The Medical Arm 
 
 of tbc 
 
 iSSioiiarv Service 
 
 Testimonies Irom tlie Field 
 
^ PRINCETON, N. J. ' 
 
 Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. 
 
 Division 
 
 Section 
 
 
 Ninnber . 
 
The Medical Arm 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Missionary Service, 
 
 TESTIMONIES FROM THE FIELD. 
 
 Edr, 
 
 ^tmerfcan Boarli of C[r0mmfss{0ner3 for JForefgn fHtssfons, 
 
 I SOMERSET STREET, BOSTON. 
 1894. 
 
 V 
 
T^HE following collection of testimonies in reference to the aims 
 * and methods of Medical Missions has been kindly prepared by 
 tlie Rev. Edmund K. Alden, d.d., who, while Corresponding Secretary, 
 secured these communications from able and devoted missionary 
 physicians in various parts of the world. 
 
 E. E. S., 
 
 Editorial Secretary. 
 Rooms of the American Board, 
 Boston, June, 1894. 
 
 PRESS OF SAMUEL USHER, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
THE MEDICAL ARM OF THE 
 MISSIONARY SERVICE. 
 
 TESTIMONIES FROM THE FIELD. 
 
 " What is the place appropriately occupied by the medical work 
 as a missionary agency ? Has it any perils on the spiritual side, 
 as related to the secularizing of the missionary work?" These 
 inquiries, or inquiries of a similar import, were sent out a few 
 months ago to several of the medical missionaries of the Ameri- 
 can Board, most of them having had a prolonged experience in 
 the service. The following replies which have been received are 
 herewith presented as worthy of careful perusal, being exceedingly 
 instructive and suggestive. 
 
 They all unite in urging a more vigorous prosecution of this 
 department of missions, calling for additional pecuniary support 
 and for an increase in the number of thoroughly educated and 
 thoroughly consecrated missionary physicians, both men and 
 women. A few thousand dollars each year, specially designated 
 by donors for the medical department, would be exceedingly help- 
 ful to the entire work. 
 
 Possibly some of the noble Christian physicians in our churches 
 and congregations at home, appreciating, as they may be expected 
 to do more than others, the value of this beneficence, may feel 
 impelled themselves to bestow, and to encourage others to bestow, 
 generous gifts for this important work. So may it be, if God will ! 
 
 We present fourteen testimonies, one from Africa, two from 
 India, two from Japan, four from Turkey, and five from China. 
 
 FROM AFRICA. 
 I. 
 
 The first testimony we present is from Dr. W. L. Thompson, of 
 East Central Africa : — 
 
 " My experience in medical missionary work has been limited, 
 as it is little over eighteen months since I reached Africa and 
 
during much of this time I have been travehng about, rendering 
 it impossible to follow the results of the little work that I 
 could do in this line ; so that this statement must be much more 
 the result of thought than of experience. Still I have seen enough 
 of the ignorance and superstition and the resulting useless and 
 cruel practices of the heathen of this land to convince any one, 
 it would seem, that the Golden Rule requires us, and that the spirit 
 of the Good Samaritan must impel us, to seek to enlighten and 
 help them in this as in their other needs. 
 
 " I fully recognize that their great need is of a change of heart, 
 and that this must come through a view of the Lamb of God and 
 a knowledge of his dying love. But how is this to be brought to 
 them ? It is not enough that we tell them of Christ's love. The 
 story will seem but an ' idle tale ' to them unless they see that 
 love exhibited in living form before their eyes. In what other 
 way can we so readily do this as in relieving their physical suffer- 
 ings? As we look at them, living in their wretched huts with 
 scarcely any clothing, they seem to us to be destitute of all things, 
 but this is not their view of their condition. In regard to these 
 things they are well satisfied. Should we give them clothes they 
 would not look upon it as an act of charity, for they feel no need 
 in this line. They would not feel that we were sacrificing any- 
 thing for their good, for they look upon us as possessing inexhaust- 
 ible wealth. They would simply consider that we wished to win 
 their favor, probably for some selfish end. But in regard to their 
 physical sufferings they feel a need ; they often suffer hopeless of 
 relief, and if relief can be given, they feel that that is something to 
 be thankful for, that they have been befriended. They become 
 more ready to listen when spoken to of their greater needs and 
 the provision which has been made for them. 
 
 " Then many of the most debasing and ensnaring superstitions 
 are connected with their theories and treatment of disease, and 
 to meet these superstitions it is desirable that one should clearly 
 understand the subject with which they are connected. So firmly 
 is the belief in some of these superstitions fixed in their minds 
 that it often occurs that one who has professed Christianity for 
 years, and has appeared to ' run well,' feels impelled, when some 
 sickness or calamity comes upon him, to seek help from some 
 of these superstitious rites. Nor is this so strange when we think 
 how much superstition still finds place in Christian lands and even 
 among Christian people of those lands ; but there it is limited by 
 
public sentiment to less obnoxious forms, while here it rules as 
 a cruel tyrant. The belief in witchcraft is very firmly established. 
 When one becomes sick, some one must be to blame. The 
 offender must be ' smelt out ' and when discovered is most cruelly 
 treated. How can such a superstition be better met than by 
 showing them — placing before their eyes — the agent of disease, 
 showing how it may be introduced into animals with the same 
 deleterious effects that it produces in human beings ; that its 
 growth and development is as definite and regular as is that of the 
 corn in their fields, the ticks on their cattle, or the intestinal 
 worms with which they are all familiar? 
 
 "Closely related to overcoming faith in superstitions is the gain- 
 ing of confidence in the missionary and his message, and here 
 the influence of skilful treatment of their sick is of great impor- 
 tance. Not only does a right use of medical skill convince them 
 of our kindly regard, but the triumphs of modern medical science 
 often have the impression of miracles to them. And why may 
 thev not legitimately serve a similar purpose to these poor 
 heathen that the miracles of Christ and his apostles did to those 
 whom they taught and do to us ? Christ doubtless delighted in the 
 relief of physical suffering when consistent with spiritual good ; 
 but it seems equally certain that he had a much higher object in 
 view in the performance of miracles — to draw the attention of 
 men to the great truth he had to offer them and to convince them 
 that he spoke with authority : ' If ye believe not me, believe the 
 works.' Aside from this object it. seems doubtful whether mira- 
 cles would ever have been wrought merely for the relief of phys- 
 ical suffering. Why should not the miracles of modern medical 
 science help to accomplish these same great ends for the heathen 
 world ? 
 
 " The relevancy of the above considerations should, it seems, 
 be established by the fact that in the absence of the medical mis- 
 sionary all missionaries in this land feel compelled to treat dis- 
 ease. If they have never given any attention to the subject of 
 medicine, they are led to do so at once upon entering upon mis- 
 sion work. All such work, if skilfully performed, is found useful, 
 and of course the greater the skill employed (other things being 
 equal) the more good may be looked for ; while in like manner, 
 the results of unskilful efforts may be prejudicial to the cause. 
 
 " It is suggested that medical mission work ' may have its perils 
 on the secular side.' It would seem to me that if there is danger 
 
here, it must be in the fact that men who are not really conse- 
 crated to securing the highest good of those for whom they labor 
 may be more liable to be attracted to this than to other depart- 
 ments of missionary work, though it is certain that this danger is 
 not confined to this department of work." 
 
 FROM INDIA. 
 
 II. 
 
 Dr. Edward Chester, of the Madura Mission, thus writes : — 
 
 " I imagine that I can work in the medical line better than I 
 can talk about it. The men ito speak a good word for the mission 
 medical work are intelligent friends of foreign missions, who come 
 and see our work with their own eyes and can appreciate its value. 
 
 " I have had now thirty-four years' experience of this mission 
 medical work in India. I have looked at it on every side and 
 have had excellent opportunities of seeing just what it is really 
 worth, as a part of the carrying out of our dear Lord's parting 
 command. And I feel that too much cannot be said in its favor, 
 and that it would be ditificult to exaggerate its benefits and advan- 
 tages to our entire mission work. 
 
 " I have never felt disposed to exalt any special mission work 
 over any or all forms of such work. Each has its place and is a 
 necessity in helping on the coming of Christ's kingdom. In 
 carrying on my own mission work in the Dindigul station of the 
 Madura Mission I give the same care and labor and time to 
 the evangelistic and educational and church work that I do to the 
 medical. I try to keep them all up to the mark, and have them 
 all move on harmoniously. 
 
 " The mission medical work is a great object lesson to the world, 
 which is specially telling and instructive to the non-Christian 
 people who surround a mission district in countries of idolaters. 
 The pictures having been shown, the lesson taught is love, the 
 love which Jesus the Christ showed in his life and taught in his 
 words when here on earth. As Christ Jesus was the great, the 
 model missionary, so was he the wonderful, the pattern medical 
 missionary. Just what his miracles of healing did for the world 
 eighteen hundred and sixty-three years ago, to excite gratitude, 
 to allay race hatred, to lessen the bitterness of opposite religions, 
 to overcome evil by good, so now, though in a modified quality 
 and a minimized degree, does the mission medical work reach the 
 hearts of men and lead them to think better of the religion of Christ. 
 
" Forms of mission medical work may differ ; it may be among 
 men, women, and children, or exclusively among women and 
 children ; or it may add to medical and surgical work in the hos- 
 pital and dispensary the excellent and important work of training 
 up young men and women in non-Christian countries to be physi- 
 cians or nurses ; still the benefit and the influence and the blessing 
 are one and the same. My own firm conviction, after these thirty- 
 four years of active medical work in India, is that no mission is 
 complete or doing all that it might and ought to do to hasten the 
 coming of the kingdom of Christ that has not side by side with 
 its church and evangelistic and educational and literary, or trans- 
 lating and publishing work, a mission medical work, conducted in 
 the most eiificient manner possible, with an eye constantly not 
 alone to the greatest professional success, but to the widest and 
 most extensive spiritual good." 
 
 m. 
 
 Dr. W. O. Ballantine, of Western India, bears his witness as 
 follows : — 
 
 " In brief I may say that the reasons why medical missions are 
 necessary may be grouped under the following heads : — 
 
 " First, Christ our Lord commands them. 
 
 " Second, Philanthropy requires them. 
 
 "Third, There is wisdom in establishing them. 
 
 " Fourth, Experience proves their value. 
 
