fair indica- 
 tion of the whole school. 
 
 Now, I speak of this because it is significant. There is a^ 
 man who dominates a great number of people- One day I 
 was going up the Yangtse River. A beautiful day it was in 
 the month of October. Sitting out on the deck, I saw in the 
 distance on a promontory one of those remarkable Chinese 
 pagodas lifting its lofty self toward the sky, with the moun- 
 tains beyond as its background. I went on with my reading. 
 I looked up again, and there was that remarkable structure. 
 I went on with my reading. I looked up again, and there it 
 was still. A half hour passed. I looked up again, and there 
 it was. I went around on the other side of the boat. It inter- 
 rupted my reading. I read a little while, and I said, “I must 
 go back and see it.” I went back and looked at it. We got 
 abreast of it, and I looked at it ; and we passed it and went 
 on for another fifteen minutes, and there it stood. For thirty 
 miles or more on the Yangtse River that magnificent struc- 
 ture dominates the landscape and compels attention- And I 
 said to myself, is that not one of the needs of China, that 
 there shall emerge somehow from our enterprises here, mis- 
 sionary and medical, men like Chang Po-ling, men — let us 
 hope and pray — like those whom he is training, who as ex- 
 amples of what the Christian spirit can create shall stand out 
 and dominate the landscape, and by their very characters tes- 
 
 4.1 
 
tify to the value of the Christian teaching and the Christian 
 spirit. 
 
 We went on down to Tsinan-fu, it reads to a Yankee, but 
 they call it “Chenan-fu” — and what a rare old city it is ! We 
 visited the Union Medical College there, founded, I believe, 
 by the English Baptists, later adopted in co-operation by the 
 Presbyterians of America, where they have built a remarkable 
 hospital, for China, — for anywhere a good hospital, — with 
 perhaps the best out-patient department I have ever seen any- 
 where, and where they are establishing a school to be taught 
 in the Chinese language, — ^as they say, the Mandarin language. 
 Oh, I would like to tell you my impressions of Tsinan. We 
 were impressed, of course, by that splendid body of men 
 there who were at work. We were impressed by ‘the influ- 
 ence of the missions of Shantung Province, which are under 
 the direction of the Presbyterians of this country, although 
 other denominations, like the Southern Baptists and the Eng- 
 lish Baptists and the Methodists, are at work there, and the 
 splendid work which missionaries have done in that province, 
 the fruit of which is apparent in that city and in other places 
 where we had opportunity as the train passed by simply to 
 shake hands with the missionaries and the medical represen- 
 tatives. 
 
 We went back to Peking. I am going to deny myself the 
 pleasure of telling you some things that I was interested in 
 in Shantung. Back to Peking and down to Hankow, where 
 we had interesting interviews with the missionary representa- 
 tives, and particularly the managers of hospitals and the one 
 jnedical school at Hankow, and where we came across Bishop 
 Roots. Now, it is worth going to China to meet Bishop 
 Roots. I don’t know any journey so long that I would not 
 take it for the sake of meeting Bishop Roots. We met Mrs. 
 Roots first, in Hankow, and she accounts a good deal for the 
 Bishop ; and then we went up to Changsha, past this wonder- 
 ful pagoda that I was describing to you a little while ago, 
 and came to the Yale Mission, where we met Bishop Roots. 
 
 But let me tell you about our arrival at Changsha. When 
 we got there we were met by the Commissioner of Police. I 
 was a little startled at the thought of being greeted by the 
 Commissioner of Police, but I soon learned a commissioner 
 of police is equivalent to a mayor of a city, and he was there 
 to do us honor and not to arrest us. Escorted by him, we went 
 up to Dr. Hume’s house, and were told to get into the best 
 clothes we had, at once, because forty-seven of the gentry of 
 Changsha were giving us a dinner. So we dressed as quickly 
 
