to Manchuria. . By James A. Qreig, F.R.C.S.(Edin.), Kirin OUR JUBILEE GIFT TO MANCHURIA. BY JAMES A. GREIG, F.R.C.S.(Edin.), KIRIN. Belfast : Printed by Wm. Strain & Sons, Gt. Victoria Street. 1898. GROUP IN FRONT OF KIRIN HOSPITAL (CENTRAL BUILDING), Our Jubilee Gift to Manchuria. 0>vf) Diamond Jubilee of our beloved Queen has been commemorated all over the British Empire in a way worthy of our nation. In the universal song of thanksgiving which arose to God was a kindly and tender strain of sympathy towards the sick and suffering, inspired by Her Majesty herself. Benevolent and philanthropic work has always received Her Majesty’s support, and is now receiving a fresh impetus from her gracious and warm heart. Medical missions to heathen and uncivilized lands are among the healing fruits of Her Majesty’s reign. This little booklet is to set forth the medical needs of the great city of Kirin, in Manchuria, and the way we are trying to meet them. The moral, social, and religious needs of that city we do not refer to here. Kirin is the capital of the central province of Manchuria, and has about 100,000 inhabitants. It is most picturesquely situated on the river Songari, and is the centre of the wood trade. It has also a Government arsenal and powder manu- factory, and is the seat of the Military Governor, and the highest officials of the Province. Communication with the seaports of Newchwang and Vladivostock, each about 300 miles distant, is at present very dififcult ; but when, in a few years, the great Trans-Siberian Railway connects it with these places it is likely to become an even more important city than it is at present. For many years the deplorably high death-rate, the miserable state of the sick and suffering, and the indescrib- 4 OUR jubilee gift to MANCHURIA. ably filthy and insanitary conditions under which the people live, have elicited much sympathy and help from this country, and as the facts become more widely known we believe they will evoke still more. There is no knowledge of medical science whatever. There are no schools of medicine, no hospitals or dispensaries, and no properly qualified medical men or nurses. The slums of the city are squalid hot-beds of infectious disease. Sanitary inspectors are unknown. The poor have few helpers ; the insane have no asylums ; the blind no instructors. The native doctors are an ignorant, unlettered, and cruel class of men, who know nothing of anatomy or physiology, and who hold the wildest and most foolish theories about the cause and cure of disease. Ask a native doctor where the heart is, and he will point to the abdomen. The stomach is thought to be the seat of the mind. The circulation of the blood is not understood. An abscess or a boil is never lanced, but an adhesive plaster is put over it lest the matter get out. A diseased tooth is not removed, as they have no tooth forceps, and believe that if one tooth were pulled the others would all drop out. Burning with hot coins and cupping are favourite methods of treatment. Puncturing with needles under the finger nails and through the nose and lips is often practised. They say there are over three hundred places in the human body where such puncturing may be performed without injuring a large blood-vessel or vital organ. The most repulsive mixtures, made from dung and vermin, are often given internally. A broken limb is seldom set or put in splints. Gunshot wounds are filled with metallic mercury. Inflammation of the eyes is treated in a way that often leads to complete loss of sight. Women suffer and die in the hands of dirty, degraded, and ignorant midwives. Infant mortality is very OUR jubilee gift To MANCHURIA. 5 high, for cow’s milk is not used, and suitable infant foods are not easily procured. Epilepsy and other nervous diseases are attributed to demon possession. Sorcerers drive a flourishing trade, and impose upon the credulous people with great facility. Opium smoking is very prevalent, and is practically incurable by the natives. Typhus and Typhoid fever. Dysentery, Cholera, and other infectious and deadly plagues cause fearful havoc, as isolation and disin- fection are rarely, if ever, carried out. The wells of the city are nearly always contaminated with sewage and decaying organic matter, and the only other drinking water, that from the river, is, at certain seasons, polluted also. Is not this a sad picture ? It is no exaggerated one, but is a carefully-considered and condensed statement of the condition of Kirin, by one who has lived and worked there for years. It has already awakened much sympathy ; we hope it will awaken more. In order to help these suffering people, in 1896 we built and equipped a medical hospital and dispensary there. It stands on a healthy site just outside the east wall of the city, and since it was opened the people have largely availed themselves of it. The following is the plan of the buildings. It was made and carried out by ourselves, and is both satisfactory for the work and pleasing to the Chinese. It is customary in China and other parts of the East to build so as to enclose a square court-yard, and we have followed this method. The principal buildings face south, and the right and left wings look into the compound. The central building is considered the most important, and is more ornamental than the others. In it we have placed the reception room for mandarins and other visitors, and also a private ward for paying patients. The general wards, ophthalmic ward, operating room, and kitchens, are behind this. The southern block of buildings, adjacent to the AX£ -fL^ l- NerfK OUR JUBILEE GIFT TO MANCHURIA. 7 Street, consists of a waiting hall for out-patients, ophthalmic, dressing and consultation rooms, and the dispensary. The buildings are of grey brick and are roofed with grey tiles, the style of architecture being entirely Chinese. The wards are heated by the Corean method of carrying brick tunnels under the floor, through which smoke and heated air pass from furnaces lit outside the house. The beds,- with the exception of a few for special cases, are those used in the north of China called kangs. They are brick settles, about 2 feet high, covered with matting, and heated under- neath in the same way as the floors. The dispensary and other rooms are like European ones, with the exception of the windows, which are made not of glass, but of Chinese white paper, which is inexpensive and answers well. They are heated by American iron stoves. The operating-room, however, has large glass windows to secure good light, and for other reasons. In the early hours of the morning we pay our visit to the wards to see how our in-patients are getting on. We can accommodate between 40 and 50, and usually the wards are nearly full. As I enter a ward the word goes round, “ Ta fu lai la ! ta fu lai la /” — “The doctor has come ! The doctor has come!” and many pale faces turn towards me, and anxious hearts eagerly await my words of advice, of cheer, or of warning. As each temperature chart is examined and surgical dressing changed, one realises the enormous power we in Western lands have received for doing good and relieving suffering in the dark places of the earth. How delightful to watch the return of health to the frame wasted by disease, and to see the cruel fiery hand of ophthalmia arrested ere the sunshine of life dies out and the darkness of incurable blindness sets in. To soothe the fevered brow and relieve the racking pain is at once our privilege and reward. KIRIN HOSPITAI.. OUR TUBILEE GIFT TO MANCHURIA. 