 " I would remark in general, in connection with this grouping of 
 the subject, that medical missions have been of great value in the 
 way of self-preservation, of self-support, and of opening out new 
 fields of missionary labor. Prejudice would have made it well- 
 nigh impossible for regularly ordained missionaries to have gained 
 a foothold in many of these places. The medical missionary has 
 entered such places, often at the risk of his life, and has through 
 the medical knowledge that God has given him gained the love 
 and respect of the people, so that permission has at length been 
 granted him to stay on and open up work there which had been 
 at first peremptorily refused him. 
 
 " Medical missions are a great means of enlightening and civiliz- 
 ing degraded and ignorant communities. Large numbers of per- 
 sons, especially children, among such communities die annually, 
 solely through barbarous and inhuman ways of treating their sick. 
 Enlightened medical practitioners have stepped in and saved the 
 
8 
 
 lives of many such, and secured the undying gratitude of multi- 
 tudes of their friends and relatives. Caste prejudice in India 
 exists, as you know, in an aggravated way. This has often been 
 removed, and a kindly feeling established in many neighborhoods 
 toward missionaries and also toward the religion they profess 
 and seek to extend. 
 
 " Instances, drawn from my own personal experience, might be- 
 mentioned to illustrate many of these points ; but I must content 
 myself with only one for want of time. When I first went to 
 Rahuri, seventeen years ago, it needed the greatest amount of 
 coaxing to get the villagers rand townspeople of that region to 
 take medicine from a white man. After a few months they would 
 take medicine put up in powders or made up into pills. It 
 required the greatest amount of ingenuity to give medicine 
 always in this shape. Now all classes come freely to my dispen- 
 sary, and take medicine in liquid form, put up in bottles, as 
 freely as in the forms above referred to. The reason for this 
 was that their priests had strictly interdicted all liquid medicines, 
 as being especially prejudicial to their caste standing. Latterly, 
 however, they got around this interdiction by stating that any 
 water put up in bottles, especially when diluted with any kind of 
 medicine, was perfectly pure for any one to drink, even though 
 it had been previously touched by an outcaste missionary or 
 his defiled converts. This is only one instance, but it will serve 
 to illustrate the intenseness of caste prejudice in India and also 
 shows what patient labor and forbearance on the part of the 
 missionary, coupled with kindness towards all, whether friends or 
 foes, will accomplish." 
 
 FROM JAPAN. 
 IV. 
 
 Dr. J. C. Berry, of Japan, thus writes : — 
 
 " The medical missionary should be first and always a man con- 
 secrated to Christ's service, and with such a deep undercurrent of 
 Christian character and determination as will enable him to resist 
 the subtle temptations to use his unique position only for scien- 
 tific and humanitarian work. The difference between an ordinary 
 hospital and a missionary hospital should be only this — the serv- 
 ice of the latter consecrated to Christ. It should not be one 
 whit behind the general hospital in outfit and completeness of 
 organization, but in it there should be regular preaching of the 
 
gospel and personal work for Christ linked with scientific and 
 systematic work in the art of healing. Every assistant and 
 employee must therefore be a Christian, and the medical mission- 
 ary must unify the aim of all by weekly prayer-meetings with his 
 staff and by setting a practical example of Christian work and 
 living to all. Thus conducted, the mission hospital remains a 
 great power in every land for good. I would further add, He 
 must regard himself as a co-worker with his brethren — the serv- 
 ice of both having but one ultimate object — the bringing of men 
 to Christ. I believe in a Service of Healing. 
 
 " It has been said that one of the marked differences in the 
 experience of a medical and a clerical missionary is that with the 
 former the people come to him, while with the latter he goes to 
 them. This difference, with the growing interest in Christian 
 truth in Japan, is not as marked as in most mission fields ; but 
 it is still a truth of course here. Last year patients sought reUef 
 at the hospital from 147 cities and villages outside of Kyoto, 
 some of them from remote parts of the country. To such I need 
 scarcely say the missionary physician has done but a part of his 
 duty when he has treated them professionally. To be a physician 
 in every sense worthy the confidence of his patients is of course 
 his first duty ; but when, by God's blessing on the means 
 employed, he witnesses pain removed and health restored, it is 
 a duty no less incumbent to impart a knowledge of that which 
 is at once a remedy for sin and a protection from sin. Idols, 
 temples, heathen ceremonies, and means for gratifying unbridled 
 passions await the restored patient as he goes back to old asso- 
 ciations, and the medical missionary leaves his work but half 
 accomplished if his patient is allowed to quit the hospital without 
 a knowledge of God's commands and of a Saviour's love. Dif- 
 ferent methods for accomphshing this have been previously tried ; 
 but during the year under review I have been especially gratified 
 with the result attending the presentation, in words of Scripture 
 as far as possible, of subjects embracing fundamental truths. 
 During the lesson hour it is usual to have the convalescent 
 patients assemble in a large ward, each with a Bible, and then, 
 with hospital assistants and nurses to find the chapter and verse, 
 teach the lesson under consideration by Scripture texts — an 
 assistant at the same time making note of these chapters and 
 verses as a guide for the subsequent private readings of the 
 patients. 
 
" A number of interesting cases might be mentioned showing 
 the result of such work. One, an old samurai with disdain for 
 all religions, proud in the conscious strength of arm and brain, 
 and with contempt for the native faith, entered the hospital with 
 pulmonary consumption. The depth and power of the truth as 
 revealed in the Scriptures impressed him profoundly, and after 
 the first lesson he became an earnest student of the Bible. It 
 was interesting to watch the mental and spiritual awakening and 
 the deepening interest in the truth until he finally accepted Christ 
 as his Saviour. Since leaving the hospital he has been regular in 
 his attendance upon the service, and happy in his new life and 
 hope. Another, with a similar experience, was a school-teacher 
 in the city. Still another was a young man from Nagoya. His 
 parents were wealthy, but strong Buddhists. He became a Chris- 
 tian in the hospital, but fearing to return home before he had 
 received baptism remained, though well, until he could be 
 received to church membership. I have recently heard from 
 him as strong and active in the faith though partly disinherited by 
 his father. He is now a trustee of the schools under our Pres- 
 byterian friends in that city. These men were first impressed, 
 as one of them recently said, with the reasonableness of the 
 Scriptures. The words of God appealed to their judgment, his 
 love touched their hearts. It is a fresh illustration of an impor- 
 tant truth : * Man's word is lifeless and without power to enforce 
 itself; the Spirit of God is never absent from his Word.' 
 
 " I thus refer to our experience in this line of work, believing 
 it will not be without interest to those having the conduct of 
 hospitals on the mission field, and who wish to make them, as 
 most do, a centre of Christian influence as well as of scientific 
 and humanitarian practice. As Christian physicians in charge 
 of such hospitals, we have placed within our hands exceptional 
 helps to reach the heart. The origin of disease in many cases 
 is such as to bring strong self-reproach and condemnation to the 
 individual, an experience which is intensified and which hardens 
 and petrifies character if the suffering is borne, as it too fre- 
 quently has to be, in the midst of censorious and unsympathizing 
 relatives. It is just here I am convinced that much of the 
 benefit of the well-conducted mission hospital, where every 
 employee is in sympathy with his chief, is realized. 
 
 " Physical suffering is relieved ; this is much. But in my 
 experience this alone places the recipient under an embarrassing 
 
obligation. It is rather when this is accompanied by acts and 
 expressions of Christian sympathy, which the patient soon learns 
 is but an application to human needs of the wonderful story of 
 divine love and redemption, that pain and suffering become trans- 
 rriuted into an uplifting and purifying agency, and awaken in the 
 individual true gratitude toward the hospital and those connected 
 therewith. One of our evangelists, after kindly visiting us a few 
 times, remarked : ' Why, there is no place where Christian work 
 produces such immediate results as here.' 
 
 "Our medical work includes the following heads: (i) For 
 patients in hospital, pupils in nurses' school, and for hospital 
 employees. These include morning prayers, which all are encour- 
 aged to attend ; conversations and Bible readings with individual 
 patients at their bedside ; the loaning of tracts, rehgious journals, 
 and Scripture portions ; a Sunday morning service at ten o'clock 
 in the wards ; a Monday morning prayer-meeting for the hospital 
 employees ; a general preaching service Sunday afternoon at two 
 o'clock, the people of the neighborhood being encouraged to 
 attend ; a Sabbath- school from three to four ; a Tuesday evening 
 general meeting for special study of the Bible ; and a Friday night 
 prayer-meeting for the nurses. 
 
 "(2) Service for the out-patients on clinic days. 
 
 "(3) House-to-house visitation among patients who have gone 
 out from the hospital after treatment ; and 
 
 "(4) Medical touring. 
 
 " This last form of service — one of the most pleasant in which 
 the medical missionary can engage, — has, owing to the demands 
 of hospital and school work, been very limited. The method 
 adopted, and one to which, from its applicability to Japan to-day 
 with the increased intelligence of the country physicians, I may 
 be permitted to refer to at length, is as follows : confer with a 
 few evangelists in a certain region, have them arrange for a series 
 of dispensary services in places where mission medical work may 
 be helpful in awakening or deepening interest in Christian truth, 
 and send forward a hospital assistant to enlist, with the evangel- 
 ists of the locality, the cooperative sympathy of the local physi- 
 cians, it being understood that the medical missionary will work 
 with the local physician and commit the subsequent care of the 
 cases, with copies of prescriptions, to him. Such cooperation 
 on our part is rendered further necessary by the legal requirements 
 regulating medical practice. On the day fixed the sick of the 
 
12 
 
 region assemble at the place appointed — usually the Christian 
 chapel — and after a brief religious service work for them is 
 begun, an evangelist in the meantime talking with and distribut- 
 ing tracts among those in the waiting-room. At night a general 
 ser\^ice is held, four or five addresses, emphasizing the practical 
 philanthropic character of Christianity, are made, Christian tracts 
 are distributed, and finally especial attention is drawn to the work 
 of the local evangelist. The following day move on to the next 
 appointment, leaving the awakened interest, greater or less, to the 
 especial care of the Japanese brother laboring there. 
 
 " This form of medical work is expansive in its influence and, 
 if care be taken to visit such places as will subsequently be faith- 
 fully looked after by the nearest church or evangelist, becomes 
 productive of permanent good. Medical touring received much 
 attention in the early days of our mission and the time for its 
 usefulness has not passed. It affords to-day, as it ever will, the 
 same signal and pecuHar opportunities for presenting the gospel 
 message, emphasized by practical demonstrations of Christian love 
 and charity. We hope for increased opportunities for this line 
 of work in future." 
 