 44 
 
as possible, and got into those abominable chairs, and were 
 carried through the narrow streets of the city to an old 
 ancestral hall. Of course that is a magnificent residence com- 
 pound, only it isn’t a residence. We were met at the gate- 
 way by some people. The head man had a long sash over him. 
 He looked like a man marching in a St. Patrick’s Day parade. 
 He 'bowed to us profoundly, and I did my best to be polite. 
 I bowed to him. Then I was a little distressed to know wheth- 
 er I ought to go on the right side of the man or on the left. 
 But somebody whispered to me, “The left is the side of honor,” 
 so I changed it. Then my associates came up. You know 
 nothing is straight in China. Those of you who live there 
 know it. We went around and around and around and around, 
 and presently we emerged into a most delightful park-like 
 place, with a lake reflecting electric lights and the outlines of 
 the structures about the lake, and were carried over some 
 bridges that looked not unlike those balustrades at the Temple 
 of Heaven in Peking- Presently I looked up, and there was 
 a brass band. I walked along with this man and stepped up 
 on a step, and just as I stepped on the step, that band struck 
 up “Yankee Doodle.” Now, wasn’t that splendid? Of course 
 I took ofif my hat. I went on past the band, and I met a 
 group of these charming gentlemen and was presented to them, 
 an interpreter doing his best to make us understand one an- 
 other. Then I was told it was not proper for me to stay there 
 any longer, that I must go on to another place in order to be 
 proper. I went to another place, and was presented to another 
 group of gentlemen, and then another place and another group 
 of gentlemen. 
 
 You know it had dawned on me long before that in China 
 that I was a barbarian. I discovered very early in China that 
 those people looked upon me with condescension and com- 
 miseration, and for the first time in my whole life I under- 
 stood that passage — you remember it, don’t you? — in Dr. Liv- 
 ingstone’s “Africa” where he says that the first time a certain 
 black people in the interior of Africa saw a white man they 
 were nauseated. If you think you are a gentleman or a lady, 
 it will all be taken out of you in China in a very little while. 
 
 Now, after a while we were seated at the table, and we had 
 an interminable dinner, a European dinner served in China, — 
 so many courses, you know. Then at the end of it they had 
 after-dinner speeches, and they were splendid. The Commis- 
 sioner of Police made a speech, which was interpreted. Then 
 one of the men who was over here with that commission of 
 merchants from China made a speech, and a great and grand 
 
 45 
 
speech it was, in good English. Then Dr- Welch spoke, or 
 perhaps I spoke first. We both spoke, anyway, and Dr. Flex- 
 ner; and the speeches were interpreted by a young man, the 
 grandson of the man in whose honor this ancestral palace had 
 been erected, himself the secretary of the Young Men’s Chris- 
 tian Association, and they told me of the young men the 
 finest classical scholar in Changsha, everybody proud of him, 
 a leader of the Christian host of Changsha. It would have 
 done you good to see the honor that was done him by the 
 gentry present. 
 
 I speak of this as showing the remarkable hold which the 
 Yale people have gotten on the gentry of China, not only the 
 men but the women ; for there is a large association of women 
 in Changsha who have associated themselves together for the 
 promotion of public health and sanitation, the care of children, 
 the providing of suitable food for children, and doing what 
 they may to decrease infant mortality and to promote the 
 general sanitation and salubrity of the homes of that region, — 
 a splendid body of women, all of whom were asked to go 
 when we went out with the Governor General to lay the corner- 
 stone of the new Harkness Hospital of the Yale Mission 
 School. I may say in passing we were entertained by the 
 military governor of the province at luncheon, and were escort- 
 ed through lines of soldiers, just ahead of the Governor Gen- 
 eral, all the way out to this place where the corner-stone was 
 laid. 
 
 We went down to Shanghai, where we visited all the medi- 
 cal schools and hospitals, and where I occupied my time mainly 
 in making speeches. I made more speeches in Shanghai than 
 I have made in America in five years. The Christian Asso- 
 ciation had me on the carpet three times. Dr. Gamewell had 
 me on three times for some of his educational associations, 
 and Dr. Beebe had me on for the medical men ; and then we 
 went out to meet native educational associations, where I made 
 speeches that had to be interpreted sentence by sentence; and 
 Dr. Lobenstine filled in the chinks. So from the beginning of 
 my visit to the end of it there we had these interviews. 
 
 Then we went on to Hangchow and Soochow, having had 
 ten days at Nanking, and down to Hongkong and Canton. That 
 was the extent of our journey in China. 
 