9 That bronzed and emaciated fellow is a martyr to tubercular disease. One of his limbs had to be removed, and several other operations had subsequently to be per- formed. He has had a long and trying time of it, but now he is beginning to mend. Months ago he would have died in a miserable dirty hovel but for the kindly help he has received. The man in the second bed from the door was brought to us from a town a hundred miles away suffering from a form of cancer. The growth has been completely excised, and the wound has now healed. He has had a severe struggle breaking off the opium habit, which he had acquired while seeking relief from pain. He has succeeded in stopping the use of the drug, and is returning home in a day or two. The lad in yonder cot broke his thigh when playing with some comrades. As he calmly slept under an anaesthetic we set and comfortably bandaged his limb in a rigid apparatus, and now it is only a matter of time, and without deformity or lameness he will be able to romp and play once more. These three young men with their arms in slings were injured in the arsenal. The making of silver coins, which has recently been instituted, has caused a number of accidents, as the machinery is new and not well understood. These men were injured in this department. That little boy was dreadfully burnt about the neck and chest while making percussion caps. For some nights we feared he would not survive, but he did. Then his eyes were our chief anxiety. He begged and prayed us to give him back his sight. After many weeks one of his eyes was restored, and he is very happy over it. The sallow, careworn-looking man next the window is, I fear, beyond hope of cure. He came to us with very lO OUR JUBILEE GIFT TO MANCHURIA. advanced bone disease, and, although he has had two operations under chloroform, and everything has been done that our skill could suggest, his chance is not good. He is an only son, and his old father bends over him day by day with all his paternal tenderness, but there is little improve- ment. But most of our cases do well, and it is glad work. Nearly all our in-patients are surgical. The Chinese don’t believe as much in our medical as in our surgical skill. The results are not so tangible. Within the first five months of our new hospital we were called on to perform fifty major operations under chloroform. This shows the extent to which our work has already grown, and we believe it will soon be further extended. The annual support of each bed in our hospital is £, 2 , and all our beds have been under- taken by friends in Ireland. Also per annum each has been promised for the salary of two native male nurses. These generous gifts, when the debt on the building fund is cleared off, will enable us to do still more than we have done for suffering Kirin. At ten o’clock in the morning, after the ward visits are over, we begin to see our dispensary patients. There are usually 40 or 50 on men’s days, and 10 or 15 on women’s days. As they come into the waiting hall they receive numbered tickets, and on my ringing a bell they are shown in one by one into the consulting room. After receiving treatment, advice, or a prescription, they pass on into the pharmacy, where our native dispensers are busily engaged making up the medicines. In this orderly manner we render what help we can to the poor people. We make no charge to the poor, and most of them are very poor. From those who can pay, however, we solicit and get donations to our hospital. Although the work is still young we have already had a good many subscriptions OUR JUBILEE GIFT TO MANCHURIA. II from Chinese who have come to appreciate our work. The Red Cross Society of Shanghai gave us the handsome sum of ^^150 for our services to the Chinese soldiers wounded during the recent war with Japan. Europeans residing in KIRIN : THE DISPENSARY FROM THE STREET. Manchuria raised about ;^8o, and Chinese friends in Kirin about while we were building our hospital. From all sources the money we have received for this beneficent work amounts to about ;^i,2oo. About ;^4oo are still 12 OUR jubilee gift to MANCHURIA. needed, so that the erection and outfit of this hospital may not in any way burden the ordinary funds of the Foreign Mission, and this booklet is issued in the belief that there are many who have not yet heard of our work, and who only need the case to be fairly stated to them to draw forth their practical sympathy and help. How great is the boon this home of mercy is conferring upon Kirin ! In it the blind receive their sight, the lame are made to walk, and many loathsome and painful diseases are cured. My reader, put on a heart of compassion towards these sufferers. “ Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy.” Donations or bequests to Kirin Hospital will be grate- fully received and acknowledged by — D. G. Barkley, Esq., LL.D., 12, May Street, Belfast ; or The Rev. VVm. Park, M.A., 1 1 9, University Street, Belfast ; or W. D. Eakin, Esq., 12, May Street, Belfast. S’rogramme of Itecture, “ACROSS SIBERIA.” PART I. Geography of Manchuria. Description of Kirin. Journey from Kirin to Vladivo- stock. Travelling on the Rivers Usuri and Amour. On Siberian Post Roads. Lake Baikal and Irkutsk. Convict Prisons. Trans-Siberian Railway. PART II. LIME-LIGHT Kirin Hospital. River Songari. Dragon’s Pool. Chinese Mule Cart. Chinese Bullock Cart. Manchurian Ponies. Chinese Inn. Mandarin’s House. House Building. Chinese Temple. Street Scene, Vladivostock. Habaroosk. VIEWS OF Amour Steamers. Blagoveschensk. Russian Post Station. Tarantass Travelling. Buriats. Greek Church. Lake Baikal. Irkutsk. Convict Prison. Russian Ferry-boat. Building the Railway. Siberian Railway. Moscow, etc.