 Dr. Wallace Taylor, of Japan, presents his testimony in these 
 words : — 
 
 " The position that medical work occupied in general mission- 
 ary work twenty years ago in the Japan field, and what could be 
 accomplished by it, was very different from what it now is. Then 
 we could open up a new field by organizing a small dispensary, 
 and in connection with it have a place for general missionar)' 
 work ; we could keep this point open for general missionarj^ work 
 by visiting it and holding a clinic there once every two or three 
 weeks, while a clerical missionary could neither open up a new 
 place of work nor hold one after it was opened up. All the 
 places of work the mission had at that time outside of the open 
 ports were opened up and held in this way by medical work. 
 This continued for some four or five years, till the prejudices of 
 the people and their opposition to missionaries and their work 
 gradually wore away with their increased intercourse with Euro- 
 peans. After a time the clerical missionary could open up and 
 hold a place of work without the aid of medical work. During 
 these first few years the medical work was the main arm of the 
 
13 
 
 work outside of the open ports. Without it comparatively little 
 would have been done. It was invaluable, and was so generally 
 recognized over and above the relief it gave to the sick and 
 needy. It was work that was at once appreciated and esteemed 
 by the people generally. At the centres where it was carried on 
 it fast broke down the prejudices and opposition to our religious 
 teaching and opened the way for general evangelical work. But 
 gradually a change came about as the people became more 
 accustomed to our presence and work, till finally the clerical 
 missionary could open up a place of work and hold it as well as, if 
 not better, than the medical man, and then medical work grad- 
 ually dropped back into its more legitimate channel of minister- 
 ing to the wants of the sick and afflicted and bringing them 
 relief. 
 
 "I continued to have out-stations for medical work which I fre- 
 quently visited, and where I did more or less evangelical work, 
 till by a gradual change in the conditions of the work I saw a less 
 number of patients on my tours than I should have seen had I 
 remained at home. And the clerical missionary having no further 
 need of medical work to aid him specially at any point, I changed 
 my plan of work, ceased medical tours, and confined my medical 
 work to the two centres of Osaka and Kobe. The patients 
 sought me, and there was no special advantage in my going out 
 to find them. 
 
 "This now is the condition of mission medical work in Japan. 
 It occupies much the same place here that benevolent medical 
 work in the United States does, being largely humanitarian. The 
 advantage that it gives the medical man is that it brings many 
 within reach that otherwise might not be accessible, and through 
 the relief afforded it gives access to the heart and opportunity for 
 Christian instruction. Another advantage not to be overlooked 
 is that those benefited by medical treatment and instructed in 
 religious truth carry their impressions home with them and 
 become the means of sending others that they also may secure 
 the same aid. Thus frequently our patients become the starting- 
 point of evangelical work off in remote and obscure places where 
 the gospel truth would otherwise not penetrate for some time to 
 come. Or if they are from places where missionary work is known 
 and already carried on, it gives an added power and influence to 
 the work done there. To all, and especially to those from remote 
 fields, it gives a practical example of the blessed fruits of the 
 
14 
 
 gospel. After my work had become well known, in no other way 
 could I reach so many persons and exert so wide an evangelical 
 influence as through medical work. Take my report for 1892 
 when I individually treated and exerted an influence on nearly 
 2,500 persons, many of them from distant and widely scattered 
 places in the south and west of the empire, and where I had 
 nearly 13,000 consultations, and where, with my assistants, who 
 are Christian men, saw nearly 3,500 persons and had over 21,000 
 consultations — where we saw professionally over 800 persons in 
 their homes, and made over 2,500 visits to the homes of patients, 
 carrying our Christian influence with us as a Christian man 
 must, — and this, it will be seen, gives an opportunity of in- 
 fluence under peculiarly favorable circumstances that few clerical 
 missionaries in this country enjoy, though they do a large amount 
 of touring. 
 
 " It is true it is largely a work of seed-sowing and others gather 
 in the harvest, but it is not void of its legitimate fruits ; instances 
 of which very frequently come to my knowledge. Several men 
 who do considerable touring have frequently remarked to me 
 that they find persons almost wherever they go who have been to 
 my clinic and that many of them know quite a little in regard to 
 Christian doctrine, having heard it while attending the dispensary 
 or hospital. 
 
 " I believe in keeping everything native style so far as I can, and 
 hence our hospital and dispensary are native even beyond their 
 highest efficiency in the line of sanitary equipments and in 
 provision for taking care of the sick. Hence we are in close 
 contact with the people, and more in harmony with Japanese 
 life, and our services are largely within their means. 
 
 " Medical work as a branch of missionary work should be well and 
 closely followed up by Christian teaching and personal influence, 
 collectively and especially individually, in giving time and atten- 
 tion to the patient in the hospital and in following up the patients 
 attending the chnics to their homes. The medical practitioner 
 • with a large work on his hands has neither the time nor the 
 strength to properly attend to this. He must keep up the med- 
 ical side of his work if he wishes to make it a success, and he 
 should have the aid of an efficient evangelistic helper (a lady, I 
 beheve, is much to be preferred for many reasons) to assist in 
 rendering the Christian side of his work most efficient and 
 productive of largest results." 
 
15 
 
 FROM TURKEY. 
 VI. 
 
 Dr. M. p. Parmelee, of Trebizond, Turkey, thus writes : — 
 
 " I can most heartily testify to the great value of medical serv- 
 ice in connection with missionary work. This value consists : — 
 
 " First, In the great relief from suffering it affords those among 
 whom missionaries labor. \\''hen the physician is so thoroughly 
 prepared for his work that he does not hesitate to remove cata- 
 racts or perform other capital operations in surgery, and is able 
 to grapple successfully with difficult cases of acute and chronic 
 disease, he may and does save life and relieve suffering to an 
 almost miraculous degree. And even when he is but partially 
 equipped as a medical man he may do much in the same direc- 
 tion. This is especially the case when one is located in remote 
 corners where the missionary is the only medical man of any 
 kind to be found. 
 
 " The value of medical missionary work consists : — 
 
 " Second, in breaking down prejudice and opening all doors 
 to the free entrance of the missionary with his message of peace. 
 This is Christlike. The man who is able to go about 'healing 
 the sick' is literally imitating his Master. By this means he not 
 only gains a listening ear, but he commends Christianity for just 
 what it is, a benediction to all men. 
 
 " You are aware that I entered the missionary field without 
 any special knowledge of medicine, and that I afterward studied 
 in order to supply a lack I seriously felt. If I were to begin my 
 missionary life anew, I would start out with a far better knowledge 
 of medicine than I ever had. I do not say that all missionaries 
 should prepare themselves in this way, but it seems to me more 
 prominence should be given to this branch than at present. For 
 instance, if in every station of three or more missionaries one 
 should be a thoroughly equipped medical man, my idea would be 
 about filled out. But such medical men should be, first of all, 
 fully consecrated missionaries, and afterward physicans, using their 
 medical skill for the higher purpose of saving men. The diffi- 
 culty of finding such men doubtless has been a reason why no 
 more medical men have entered this service. Perhaps, however, 
 suitable agitation of this subject would bring forward the right 
 kind of men. 
 
 " As to the possible perils of medical work on the secular side, 
 I cannot see that they are greater than in purely educational 
 
I6 
 
 work. In either case the prevention is thorough missionary con- 
 secration." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Dr. William S. Dodd, of Cesarea, Turkey, gives his views as 
 follows : — 
 
 "The one great underlying principle of medical missionary 
 work is that it is to be an agency for preaching the gospel. It 
 is not to be mere humanitarianism. It must be used to open 
 hearts to the truth. If it does not do this, it is a failure. The 
 work of every missionary physician is to be tested by this. This 
 it may do in various ways. At the time of treatment the patients 
 and their friends, anxious to receive a benefit, may be induced 
 to listen, whereas under other circumstances they would not be 
 willing. Again, gratitude may be the motive that will lead them 
 to listen. A less direct working of the physician's influence is by 
 the reputation which his skill may give to the missionaries as a 
 class or to the Protestant community, thus bringing outsiders to 
 our services. Gaining access to houses otherwise closed, gaining 
 acquaintance with people otherwise inaccessible, accustoming 
 them to associate with us so as to dispel their false notions in 
 respect to us and our work, gaining an influence over them so 
 that they shall respect us and our opinions — these are some of 
 the privileges of the physician. 
 
 " x^nother most powerful influence is due to showing the true 
 spirit of Christ in love and mercy to the poor and to the suffering. 
 It is in this connection that the merely benevolent part of the 
 work shows its importance. Doing good to humanity is in this 
 country accounted a great thing, but it is carried out with a 
 selfish motive, that of gaining merit. When we can persuade the 
 people that we are trying to do good for Christ's sake it is a great 
 point gained. 
 
 " The medical missionary may be himself a preacher. He may 
 do his preaching simply in conversation with his patients as they 
 come to him for treatment. On the other hand he may do little 
 of this, but may do regular preaching from the pulpit and hold 
 stated services. Again, the medical missionary may be no 
 preacher, and may perhaps do very little direct religious work 
 himself, while yet his humanitarian work coupled with a consist- 
 ent life may enable his associates to do far more than they could 
 otherwise do. 
 
I? 
 
 " The conditions of the work in different lands are doubtless 
 very different. I know that I find the medical work here far dif- 
 ferent from what I have read of such work in China and Africa. 
 I attempt to do very little of religious speaking to my patients as 
 they come to me for treatment. To Greeks and Armenians, 
 nominal Christians, the few words that could be spoken thus 
 would be assented to as a matter of course. Christian senti- 
 ments and religious phrases are at their tongues' ends ; but they 
 need to have patient instruction and to see holy living. To 
 Mohammedans direct words in regard to Christ would quickly 
 lead to complications with the government authorities. I find 
 my chief sphere of evangelistic usefulness independent of my 
 medical work, teaching in Sabbath- schools, occasional preaching, 
 superintending a young men's prayer-meeting, and especially in 
 the out-stations and villages in attracting crowds to the preacher's 
 house and to the chapel. While directly engaged in my medical 
 work I do not attempt to do much religious work. Often in 
 visiting the sick there is opportunity to enter into conversation, 
 oftener there is not. In my Dispensary likewise, which I have 
 just been enabled to open, I do not have any daily religious exer- 
 cises. When patients stay in my guest-rooms I have prayers 
 with them every day, provide them with Bibles and other reading 
 matter, have Bible pictures on the walls, and do all that I can to 
 bring the truth to them. This is, I believe, the method of highest 
 usefulness in medical work, namely, the hospital. It is for this 
 that I long, not merely with a scientific longing but with a spirit- 
 ual longing. 
 