 The net result of it all is this : We are convinced that the 
 best service which the China Medical Board can render in 
 China is the establishment of two medical schools of the high- 
 est grade possible under existing conditions, where young men 
 and young women may be so trained in medicine as that they 
 themselves shall become the producers and the teachers of 
 
 46 
 
modern medicine for China. That our largest service will not 
 be rendered by aiding a large number of schools, or a con- 
 siderable number of schools, here and there, to train men im- 
 perfectly, who themselves have had imperfect preparation for 
 the immediate needs of China ; but that the greatest service 
 we can render and the most permanent service we can render 
 is that of establishing these two schools on such a high plane 
 scientifically and educationally as that through the process of 
 training in these schools there shall emerge young men and 
 young women who are capable of studying the medical prob- 
 lems of China and of producing a medical literature for China, 
 and who themselves will become the teachers of the future 
 generations of Chinese in the very best that modern medicine 
 can offer. To that task we propose to set ourselves. That is 
 the recommendation which we shall make — here I am telling 
 the tale right out of school — 'to our Board and to the trustees 
 of the Union Medical College. We believe that to be the 
 highest service we can render. 
 
 Now you ask, what will be our relation to the missionary 
 societies, and I can only answer — and I won’t take time to 
 read it for there isn’t time now — I can only answer by refer- 
 ring you to the letter which Mr. Rockefeller sent, first to Dr. 
 Speer and then to secretaries of other societies, in which we 
 express our wish to co-op>erate in every possible way with the 
 missionary societies and to do our work in such sympathetic 
 accord with you as shall make our work a distinctive contri- 
 bution to missionary endeavor. (Applause.) 
 
 Dr. a. J. Brown : Mr. Chairman : It has been thought best 
 for the Committee of Reference and Counsel to report this 
 evening on the questions which have been submitted regarding 
 medical work rather than defer that report until tomorrow 
 afternoon, inasmuch as you have devoted the afternoon and 
 evening of today to medical missions, and it may be well to 
 clear up the subject while it is before us- 
 
 The questions referred to the Committee may resolve them- 
 selves into two groups. First, the resolution of the China 
 Medical Missionary Association and the China Continuation 
 Committee, as printed in our report, regarding co-operation 
 with the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation 
 and the securing of an adequate number of suitable physicians 
 and nurses. A second group consists of the resolutions pre- 
 sented this afternoon, adopted by an informal conference of a 
 few medical missionaries and home friends and physicians in 
 New York, March 16th, regarding more adequate equipment 
 and support of mission hospitals in all the fields. 
 
 47 
 
The Committee feels disposed to approach these questions 
 in a spirit of large sympathy. It is true that the Committee 
 doubts the practicability of some of the specific proposals that 
 have been made, and we are inclined to think that some who 
 spoke and have written are not aware of all that the boards 
 are now doing or of what difficulties are involved in the at- 
 tempt to carry out their specific proposals. Nevertheless, the 
 Committee keenly feels the importance of the whole subject, 
 and surely all of us are eager to do everything in our power 
 to advance the interests of this great department of our com- 
 mon mission work. Some of us have had these questions un- 
 der consideration for a long time, and we were therefore a 
 little perplexed at some of the things that were said and writ- 
 ten which apparently implied that nobody here had been think- 
 ing about them. Four members of the Committee are mem- 
 bers of the Board of Trustees appointed by the China Medical 
 Board of the Rockefeller Foundation : Dr. North, Dr. Barton. 
 Dr. Mott and myself. We have been rather anxiously and 
 prayerfully studying these matters, and we know that some 
 of the rest of you have also been doing so. It is quite evident 
 that all that is desired cannot be adequately handled at this 
 Conference, amid the heat and pressure and hurry of our work 
 here. We feel that it is wise to re-study the whole field of 
 medical missions at home and abroad, to go somewhat care- 
 fully and thoroughly into the problems that are concerned- and 
 see if some more satisfactory methods cannot be devised. We 
 therefore submit the following recommendations: 
 
 The Committee of Reference and Counsel having had re- 
 ferred to it certain resolutions, recommendations and papers 
 relating to medical missionary work, which had been presented 
 to the Conference, the Committee recommends, in view of the 
 very great importance of the suggestions presented and their 
 indirect bearing upon missionary administration both at home 
 and abroad, that all these papers be referred to a special sub- 
 committee to be appointed by the Committee of Reference and 
 Counsel, this sub-committee to make careful investigation of 
 the subjects presented, to hold conferences, to confer with 
 those interested in these resolutions, and to bring in a report 
 at the next meeting of this Conference. 
 
 And it is our thought, Mr. Chairman, that this sub-com- 
 mittee should be appointed almost immediately after the close 
 of this Conference, with a view of undertaking its work at 
 the earliest possible moment and entering into conference with 
 the boards concerned in the development of the specific insti- 
 tutions in northern China. 
 
 48 
 
3 m 
 
 F 
 
 \\ ' * 
 TitX -v; 
 
 S'