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The Josephine M. Bixby 
 Memorial Hospital 
 
 -FOR— 
 
 WOMEN AND CHILDREN 
 
 KITYANG, CHINA 
 
 WOMAN'S BAPTIST FORIEGN MISSIONARY 
 SOCIETY OF THE WEST 
 450 E. 30th Street, Chicago, III. 
 

The Josephine M. Bixby Memorial Hospital. 
 
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The Josephine M. Bixby Hospital 
 FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN 
 
 In S^emoriam 
 
 The Kityang Hospital is the most fitting 
 memorial possible to her whose name it 
 bears. She had planned to call it “lue 
 True Doctrine Hospital,” but when the glad 
 day of its dedication and her fruition proved 
 also to be the closing day of her labors 
 there and her passing to her reward follow- 
 ed so swiftly, no other name could be 
 thought of than that it bears, for she had 
 given her life for it, and it is her memorial. 
 
 Dr. Bixby was an Iowa girl. Converted at 
 sixteen, she soon determined to give her 
 life to the foreign work. Declining all prof- 
 fered aid she maintained herself for two 
 years in the Training School for Nurses, 
 two years in the Woman’s Medical College 
 and some time in the Moody Institute, all in 
 Chicago. 
 
 She sailed from San Francisco October 16, 
 1894, and reached Swatow, China, November 
 8th. Here she commenced the study of the 
 Chinese language and took charge of some 
 patients in connection with Dr. Scott. To- 
 gether they treated more than a thousand 
 patients a week. Dr. Bixby attending special- 
 ly to the eye and ear patients. And in a 
 little more than a year she assumed charge 
 at Kityang. Here amid privations and dif- 
 
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ficulties, work that demanded a man's 
 strength, with none but native assistants, 
 whom she had trained, sometimes alone at 
 the station and taking charge of other's 
 work during their furloughs, she wrought 
 and planned and hoped and accomplished 
 for eleven years. Then came the few 
 months of suffering and on Sabbath morn- 
 ing, June 16th, 1907, she passed over to the 
 true “Homeland.” 
 
 A SPLENDID LOCATION 
 
 A more advantageous situation for hos- 
 pital work could hardly be found. 
 
 “Kityang, a large walled city, forty miles 
 inland from Swatow, lies in the midst of 
 innumerable villages with idol-filled temples, 
 heathen music and processions filling the 
 air and streets, all telling of superstition 
 and idolatry. In the hospital are gathered 
 daily crowds of lame, halt and blind, wait- 
 ing the attention of the foreign doctor. 
 Here are wee babies, strapped to the back 
 of diminutive brother or sister, with their 
 tiny heads bobbing now this way, now that; 
 women with tiny bound feet, wrapped in Oh, 
 such filthy rags, came hobbling in; men 
 with hands or feet injured; rheumatic pa- 
 tients, including even little children; then 
 the eye patients, a host in themselves. See 
 how great the opportunities, how wide the 
 field!” Dr. Bixby writes the following: 
 
 "God has given us a great opportunity 
 and a great responsibility in the work of 
 establishing this ‘True Dcctrine Hospital’ at 
 
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Kityang, tae only hospital within a radius 
 of over twenty-five miles, myself the only 
 foreign doctor, surrounded by hundreds of 
 villages, large and small, of which Kityang 
 is the busy center for trade and travel. 
 From the beginning we have never had our 
 patients to seek; simply open the doors and 
 they come in droves with ailments great and 
 small, curable and incurable. We have 
 never had to meet prejudice to any great 
 extent in the matter of doing operations. 
 They often come and beg to be operated 
 upon. 
 
 Of our patients, a few are Christians, for 
 the gospel has been preached in many of 
 the villages; many have been casual hearers 
 only but the greater number know little or 
 nothing of the way of eternal salvation. Of 
 the in-patients the majority have always 
 been women. At dispensary we always 
 have more men than women. 
 
 In view of the great opportunities and 
 possibilities of the medical work at Kit 
 yang, one cannot but feel very grateful as 
 well as very humble in being called to such 
 a field.” 
 
 HOW IT CAME TO BE 
 
 The hospital accommodations were scon 
 outgrown, making imperative for the gen- 
 eral work, the use of the chapel, which 
 had previously served as a home. This 
 change involved great inconveniences for 
 Dr. Bixby. She herself took a room in the 
 hospital. This was the only place in which 
 
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she might study, sleep and rest — here where 
 the odors of Chinese cooking and clatter of 
 Chinese women and children would always 
 be present, for the most of the women bring 
 their cnildren and do their own cooking 
 while at the hospital. 
 