 "The difficulties that beset the work are very great. The chief 
 of these is the money difficulty. I do not mean the funds to sup- 
 port the work ; my practice supplies that and more. I mean the 
 necessity of asking money from the patients. This necessity is 
 based on three grounds : First, funds must of course be raised to 
 pay my expenses ; second, justice must be done to other physi- 
 cians who live by their practice ; third, the people must not be 
 pauperized. The first of these is self-evident. In regard to the 
 native physicians here a word should be said. The state of things 
 is very different from what it was thirty years ago when there were 
 so few educated physicians in the land. Now there are many 
 who have been educated in Constantinople, Athens, or America. 
 My relations with many of these are of the pleasantest, and I fre- 
 quently consult with them. To do a professedly free practice 
 
would be a serious injury to them, for even well-to-do patients 
 would at once take advantage of it. It is a proverbial saying in 
 this country that ' if shrouds were free, every one would die to- 
 day.' In the third place, to ask for money is a necessity for the 
 people themselves. I am not inclined to look on the dark side 
 of people's characters, but I believe that if I should leave my fees 
 to be paid out of gratitude, I would not receive ten paras in the 
 year. The sense of gratitude among this people is not strong 
 enough for that. I demand my fees as a right, and where I 
 think people can pay I refuse t6 treat them without the money 
 and often send them away. Well-to-do people will lie and resort 
 to every artifice to make me believe them poor. To encourage 
 such shameless begging would, I feel, be a wrong to the people 
 themselves. My principle is never to send any poor person away 
 untreated for lack of money. I do send people away untreated 
 who I believe have money but lack the willingness to give it. 
 That I sometimes make mistakes in this I do not doubt. But I 
 am far oftener mistaken in being deceived on the other side. It 
 often makes me groan in spirit to have to haggle over a few pias- 
 tres. I would be glad never to mention money at all. On the 
 other hand the fact that I carry on my practice on a business 
 basis as other physicians do gives me a standing as a layman 
 among them rather than as a clergyman, which, makes my Prot- 
 estantism less suspicious to some than it would otherwise be. 
 
 '• I would not have you think that I do a small amount of work 
 among the poor. Three fourths of the 1,300 visits that I made 
 last year were entirely free. 
 
 "The danger of secularization of the missionary himself is 
 great, but that is a temptation not confined to this branch of 
 missionary work. It is in my experience no greater than the 
 danger of what I may call ' professionalization ' for the clerical 
 missionary. Active religious work is the safeguard against such 
 secularization. Of the humane side of the work I have said 
 little. It is second to the evangelizing part, but only second. 
 Especially in cases where surgery is required is this most evident 
 and it is in this most especially that my work lies, for even the 
 best native physicians do little surgical work. I esteem it a 
 blessed privilege to relieve physical suffering, even if I have not 
 been able to impart spiritual instruction at the same time. In 
 the training of natives to become physicians I have done nothing, 
 and it is not needed. There are 2:ood medical colleges in Aintab 
 
19 
 
 and Beirut accessible to young men ; and they most of them find 
 means to go abroad beside. 
 
 " In conclusion I wish to say what appears to me to be the 
 special office of the medical missionary work in this land at this 
 time. It is not in its relation to the Armenians and Greeks, but 
 to the ruling race. It is to become established, to gain name and 
 position, to gain skill and experience, to win love and confidence 
 among the Turks, in order at the present time to assist in remov- 
 ing their prejudices against the name of Christ, and in order to 
 have the agency established and working which, in the near 
 future when they shall be free to hear and accept the gospel, 
 shall be a mighty power to draw them to Christ." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The testimony of Dr. Grace M. Kimball, of Van, Turkey, is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Christ's original command to the Apostles and to the Church 
 was to go and preach, teach, and heal the sick. Therefore, in 
 my conception, the missionary physician stands as a member of 
 this evangelical trinity — a trinity formerly united in one person, 
 but now in our day of specialization necessarily divided into 
 three branches of the divinely ordained work. He needs make 
 no apology or feel no reproach because his energies are chiefly 
 absorbed by the physical necessities of his constituency. I ven- 
 ture to affirm that the most injurious mistakes that have been 
 made in mission work have been made through an almost super- 
 stitious reverence for so-called spirituality : and a corresponding 
 blindness to the real everyday, practical needs and problems of 
 the native community. 
 
 " As a work of Christian humanity, medical missionary work 
 speaks loudly for itself. We all at home have had experience 
 of the indispensability of the skilful Christian physician. We 
 have only to imagine our lives passed where he was not, to real- 
 ize what he is to us and what he is to immense communities 
 utterly destitute of any medical aid save that of the missionary 
 doctor. The number of valuable lives every year spared to 
 families which otherwise would have been plunged into deepest 
 poverty and distress, the number of children saved from lives of 
 total helplessness through blindness, and the amount of excru- 
 ciating suffering spared, leaves nothing to be proved as to the 
 humanitarianism. 
 
20 
 
 " Its power in evangelistic work (so called because I consider 
 that the evangel is as clearly given in teaching and in medical 
 course as in any other) depends on the view we take of this work. 
 If we regard its results as adequately reported in each year's 
 tabular view, in the number of church members received or souls 
 saved, medical missions are a total failure. If we regard its 
 results as only to be shown by a broad view of the condition of 
 the people individually, as families, and socially — a view extend- 
 ing back over years and forward over years — if we look for deep, 
 far-reaching changes in the whole community, then we shall find, 
 I am sure, that the medical work has not had an inferior part in 
 bringing about these changes. The number of persons who defi- 
 nitely come out as evangelical Christians as the actual result of 
 the medical work of medical missionaries must be very small. 
 But the number of people who are brought into more sympathy 
 with that work and its official representatives ; the barriers that 
 are broken down, and beyond this the work that is done in elevat- 
 ing the conceptions of the people as to their duty to and care of 
 the ' temple of the Holy Ghost ' ; and the practical exemplifi- 
 cation of the Spirit of Christ : — these things do not go down in 
 tabular views ; nor can a single decade tell the whole story of 
 their influence. 
 
 " I believe too that the medical work is beneficent enough, per- 
 suasive enough, and Christlike enough to stand on its own merits, 
 and to be able to dispense with the often used concomitant of 
 tracts and dispensary preaching. I believe that there is a time 
 and place for everything ; and that among people of any degree 
 of intelligence and discernment this forcing of spiritual things 
 upon them when they are bent on physical help and often weary 
 and racked with pain can but be received in the vast majority of 
 cases either with the Oriental hypocrisy which regards it as the 
 price paid for benefit received or with a stolid indifference which 
 covers very pronounced but individual opinions. A few are 
 touched and genuinely so ; but would they not be as strongly 
 influenced without these ? We have no precedent or precept for 
 it in the Bible. The physician himself, conducting a work free 
 from the suspicions of proselytizing, will find and recognize 
 opportunities for teUing exhortations. 
 
 " I see much written in missionary literature that makes me 
 marvel. First, the wonderful number of patients which some — 
 many — missionary physicians are able to see and treat in a given 
 
time. I should greatly like to know if any responsible doctor at 
 home would pretend to see from 150 to 250 netv patients a day, 
 — a general practitioner obliged to cope with every known human 
 infirmity. Could he make a conscientious scientific examination 
 of the case and its history, arrive at a diagnosis, decide on the 
 treatment judiciously, instruct the patient as to hygienic and 
 other precautions — all in from three to ten minutes, and keep it 
 up ten to twelve hours in the day ? If it cannot be done, is not 
 the missionary doctor in danger of playing the well-meaning but 
 actual charlatan? Again, is the practice, of giving advice and 
 medicine free to all, wise in its effects on the people or just to the 
 constituents at home ? Here again : a medical missionary goes 
 on an itinerating trip, visiting a large number of villages, staying a 
 day or two in each, seeing all the multitude who come, free, giving 
 each a dose of medicine, preaching the gospel, and passing on. 
 This makes a very teUing letter to the missionary magazine, yields 
 a great and fascinating excitement to the missionary. There is 
 an intoxication about seeing crowds around one, pleading for 
 help, kissing your hand, groveling at your feet, blessing you 
 with tears in their eyes. The people for the moment are enthu- 
 siastic and grateful, believing that they have received great good 
 at the hands of the missionary. But will there not be a revulsion ? 
 Patients with the colic or summer complaint or some trivial or 
 acute affection may have been cured. But upon the vast major- 
 ity little or no good will have been wrought physically ; and this 
 physical insutficiency will effectually counteract any spiritual im- 
 pressions which may have been received. And yet the price paid 
 for this has been a lavish expenditure of physical strength on the 
 part of the medical missionary, and of medicines and other med- 
 ical adjuvants, much of which can legitimately be considered 
 thrown away. 
 
 "All this in the way of a meditation, not as a judgment ! And 
 all arises from the deep conviction that we are fallen on days when 
 in every department of labor, sacred and secular, sound practical 
 principles and methods are demanded. The days of sentiment 
 are over, and facts are called for." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Dr. D. M. B. Thom, of Mardin, Turkey, thus writes : — 
 " The work of the missionary physician should be considered 
 under three heads : — 
 
22 
 
 " First, his relation to his missionary associates ; second, his 
 relation to the evangelistic work ; third, his relation to the people, 
 or the humane side. 
 
 " ( I ) His relations to his missionary associates. A missionary 
 who has no physician associated with him is under a constant 
 strain in regard to his family. Should they be taken ill or any- 
 thing befall them, ' What am I to do ? ' is the question constantly 
 occurring to him. And when sickness comes it is such a strain 
 upon the nervous system as to- almost incapacitate him from his 
 regular work. Missionaries without a physician within call are 
 not able to do the work they otherwise would, nor are they able 
 to hold out on the field so long. It remains a terrible burden 
 upon their hearts in times of illness, especially if the case termi- 
 nate unfavorably. The thought continually comes up, ' Had a 
 physician been here perhaps our loved one might have been 
 saved.' So that as far as his associates are concerned, the 
 physician is a necessity and worth all that is spent upon him. 
 
 " (2) His relation to the evangelistic work. It is a question in 
 my mind if so much is accomplished on this Une as some glowing 
 descriptions from other countries and fields would lead us to 
 believe. True, multitudes are seen by the physician that could 
 never be seen by the regular missionary, and seeds are sown in 
 places where none but the physician can go ; and his life, methods 
 and conversation before the people ought to count for something, 
 for our lives ought to be 'an epistle to be read of all men.' If 
 one's work is in the hospital and he has it worked up to a fine 
 thing, his opportunities for reaching those under his care are of 
 the best ; for when a patient is under your daily care he will accept 
 anything at your hand, whereas if he were only an outdoor patient, 
 he may listen to you and he may not. I have repeatedly been 
 told ' Enough of that ; tend to our bodies now.' The evangel- 
 istic work is helped indirectly by the physicians relations with the 
 local government. His brother missionaries often have a surer 
 footing and a stronger hold on the people through the physician's 
 relations to ' the powers that be.' The doctor is a privileged 
 person with them and for his sake they will bear a great deal and 
 do a great deal that they would not but for him. Nor does the 
 doctor need to cringe to them, or serve them for nothing. He is 
 thought the more of when he charges a good fee for his services. 
 I speak from personal experience. My relations here with those 
 in authority have always been of the very best. Wherever it has 
 
23 
 
 been my fortune to come in contact with the government author- 
 ities, I have never received anything but the most poHte attention. 
 So that on the evangeUstic side, taking all these items into con- 
 sideration, the missionary physician is a valuable auxiliary. 
 
 " (3) His relation to the people, or the humane side. There is 
 no language sufificiently strong to express the good done by the 
 missionary physician in this line. It is not, as a general rule, the 
 habit of a physician to speak of his own branch of the work, 
 but as the questions have been put to me I must tell things as 
 they are or the half will not be known. Almost everywhere where 
 the missionary physician is found there are no doctors who com- 
 pare with him in knowledge or skill, in surgery especially, so that 
 he comes as a Godsend to the people even if religion is left out 
 entirely ; and if he comes with both, the blessing cannot be esti- 
 mated. You might think from the foregoing that all the natives 
 flock to the missionary physicians. By no means. Do all our 
 enlightened American people pass by quacks and non-licensed 
 doctors? We must not expect too much of these people. But 
 the missionary physician has all he can or cares to do, even when 
 he charges a fee or takes pay for the medicine. We also have 
 other communities to contend with, Catholics, etc., who do more 
 gratuitous work than we are allowed to or than we think is wise 
 to do. And but few Catholics will go to a Protestant physician if 
 one of his own faith is found in the community, even if he be a 
 much less able man. The missionary physician's work from a 
 humanitarian standpoint cannot be gainsaid. 
 
 " As to the training of native medical assistants : it is desirable 
 if they would be contented with the training they can secure in 
 this country. But when they become ambitious and must finish 
 their course abroad I have my doubts as to its advisability ; for 
 example, I have trained four ; three of them are now in America. 
 One has been practising for over ten years in Chicago. The sec- 
 ond, after graduating with special honors and spending a term in 
 St. Luke's hospital, began practice in the same city, and has 
 since married an American girl and settled down for Hfe. The 
 third, not yet settled, talks of returning for the good of his 
 people ; the fourth remains at home only for lack of funds to 
 take him elsewhere. I do not think it pays to raise up medical 
 students in this land to swell the ranks of the profession in 
 America. According to my experience the training of native 
 medical men does not pay for the time expended upon them. 
 
24 
 
 " As to incidents illustrating the value of this arm of the serv- 
 ice : they are innumerable. As mentioned before, the physi- 
 cian is a privileged person among the government ofificials. An 
 incident in point : our governor, who is now here for the second 
 time after an absence of a year and a half, was taken ill on his 
 arrival the first time. I was absent then. The city doctor, army 
 doctor, and a doctor of the Dominican missionaries were called in. 
 Finding him in a critical condition, they at once sent for the city 
 doctor from Diarbekir ; so that- on my arrival four days later he 
 was being seen twice a day by four doctors ! They had given 
 their prognosis that he could not live to exceed four days ; already 
 two or more of the four were gone when I reached home. I was 
 at once sent for. Seeing the patient in company with the four, 
 I made a critical examination of the case, and gave it as my 
 opinion that with good care he would pull through. To make 
 a long story short, I was retained for the case and my patient 
 recovered, and is a well man to-day. From that time to this he 
 has been a warm and stanch friend of ours ; has helped us 
 through a number of tight places, where if he had not been a 
 warm friend he could have made it hard for us." 
 
 FROM CHINA. 
 X. 
 
 Dr. H. T. Whitney, of the Foochow Mission, presents the 
 following historic statement : — 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONS IN CHINA. 
 
 "I. The place of the medical missionary in mission work? 
 
 " Answer. In connection with well-established, with pioneer, 
 with evangelistic, and with educational work, and ought not to 
 be divorced from either. 
 
 "II. The value of medical missions? 
 
 *' I. The humane value: It saves life and mitigates suffering; 
 it also prevents, relieves, and cures diseases and injurious habits. 
 This point might be drawn out indefinitely, but it will be sufficient 
 to merely note the mountain-peaks and hilltops as we pass down 
 the century. 
 
 " (i) It is well to note that the medical profession bestowed 
 upon China its first great discovery in this century, namely, the 
 art of vaccination to prevent smallpox — the greatest disease 
 scourge of China next to Asiatic cholera. 
 
25 
 
 " Edward Jenner, an Englishman, discovered vaccination in 
 1797 and made it known in 1798; and in the short period of 
 seven years after (1S05) Dr. Alexander Pearson, surgeon to the 
 East India Company, introduced it into China. The same year 
 he wrote a treatise on The Theory and Art of Vaccination, which 
 was translated into Chinese by Sir George Staunton and pub- 
 lished in Canton. He labored with untiring zeal for twenty-seven 
 years, when it became thoroughly established in the Kwangtung 
 province. Dr. Pearson's principal assistant, Mr. Yao, became the 
 leading Chinese disseminator of vaccination in China and at one 
 time he went by invitation, free of expense, to Peking to intro- 
 duce it there. Twelve years after Dr. Pearson's first treatise was 
 pubhshed Mr. Yao prepared one of one hundred pages to which 
 were appended three odes in praise of vaccination : one by a 
 governor-general. In thirty years Mr. Yao alone vaccinated 
 over a million patients. 
 
 " By the combined efforts of Dr. Pearson and his assistants the 
 art was extended to all the leading provinces of the empire. 
 The blessing to China of this one discovery it would be difficult 
 to overestimate ; and the name of Dr. Alexander Pearson will go 
 down in history as the first great benefactor of China of this 
 nineteenth century. Also of hwi should it be said rather than of 
 any one else that he ' opened China to the gospel at the point of 
 the lancet.' 
 
 " (2) To Dr. T. R. Colledge, another physician to the East 
 India Company, belongs the merit of establishing, first at private 
 expense and later helped by voluntary contributions, the first 
 institution in China for the relief of indigent natives — from 1827 
 to 1832. This work made a marked impression upon the Chi- 
 nese. ' The institution became the topic of conversation through- 
 out the provinces, and praises and gratitude were heaped upon 
 him by the beneficiaries and their friends.' 
 
 " He urged upon the various missionary societies the desirable- 
 ness of employing medical missionaries as pioneers in their 
 Christian work, and several papers which he wrote for this pur- 
 pose had considerable influence in directing attention to the 
 subject. With Dr. Colledge also originated the idea of the 
 Medical Missionary Society of China, and he served as its Presi- 
 dent for forty years. 
 
 " {3) While the humane labors of these physicians were not 
 performed in the capacity of medical missionaries, yet it was of 
 
26 
 
 the same nature and equally as valuable, and beautifully illustrates 
 the humane aspect of medical missionary work. 
 
 " We now come to the first medical missionary work proper 
 done under a missionary board. The name of Dr. Peter Parker 
 as the first medical missionary to China is well known in both 
 eastern and western hemispheres and in three continents. 
 
 "Beginning his work under the American Board in 1835 in 
 Canton, he soon started lines of influence that resulted in phys- 
 ical blessing to at least 53,000 patients by his own hands, and it 
 is probably safe to say millions more by the hands of others. For 
 it was through his influence, in connection with Drs. Colledge and 
 Bridgman, that the Medical Missionary Society of China was 
 organized (February 21, 1838), which has already resulted in 
 the treatment of more than a million patients. And as the treat- 
 ment of one patient often means a blessing to one or two others 
 and sometimes to a whole family, it is more than probable that 
 the million patients treated does not represent more than half of 
 those who have been blessed. But in addition to this Dr. Parker 
 was the means of bringing into existence the Edinburgh Medical 
 Missionary Society (in 1841), whose influence in Great Britain, 
 India, China, Japan, Turkey, Persia, Africa, etc., has ever been 
 widening till now no adequate estimate can be made either of the 
 number treated or the extent of its blessing. 
 
 " (4) Dr. William Lockhart, of the London Mission, from 1839 
 to 1864 also shed a wide influence for good all up and down the 
 China coast from Macao to Peking. Tens of thousands were 
 blessed by his efforts, and he opened the way for other medical 
 missionaries and ministers to prosecute their work with greater 
 facility and success ; and his influence at home these many years 
 has been an important factor in the successful extension of the 
 noble influences of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. 
 
 " (5) Dr. Benjamin Hobson, of the London Mission, who 
 arrived in Macao the same year (1839) as Dr. Lockhart, did a 
 similarly valuable work in Macao, Canton, Hong Kong, and 
 Shanghai. 
 
 " He was the first to begin the preparation of Western medical 
 works in Chinese, by which he has exerted an enlightening 
 influence of wide extent both in China and Japan. 
 
 " His works on Surgery, Practice of Medicine, Midwifery, and 
 Natural Philosophy are said by one to be of ' incalculable benefit 
 to the Chinese and worth the labor of a lifetime.' 
 
27 
 
 " (6) The humane value alone of Dr. J. G. Kerr's work in 
 Canton, from 1854 to the present, in connection with the Presby- 
 terian Mission, has nowhere ever been equaled, with the possible 
 exception of Dr. Parker's indirect influence in helping to start the 
 Medical Missionary Society of Canton and the Edinburgh Med- 
 ical Missionary Society. 
 
 " Dr. Kerr's work covers a period of thirty-eight years. 
 
 " By himself and under his supervision some 700,000 patients 
 have been treated, and about 38,000 operations performed. 
 Among these operations some 1,300 were for calculi, the value 
 of which needs only to be known in order to be appreciated. 
 
 " But in addition to this nearly all the textbooks, except the 
 Anatomy, that have been used in teaching medical students were 
 prepared by his unceasing energy and perseverance. 
 
 " (7) The names of Drs. McGowan, Gauld, Dudgeon, and 
 Osgood also stand out in bold relief among the order of medical 
 missionaries in China, and their humane influence alone can 
 never be properly estimated ; but they will be remembered by 
 their beneficiaries while life lasts, and the effects of their work 
 with those who have labored before them will continue on into 
 the next century. 
 