 “Accordingly, she set herself valiantly to 
 overcome these difficulties, by years of pa- 
 tient and persistent appeals, first for hos- 
 pital enlargement, then for a new Woman’s 
 Hospital. She spent much time and 
 strength while in the home-land soliciting 
 funds. Baffled by no discouragements, she 
 presented the claims of that rapidly devel- 
 oping work until she won.” The money 
 came from friends at home; missionaries 
 on the field; $2,000 from the Chinese them- 
 selves; from Chapels, from business men 
 in Swatow and Kityang; $235 in material 
 and work from the splendid little Chinese 
 contractor, Christian and heathen alike, who 
 had learned the value of the hospital, and 
 caught the spirit it embodied; but it was the 
 generous gift of $5,000 from a noble-hearted 
 Minnesota woman which made Dr. Bixby’s 
 dream a realization. 
 
 A PEN PICTURE 
 
 The picture is from Dr. Bixby’s own pen. 
 “The hospital is indeed beautiful, and wins 
 the admiration of all. The foundations and 
 walls are of pounded cement. The outside 
 of the walls has a finishing coat of smooth 
 plaster, of a soft gray tint, which will be a 
 lasting protection against the dampness of 
 
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this climate, and will not show mildew. 
 The woodwork, shutters, railings, etc., are 
 painted dark red. The floors of the first 
 floor are of red tile, save the operating 
 room and bath rooms, which are of Port- 
 land cement. The building is in three sec- 
 tions, which surround a court opening to 
 the east. This court is thirty-seven feet 
 wide and sixty feet deep, and will be sodded 
 and used for recreation space. On the 
 second floor are large verandas into which 
 all the wards and rooms on that floor open; 
 these are delightful fresh air spaces, and 
 will be our tuberculosis cure. From this 
 broad roof-covered space a charming view 
 of the surrounding country and the river 
 can be had. There are three large, well 
 ventilated wards, besides smaller , ones', and 
 six private rooms, besides the rooms for the 
 helpers. There are two operating rooms, 
 one on the ground floor for ordinary dis- 
 pensary work, and one just above it which 
 is to be finished all in white and reserved 
 for aseptic work only. We have the very 
 best drains about the building that have yet 
 been made in this part of the country. The 
 building will accommodate seventy-five pa- 
 tients.” 
 
 THE DEDICATION 
 
 We quote from one of our missionaries. 
 Rev. A. P. Groesbeck, Chowyang, China. 
 
 “One of the happy events in the history 
 of the South China Mission was the recent 
 opening of the Woman’s Hospital, Kityang. 
 
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It was one of those days when the sun 
 comes out in all his glory to give good 
 speed to some Christian function planned 
 for a month beforehand. So from the 
 heathen point of view the Lord was on our 
 side that day. When we arrived we found 
 hundreds of the natives there, Christian and 
 heathen, village peasant and city official, 
 shoulder to shoulder, listening to the ex- 
 ercises. The crowd of foreigners was not 
 so large as that of the natives, but was 
 quite as much a jumble. Men and women 
 were there, Presbyterians and Baptists, En- 
 glish and American, doctor, teacher and 
 evangelist. The Swatow business com- 
 munity was represented by Mr. Richardson, 
 of the firm of Bradley & Co. Mr. Richard- 
 son is one of the oldest residents, the friend 
 of all good works, a large donor to the hos- 
 pital fund. The program was in charge of 
 Mr. Speicher, the addresses were all in 
 Chinese, or put into that tongue. A history 
 of the old hospital was given, the purposes 
 and ideals of the new were set forth. 
 Words of greeting and God-speed were 
 spoken by visitors, and after an addi’ess by 
 Dr. Bixby, the keys were handed over by the 
 contractor and the hospital was formally 
 declared open. 
 
 “Long shall we remember her radiant joy, 
 her complete happiness when after her 
 splendid address the keys were given into 
 her charge.” 
 
 “After the exercises Dr. Bixby led the 
 visitors through the building explaining its 
 
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arrangement and uses. The officials and 
 gentry were taken in charge by Mr. 
 Speicher, while the crowd of natives fol- 
 lowed or wandered at will to wonder and 
 admire. Evidently to the smallest detail 
 the plan had been thought out, and we were 
 beholding how well it had been wrough 
 out in the building. Perhaps the encomium 
 pronounced on the builder by Dr. Bixby 
 was warranted, but most of us would pre- 
 fer to praise the forethought and vigilance 
 of the presiding genius. Dr. Bixby, that 
 somehow compelled him to build better 
 than his contract. 
 
 After the feast of eye and reason came 
 that other feast without which no enterprise 
 of importance is ever launched in China. 
 The mandarins and other stars had a room 
 and a banquet to themselves. The con- 
 tributors and everybody else seemed some 
 how to find something to eat. Certainly all 
 were crowded, noisy and happy. The for- 
 eigners were served tiffen, at the home of 
 Dr. Bixby and Miss Ross. The steam launch 
 blew its whistle for the third and last 
 time, and we did not miss it, for it had 
 waited an hour for us in honor of the oc- 
 casion.” 
 