 " Dangers (under Humane Value) : — 
 
 " (i) That the press of secular duties will cause the neglect of 
 the religious part of the work; (2) that the exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for surgical work may create an ambition to develop a 
 professional reputation at the expense of the society supporting 
 him ; (3) that the natives may come to regard the medical work 
 as a vital part of Christianity. 
 
 " 2. Educational Value : The earliest Chinese medical works 
 were wTitten more than 4,000 years ago, and the latest date back 
 at least 150 years ago. This musty literature contains no accurate 
 theory or science of medicine, and hence is of no practical value 
 to the medical student. 
 
 " Through empiricism, however, some have learned the symp- 
 toms and cause of certain diseases and the value of certain medi- 
 cines for their treatment, but the theory of disease is so erroneous 
 and the treatment of diseases so involved in superstition that 
 grave sicknesses are usually aggravated by the native physician. 
 
 " Surgery, moreover, is not yet in its infancy. 
 
 "The need therefore of medical textbooks, medical instruc- 
 tion, and medical literature is only too apparent. 
 
28 
 
 " A good beginning has already been made in the preparation 
 of medical textbooks. This work, undertaken first by Dr. 
 Hobson, has been ably and somewhat extensively supplemented 
 by Dr. Kerr. 
 
 " Drs. Dudgeon, Osgood, Dowthwaite, Porter, Hunter, and a 
 few others have also made valuable contributions. 
 
 "There have already been prepared in Chinese, works on 
 anatomy, physiology, chemistry, materia medica, pharmacy, 
 theory and practice, surgery, hygiene, and some special works 
 such as on the eye, skin, syphilis, bandaging, and diseases of 
 women, and a medical nomenclature to correspond. But works 
 on obstetrics, diagnosis, histology, medical electricity, operative 
 surgery, and medical microscopy ought to be prepared soon ; and 
 an Illustrated Monthly Medical Journal is greatly needed for -the 
 benefit, first of those who have already been trained in Western 
 medicine, and also for the many native doctors who would be 
 greatly benefited by it. Various other brochures and larger 
 works will also soon be in demand, such as History of Medicine, 
 Place of Medicine among the Professions, Insanity, Dentistry, 
 Dissecting, Nursing, Mental Physiology, Lady Physicians, etc. ; 
 and all such work will of necessity devolve upon the medical 
 missionary. 
 
 " The training of medical students began of necessity with the 
 beginning of medical work in China, and several hundred have 
 already received sufficient medical training to make them of 
 service in connection with hospital and dispensary work, and 
 many have already gone out to do good work among their people. 
 
 " As it is the rule with medical missionaries to train only Chris- 
 tians, the majority of those who have gop.e out have been of this 
 character ; and some of them have exerted a marked Christian 
 influence, while the rest perhaps have averaged as well as a like 
 company of Christian physicians in a Christian land. 
 
 " The more distinctive Christian character of trained medical 
 students has been more apparent in later years owing to the 
 spread of Christianity, which affords better material to select 
 students from. 
 
 " The greatest need of China, next to Christianity, is 300,000 
 conscientious native Christian physicians to meet the present 
 demands for relieving the untold and incomputable sufferings of 
 the people. If the 1 75 or more dispensaries and hospitals in 
 China should annually turn out 100 trained men and women, it 
 
29 
 
 would be a large average ; but even at this rate how long would 
 it be before China could thus have one physician to each i,ooo 
 inhabitants? The condition of things thus shown clearly demon- 
 strates that the educational and literary work for medical mission- 
 aries is only equaled by the religious work confronting the clerical 
 missionaries. 
 
 " 3. Religious value. This cannot be measured by merely 
 counting the number of Christians medical work has produced, 
 though these can be counted by hundreds ; and if the proportion 
 has been at all constant throughout China, they can be counted 
 by thousands. Nearly all of the purely humane work, if done 
 in a Christian land, would be regarded as benevolent or philan- 
 thropic work. Being done in the way it is and in connection 
 with Christian missions, it is really under the circumstances 
 indirect religious work. 
 
 " But in addition to what has already been enumerated, medi- 
 cal missionary work prepares the way for extending the gospel. 
 It has kept and is keeping open many chapels that would other- 
 wise have to be closed. It has brought hundreds of thousands 
 within the reach of the gospel that otherwise, in all probability, 
 would never have heard it. It helps thousands to live a better 
 life though they may not openly profess Christ. 
 
 " Medical missionary work in certain places has been consid- 
 ered by some more successful than direct clerical work. By 
 many it is put upon the same plane as clerical work, and by the 
 vast majority of missionaries in China it is regarded as only 
 second to the direct work of preaching the gospel. 
 
 " 4. The opportunity and need of medical missionary work. 
 These extend throughout the empire — from Manchuria on the 
 north to the island of Hainan on the south, and from the island 
 of Formosa on the east to Thibet on the west. Or, if one pre- 
 fers, from Peking to Canton, and from Shanghai to Lan-Chao 
 (Kan Sun) province — see your cloth map of China. 
 
 " 5. Incidents of the value of medical missions. 
 
 " {a) Individual missions. 
 
 " (i) The medical missionary work at Swatow (English Presby- 
 terian) does the largest hospital practice in China, and has, with- 
 out doubt, produced the greatest number of converts in the same 
 length of time. The Canton Hospital (American Presbyterian) 
 comes next. 
 
 " (2) After these two it would be difificult to determine which 
 
30 
 
 have been the more successful, but among the first should be 
 named our own Foochow work (equaling about one seventh of 
 the Foochow membership), and the Shao-wu work (equaling 
 about one fifth of the Shao-wu membership) ; also, the London 
 Mission work at Hankow, Tientsin, and Peking ; the United Pres- 
 byterian Church of Scotland work at New-Chwang, Manchuria ; 
 the China Inland work at Che-Foo ; the Baptist Missionary Union 
 work at Ningpo ; the English Presbyterian work at Amoy ; the 
 Canadian Presbyterian work at Tamsui, Formosa ; and the work 
 of our Dr. Porter at Pang-chuang and elsewhere. 
 
 " (3) There are a number of more recent medical works that I 
 have not sufficient knowledge of to give their relative success, 
 but quite a number report two, three, four, five, and ten conver- 
 sions in a single year ; and some of them include a number of 
 inquirers besides. So that it is safe to say that the majority of 
 the hospitals in China are blessed with more or less conversions 
 every year in addition to all their other worth. 
 
 " (^) Particular instances. 
 
 " During 1883 in the Swatow Hospital over 140 gave in their 
 names, men and women, as candidates for church fellowship. 
 
 "In 1878 a leper at the Swatow Hospital became interested in 
 the truth, and four years after it was found that he had influenced 
 about thirty of his village friends to give up their idols and wor- 
 ship God. From these five were selected and received to the 
 church at the first visit of the missionaries. 
 
 " At the Amoy Hospital an interesting case is reported of a 
 man who, seventeen years before, came for treatment. On his 
 return home he reported to his friends the kind treatment he had 
 received and the gospel of God's love which he had heard. In 
 consequence of this a few believed, and as the number increased 
 persecution arose and they had to leave the village. They 
 begged for a teacher and one was sent who gathered a congrega- 
 tion of about 100. 
 
 " As many came from a distance a new community had to be 
 formed farther inland. The work went on till seven such congre- 
 gations were gathered, numbering from thirty to upwards of 100, 
 all the outcome of the truth sown in one patient's heart while in 
 the hospital. This is probably the most remarkable instance that 
 has ever occurred in China. 
 
 " The case of Dr. Chin at Yang-chin-ken in the Shao-wu field is 
 familiar to you through our Missionary Herald. 
 
31 
 
 " An interesting case is reported from the London Mission 
 Hospital at Hankow. A farmer brought to the hospital his two 
 daughters, aged thirteen and sixteen years, both totally blind from 
 double cataract. They were operated upon and returned home 
 with sight restored. While in the hospital they received daily 
 Christian instruction, and at length desired to confess Christ. 
 After a few weeks' probation and giving evidence of a change of 
 heart they were baptized. Three months after they returned with 
 several of their sick neighbors and their mother, who had been 
 blind over twenty years and was now forty years old. She said 
 she did not expect to be healed of her blindness, but she came 
 to receive Christian instruction. Her eyes were operated upon 
 and her sight restored. While in the hospital both she and her 
 husband were brought to Christ. They were baptized the Sunday 
 before they left, and so all returned home a happy Christian 
 family, father, mother, and two daughters. 
 
 " Quite a number of similarly interesting instances have 
 occurred in connection with medical work in China. 
 
 " (c) Personal testimony. 
 
 '• The Foochow medical work has exerted a very wide influence 
 for good and has brought many to Christ, not only in our own 
 mission, but we have had testimony from several members of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Mission and Church Mission of converts 
 in their fields who first learned about the truth in our hospital. 
 
 " Dr. Lockhart's testimony fifty-five years ago was : ' I say it 
 with confidence, that medical missions in China have been success- 
 ful in winning an entrance for the gospel to the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the people, which no other agency could have so well 
 effected.' About the same time Dr. Wilson, Inspector of Naval 
 Hospitals, in his Medical Notes on China says : ' Among the most 
 promising means now employed for reforming or rather revolu- 
 tionizing the moral, intellectual, and social condition of the Chi- 
 nese, we would rank the medical missions. They have a more 
 potent means than those who address themselves to the under- 
 standing to touch the heart and undermine their antiquated 
 structures, and rear in their stead institutions of light and 
 liberty ; substituting for the worship of idols adoration of the 
 true God.' 
 
 " Rev. Griffith John, a veteran of the London Mission, Han- 
 kow, says : ' Our hospital at Hankow is a thoroughly Christian 
 institution. I never enter the wards without feehng that it is a 
 
32 
 
 great spiritual power, destined to accomplish a mighty work for 
 God in the centre of China.' 
 
 " Mr. John Lowe, late Secretary of the Edinburgh Medical 
 Missionary Society, in his work on Medical Missions well says : 
 ' A good-sized volume might be filled with interesting records of 
 the triumphs of medical missionary work in China, India, Japan, 
 Siam, Burma, Madagascar, Africa, Persia, Central Turkey, Syria, 
 and in many parts of the corrtinents of America and Europe.' " 
 
 XI. 
 
 Dr. H. N. Kinnear, of the Foochow Mission, presents the follow- 
 ing views : — 
 
 " I take it that the medical missionaries of the American Board 
 of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in most cases at least, 
 have a twofold work, that of being physicians to the missionaries 
 where they are stationed and that of doing direct medical mis- 
 sionary work among the natives. The relative amount of care 
 and time required by these two branches of work must vary in 
 each place, depending upon the number of missionaries, the 
 healthfulness of the place, the degree of development of the medi- 
 cal missionary work, and several less important circumstances. 
 In general I incline to think that the importance of the first part 
 of the work is rather underestimated as a rule. In the treaty ports 
 where there are other foreign physicians it is easy for the mis- 
 sionaries to obtain medical advice, but in many places, as in 
 Foochow, for instance, the foreign physician charges for treating 
 families by the year, preferably, the charge here being $ioo a 
 family and the same for each single person ; and if not hired by 
 the year, his fee for each call is ^5. At this rate it would have 
 cost the mission here $600 or ^700 for medical attendance during 
 this year, if there were no mission physician here. I need 
 scarcely ask you to look over the history of those mission stations 
 that have not been supplied with physicians. It may be pre- 
 sumed that they have been manned with consecrated men who 
 would stay at their post as long as it seemed possible, and yet 
 how much time has been lost in many of them by trips to the 
 ports or other places where medical advice could be obtained ! 
 It would be hard for a person in America to imagine all of the 
 nerve-strain that must be endured by some devoted people who 
 have gone to the interior of China without being accompanied by 
 physicians. The knowledge that they are more exposed to con- 
 
33 
 
 tagion and infection than at home ; that if wife or child is taken 
 ill, medical help cannot be obtained without a long journey, when 
 it may be too late to save life ; that if a member of the family 
 were to die, there would always remain the feeling that it might 
 have been different if medical aid could have been summoned, 
 and that perhaps all was not done that might have been done ; — 
 all of these reflections must sometimes be brought home to the 
 thoughtful man, and must bring a kind of care, notwithstanding 
 the most perfect faith in God, that detracts something from the 
 elasticity of a person's mind. 
 
 " Where there are several stations and only one man to do the 
 medical work, he is almost certain to be demanded, first in one 
 place, then in another, for weeks at a time, perhaps, so that 
 anything like doing systematic missionary work must become 
 impossible. 
 
 "This phase of our work is not by any means without its 
 cares. Each one of the workers of the mission becomes to us as 
 a brother or sister, so that we are deeply interested in their physi- 
 cal welfare for their own sakes. Then we can hardly fail to 
 remember how many loved ones at home are looking to us to 
 watch over them, and we have the best of opportunities to know 
 ho\v useful they are, and how hard it would be to find another to 
 fill the place of any one of them, so that their sicknesses bring a 
 heavier burden of care than the ordinary patients of a physician 
 at home. 
 
 " It is in view of this part of my own work that I have felt war- 
 ranted in asking the mission to estimate for help to my work from 
 the Board. The money that is given by the Chinese officials and 
 the foreign community is given for the work for the Chinese and 
 should be used for that only; even then it is insufficient to 
 meet all our needs, and is certainly insufficient to buy the many 
 finer preparations and more expensive medicines which are 
 needed in doing work for the foreigners, while many appliances 
 needed to promote the comfort of a foreign patient during an 
 acute illness are seldom or never needed in the hospital. To be 
 sure, many such drugs and appliances may not be used every 
 year ; but each missionary physician should be allowed a reason- 
 able amount each year to keep a stock of the medicine and 
 nursing appliances that may be needed in a//y emergency by any 
 of th€ missionaries under his charge. 
 
 ^4n regard to the medical missionary work, I presume that the 
 
. 34 
 
 testimony of all medical missionaries will be the same. It is not 
 indispensable in opening up new work, but, as is generally ad- 
 mitted, it is the most useful help. I suspect that a careful exam- 
 ination would prove that most cases of trouble with the Chinese 
 in newly opened stations have occurred where preaching and 
 teaching were begun abruptly, without any medical work, and 
 that the most permanent work and the places where there has 
 been most perfect understanding with the Chinese are places 
 which were opened by medical work. There are physicians in 
 China, probably some good ones, aside from the medical mis- 
 sionaries ; but the number of those having really good sense in 
 treating disease is probably small, and none of them offers free 
 treatment to even the most abjectly poor. So that while the 
 wealthier people do call native doctors, and will so continue to do 
 to some extent, the great class of poorer people, whose conditions 
 of life render them more liable to disease, and who would or 
 could not go to native doctors, are glad to put themselves under 
 our care. In regard to the opportunities offered it is hard for 
 me to make temperate statements. I sometimes compare my 
 work to the evening meetings held at the suburb church near 
 here. The church is open nearly every evening, the singing calls 
 a crowd, and the gospel is preached with good results, a few 
 coming more or less regularly until they are convinced of the 
 truth and accept it, while a large amount of seed is sown, that 
 must have an influence in removing prejudice, if it never bears 
 more apparent fruit. In the hospital we have much the same 
 service every morning. We call it morning prayers, but it is as 
 much a gospel preaching service as most of the evening meetings. 
 It comes at a time of day when the hearers are not too tired to 
 listen attentively and quietly ; we are very seldom disturbed by 
 having any one leave the room during the time as is so common 
 at the church. At the church many of the people come in led 
 by curiosity, and feel under no obligations to listen to what is 
 said, or even to be respectful to the speaker. At the hospital all 
 is reversed. All of the usual attendants come to receive a favor 
 from the physician, and do not care to lessen their chances of 
 receiving his best care by incurring his displeasure. The larger 
 number of the attendants are in-patients, who do not hear once 
 and then go away, but hear the truth every morning, not a dis- 
 connected text, but the consecutive exposition of chapters of the 
 Gospels, with direct personal appeals from all of those from whom 
 
35 
 
 they are receiving care. They soon learn that a rehgion of which 
 such work is the fruits cannot be altogether bad ; that a religion 
 that the foreign physician believes and that prompts him to work 
 among them under such disagreeable conditions, and do for them 
 things that their relatives are seldom willing to do, must have 
 some reason in it. In short, they hear the gospel more regu- 
 larly, and in a state of mind produced by leisure, by freshness, 
 and by the spirit of the place, better calculated to produce deep 
 and lasting impressions than is usually the case at the church. 
 As to the results of the work I will refer you to my reports : the 
 one for the year ending March 31, being nearly ready to bind, 
 contains some items of interest to you. The patients come from 
 such widely separated fields that it is impossible to gain any 
 adequate idea of the total result of a year's work. If it could be 
 all gathered into one church, I am sure it would be encouraging. 
 Mr. Hartwell recently sent two evangelists to a town seldom 
 visited by missionaries. A patient from the hospital, who became 
 a member of the suburb church last February, is the first Chris- 
 tian there ; they found him regularly reading the Testament and 
 hymnbook I gave him, talking about the doctrine, and receiving 
 warm welcome and ready listeners in the villagers. 
 
 " Does the work pay from a humanitarian point of view? Yes. 
 How well? It can be estimated when the value of a pair of eyes 
 is determined, when we know what a father's right arm is worth 
 to the family depending upon it, when we know what may be the 
 result of saving a life. All of these things are done here every 
 year, and besides them hundreds of less notable things that 
 save suffering and useful members. 
 
 "These few points will assure you that I believe that the medi- 
 cal work is an important part of our work as missionaries ; that 
 under ordinary conditions it presents opportunities, to say the 
 least, as favorable for the presentation of truth as those presented 
 by any of the other methods of evangelization ; and that consider- 
 ing all things its results are as good, though not always as appar- 
 ent or as easily computed." 
 
 XII. 
 
 Dr. E. R. Wagner, of Northern China, thus expresses his 
 view : — 
 
 " First, A missionary, whether clerical or medical, must be 
 ready and willing to spend and be spent for the lower classes in 
 
36 
 
 society. I doubt if this fact is made prominent enough at home 
 and I fear that many young missionaries are grievously disap- 
 pointed, discouraged, and perhaps have a feeling of being wronged, 
 because they were not thoroughly posted in this line. It is true 
 that some missionaries do have to do with the highest classes, but 
 in China at least this is not, of very frequent occurrence. I know 
 of no better preparation for the foreign field than that offered in 
 such an institution as the International Medical Missionary Soci- 
 ety of New York. If a man does not like the work among the 
 poor of a big city at home, or cannot make a success of such 
 work, he is almost certain to make a failure on the mission field. 
 
 " Second, He is the best medical missionary who can perceive 
 and follow up with the gospel the openings made by his medical 
 skill. I fear there is much lost to the work by the failure of the 
 medical missionary to do this, either from want of inclination, or 
 ability. 
 
 " Third, If a medical missionary is unfortunate enough to find 
 out that he is not a success as an evangelistic worker, he should 
 not give up striving to develop in this hne. 
 
 " Fourth, It is of the first importance that his work as a doctor 
 should be first-class. Imagine a second or third rate missionary 
 doctor making a success at this time in Japan ! To be sure China 
 is not Japan, but it is changing year by year in its attitude toward 
 foreign medicine. 
 
 "Fifth, The training of native medical assistants is an impor- 
 tant educating factor. Just as the clerical missionary finds that 
 the native helper can reach the people much better than he can, 
 so the missionary physician finds that a well-trained medical assist- 
 ant can do much more than he can in disarming prejudice and 
 making the people realize that the foreigner is among them to do 
 good and not to deceive or harm them. If the foreigner at any 
 time should have to leave his work, anything done in the line of 
 supplanting native quackery with foreign medicine is a real gain 
 in the cause of humanity and aids in opening the country to for- 
 eign influences. 
 
 " Perils on the secular line are common to the clerical and 
 medical missionary. The astonishing indifference of the Chinese 
 to any form of religious instruction from foreign sources, and the 
 disgust which their cupidity and untrustworthiness excite in the 
 foreigner, strongly incline the latter to spend more of his time in a 
 line more congenial to his tastes than that of forcing an unwelcome 
 
37 
 
 truth on unwilling hearers. The medical missionary has besides 
 this the strong temptation to allow all of his time and energy to 
 be taken up with purely medical work." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Dr, H. D. Porter, of North China, sums up his views as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I. The medical work is the divinely appointed substitute for 
 miracles. 
 