 . A DAY'S WORK 
 
 Let us follow Dr. Bixby through one day’s 
 work, typical of hospital work in all our 
 stations. 
 
 “At half past eight to nine o'clock every 
 morning we have a singing and preaching 
 
 II 
 
service, at the chapel. This is under Mr. 
 Speicher’s direction, and native preachers. 
 At nine o’clock I repair to the hospital, and, 
 if it is not ‘dispensary day,’ spend the morn- 
 ing with my native helpers, looking after our 
 in-patients. If it is dispensary day, my two 
 boys attend to the dressing and treating of 
 eyes, before nine o’clock, and at nine the 
 door is opened and tickets are given out as 
 the people come in, and we dispense medi- 
 cines, and treat eyes, and all sorts of mal- 
 adies until noon. 
 
 Dr. Bixby at work. 
 
 “The religious service for the in-patients 
 is held in the evening, when all who are 
 able to do so are gathered in the waiting 
 room, and after a song is sung, a portion of 
 
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the Gospel is read and explained by one of 
 the helpers, then a prayer is offered, and 
 it is no uncommon thing for several to rise 
 before the prayer is offered, and unsolicited, 
 request that prayer be made for them. The 
 dispensary also is always opened with a 
 short service. 
 
 “We often find their ignorance exceed- 
 ingly dense and to make even a slight im- 
 pression upon them a most discouraging 
 task, yet the work is not hopeless for many 
 have learned while in the hospital to read 
 a few hymns or tracts, and have learned to 
 pray, and have taken home with them some 
 seed truths, which, being divine, we know 
 cannot die.” 
 
 Mrs. Giffen, of China, thus writes of her 
 visit to the hospital: 
 
 “No day since my arrival in China has 
 been more full of interest than one spent 
 with Dr. Bixby in the hospital at Kityang. 
 
 “We went to the hospital for the chapel 
 exercises conducted by the Chinese as- 
 sistant at nine o'clock. The women were 
 in the waiting rooms opening into the con- 
 sulting room where the speaker stood and 
 where we sat. 
 
 “A peculiar audience indeed! A little 
 woman with tiny bound feet encased in 
 embroidered pink slippers, sat upon the 
 front bench, swinging the feet that could 
 not reach the floor. She had a bright face, 
 but had come to be treated for eye trouble. 
 
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“Oh, the number of different ailments 
 that appeared during the consulting hours 
 which followed. Most prevalent of all 
 seemed the eye cases. Then there were 
 wounds of all kinds to be dressed, and 
 medicines to be given out. 
 
 “Oh, the gratitude of those physically 
 blind who are made to see, and many who 
 are enabled to see with the physical eyes 
 are taught to see with the spiritual eyes 
 as well.” 
 
 Mrs. Spiecher adds, speaking of Dr. 
 Bixby: “Nowhere could there be found a 
 Christian worker more devoted to duty. 
 Again and again, after a weary day in the 
 hospital, would she travel hours by native 
 chair or boat, to give relief to some suffer- 
 ing body.” 
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS 
 
 Our hospital is in temporary charge of 
 Dr. Adkins of the South China Mission, 
 while we wait for the competent and con- 
 secrated woman who shall take the place 
 of our loved Dr. Bixby. We greatly rejoice 
 that a trained nurse has gone this fall to 
 take up the work. Miss Luciele Alice 
 Withers, of Danville, 111. 
 
 “She is a well equipped nurse, being 
 graduated from the Training School for 
 Nurses, and hospital at Danville, 111., also 
 from Bellevue hospital, New York. 
 
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“She heard the call to do her part of 
 the world’s work when a child; this has 
 grown with the years and now there is 
 great joy in her heart that the Master has 
 
 Miss Withers. 
 
 chosen her for this special service. She 
 longs to cure souls as well as bodies.’’’ 
 
 She will be supported by the love and 
 prayers and gifts of Minnesota young 
 women. 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 For two years Kityang has been calling 
 for a physician, but neitner much prayer 
 
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nor diligent search has revealed the right 
 woman to fill this place. Would that I 
 could so picture the suffering and sorrow 
 and sin and despair of our Chinese sisters, 
 or that I could so illuminate the joy of ser- 
 vice that some consecrated young women, 
 strong of body, sensible in mind, cheery in 
 disposition, well equipped with the knowl- 
 edge and training of the medical profession, 
 would be willing to take for her renown the 
 gratitude of China’s suffering daughters, and 
 for her guerdon “bright jewels” for her 
 crown, and would speedily say, “Here am I, 
 Lord, send me!” 
 
 KATHERINE K. GALE. 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn., October, 1909. 
 
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