 "There is a sense of course in which we may use the word 
 miracle with reference to all missionary work. The changes 
 which have come through the gospel in the course of its wide 
 proclamation are sometimes considered miraculous. As the ex- 
 ponent of the work of the Holy Spirit they are indeed marvelous. 
 But these changes are the natural and determined results of the 
 unfolding of God's grace to men. I do not consider it legitimate 
 to call them miraculous. On the other hand the medical appeal 
 is to the same pitiful need of men. It is so direct and immediate 
 that the dullest can appreciate and rejoice in it. The appeal is 
 personal and carries with it, as did the early miracles, its own 
 demonstration which neither the recipients of the aid nor their 
 friends desire to gainsay, if they are able to. 
 
 "(i) The medical work is a fitting substitute for miracle in 
 the range of its influence. * The multitudes ' are aroused by it. 
 In our own station during the ten years or twelve since medical 
 work has been carried on we have reached directly and personally 
 100,000 persons. The direct influence is beyond our ability to 
 esfimate. In China alone there have been reached annually now 
 for many years a multitude approaching half a million each year. 
 
 "The first recorded miracle of the Saviour, which was a work 
 of healing, was wrought upon the son of a nobleman. The first 
 raising of the dead was the ruler's daughter. ' And the fame 
 thereof went abroad into all the land.' The most immovable 
 class was thus affected as well as the ' multitude ' who always 
 received and heard gladly. The work of the ^nedical missionary 
 has had a like fame sudden and widespread. At Tientsin, within 
 a stone's throw from our own mission compound, three great hos- 
 pitals are carrying on their beneficent work. The first was estab- 
 hshed in 1880, for men, in the grounds of the London Mission, a 
 splendid building upon the busy thoroughfare bearing a constant 
 testimony to the messages of the gospel. The second is upon the 
 
38 
 
 other side of the same street a few hundred yards away, estab- 
 lished for women and children. The third is nearly opposite 
 the original one, with its noble front upon the same street. 
 Close beside these a fourth is in quiet operation, and adjoining 
 the third one mentioned there are now being erected a vast series 
 of buildings for the purpose^ of equipping the Chinese army and 
 navy with suitably educated and furnished medical men. This 
 remarkable series of benevolences has sprung from the partial 
 healing by missionary physicians, one a man and the other a 
 woman, of the wife of a nobleman. A Christian native physician 
 has been for many months the chief reliance of the imperial 
 court at Peking when serious and alarming disease has attacked 
 the members of the imperial family. 
 
 " (2) The medical work is the fitting substitute for miracle in 
 the self-conscious abihty of the physician to give the needed 
 relief. I once attended with another member of the profession 
 an old gentleman who had accumulated very large wealth and was 
 duly respected for his great business capacity and general ability. 
 No man in this generation has been more respected in that com- 
 munity than he. He had a hopeless disease. He had called in 
 no less than 100 native doctors. A single examination showed 
 the source of the trouble. Surgical relief could give a temporary 
 respite from pain and death. The confidence with which the 
 advice was given was marvelous to those whose dependence had 
 always been conjecture in place of clear and exact knowledge. 
 
 "(3) The medical work is the substitute for miracle in the 
 marvelous relief or cure which is effected through either surgical 
 or medical skill. Our native helpers, after seeing the many inter- 
 esting cases which come to the hospital go away with very great 
 improvement, say in a humorous way : ' The deaf hear, the lame 
 walk, the blind see.' They cannot say, ' The lepers are cleansed, 
 and the dead are raised.' But every other form of malady and 
 ill may be successfully reached. Nothing appeals more directly 
 to sense of wonder and grateful acknowledgment of ability than 
 the cure of the apparently hopelessly blind. We have a good 
 woman who acts as the very efificient matron of our hospital. It 
 is now some four years since she came some hundred miles or 
 more, a poor blind beggar led by a little son. She was in good 
 estate as an innkeeper until she became blind from cataract. 
 Hearing of the work and dragging herself painfully along till she 
 reached us, she sought for the help the fame of which had reached 
 
39 
 
 her. The eyes were duly operated on. One was gone too far for 
 help ; but the other was easily cured by the operation and care. 
 The marvelous result was enough to give an increasing fame to 
 the hospital work in the region she came from. The cases where 
 both eyes are thus enlightened and healed are very numerous now. 
 The splendid courage of the man who in absolute confidence 
 begotten of superior knowledge cuts off a man's leg to save his 
 life, and who returns the patient to his friends healed and strong, 
 makes a tremendous impression upon an ignorant and suspicious 
 people. When such serene confidence is repeated unceasingly 
 through a series of years and through a multitude of appalling 
 cases of disease the appeal is closely allied to that appeal which 
 the Saviour made in his marvelous works of touching and healing. 
 The Chinese are forward in admitting the skill and power of 
 Western medicine. They say as their first thought: 'This is the 
 touch of the hand of a spirit or fairy.' It was this which made 
 the work of Dr. Peter Parker so distinguished at Canton. It' was 
 this which left the memory of Dr. Hobson and Dr. Lockhart so 
 green in the thoughts of men at Shanghai and Ningpo half a 
 century ago. It is this which makes the name of Dr. Kerr so 
 revered at the south, and the name of Mackenzie as dear to the 
 Chinese as that of the still more famous Gordon. It is this which 
 has raised the rank of women workers to a level with that of their 
 brethren, in the wide repute of Dr. Howard King and Dr. Reif 
 Snyder. The Chinese are horrified at the simple thought of any 
 operation which opens the abdomen for the sake of physical 
 relief. But they are familiar now with many cases of both men 
 and women healed of deadly disease for whom there was no other 
 resource. 
 
 " The most interesting case I have had in my own practice was 
 that of a large tumor of the superior maxilla. The flesh of the 
 cheek was divided, the bone with the protuberant mass was 
 removed, the woman retured to her home with scarce a scar upon 
 her face, a living witness to the spiritlike power of the foreign 
 doctor. In Western lands these matters attract no attention 
 because of their commonness. But in heathen lands wherever 
 the skilful touch of the medical man goes, the mystery and the 
 marvel of it make an impression whose influence even we are 
 unable to measure. 
 
 " II. The medical work is a signal illustration of the beneficent 
 work of the gospel. The missionary physician fulfils in a very 
 
real sense the words of the prophet which the Saviour fulfilled : 
 ' Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.' Happily 
 the gospel message is not merely a message of words, it is a mes- 
 sage of deeds as well. The natives in China understand very 
 well that their own physicians never do anything but in a per- 
 functory way. Whatever is done is done for the meagre little sum 
 of money or the small gift that accompanies every prescription or 
 word of advice. They understand equally well that the benevo- 
 lent work which is done for them by the man from over the sea is 
 a matter of pure benevolence. ' Where did you ever see the like 
 of this ? ' ' What possible inducement can there be for his 
 doing this ? ' ' Can you find another one in all this land willing 
 to do such things for men?' 'Nothing seems to disgust him.' 
 * What the majority of men would never think of touching even 
 with a long bamboo rod this man touches and cleanses.' These 
 are some of the sentences which can be heard in every hospital 
 or dispensary. They are the humble tribute of the people assisted 
 to the good works of the gospel. The missionary physician comes 
 nearer touching the fountain of sympathy and influence than any 
 other. When one considers his opportunity and privilege, accu- 
 mulating as the years of experience go on, he may well be filled 
 with unceasing gratitude for the influence that is allotted to him in 
 and through his work. 
 
 "HI. The medical work has a direct power in evangelistic 
 work. The other day I was speaking with our helpers of the 
 terrible hostility in Central and South China to the gospel. Our 
 experience in Shantung has been strangely exempt from peril or 
 anxiety. There are bitter feelings expressed, no doubt ; but the 
 prevailing feeling toward us in a wide region is that of kindly 
 interest. Through these, now many, years people have been get- 
 ting accustomed to our presence and work. The gospel has been 
 illustrated, and the people everywhere speak well of us. In fact 
 they speak better of the foreigners than they do of the natives. 
 They have learned to have a manifest regard for the high tone of 
 moral fife, the utter absence of enmity and quarreling, which is 
 the special characteristic of the native life. This widespread 
 good name has come very largely through the infiltration of the 
 steadily pursued medical work. As to the evangelistic portion of 
 the medical work it is almost impossible to separate it from the 
 other work. That is, from the work of the preaching missionary. 
 The two are integral parts of a common whole and cannot be 
 
41 
 
 separated. Still it may be said that the medical man has the first 
 access to the people. It often happens that the medical man has 
 a less perfect knowledge of the native speech and so is not in the 
 nearest relation to the people who come for help. If this be the 
 case, he is restricted in his best effort in touching the deeper 
 thought of the people. Happily, here we have not felt such 
 restriction and the medical work has gone hand in hand with all 
 the evangelical work. I think this may be said of the field in 
 China generally. The hospital work at Swatow, at Han-Kow, at 
 Hang-Chow, at Tientsin, and I may say here in Shantung, has been 
 signahzed by its earnest effort in the Hne of teaching the gospel 
 message to those who have been in attendance. One need not go 
 into special cases beyond the very few. There was a man here two 
 years since, a rough, crude man with a wild and boisterous speech. 
 He was a runner at the Yamen in his region and full of all deceit 
 and iniquity. He was here many months. He was filled up with 
 the gospel. He learned to read in a short time although over 
 thirty years of age. He became a very enthusiastic believer. 
 I hope he remains so, although he has not been with us for some 
 time. There is a man here now who has been here but two 
 months. He could read a little. He spends all his time in read- 
 ing the Gospels. He has been received on probation. I believe 
 he is a true seeker after the Light of Life. The record of each 
 year's work is a record of similar cases. From our hospital court 
 more books are sold than anywhere else. They are sold to per- 
 sons who have reason to be interested and awakened by what 
 they read. We have faith to believe that a signal part of the 
 medical work is the implanting of a new intellectual and spiritual 
 life in the minds and hearts of the scores and hundreds who 
 visit us. And what we see is no doubt the continuous story of 
 the most of the centres of medical work in the East." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Dr. A. P. Peck, of North China, presents the following 
 statement : — 
 
 " We medical missionaries are placed in rather a delicate posi- 
 tion, as we of course would not wish to niagnify our office above 
 its true relation to the purely evangelistic department. Fortu- 
 nately I can escape the embarrassment somewhat for myself by 
 referring to some facts in connection with the mission during the 
 last decade, and to the expressed opinions of some of my colleagues 
 
42 
 
 as to the value of the medical work as an aid in reaching the masses. 
 My own knowledge of the medical history of the North China Mis- 
 sion begins with the year i8So, when an appeal written by the 
 Rev. Isaac Pierson and printed in the Herald was sufficient to 
 draw me from an established practice in America ; for four years 
 I was associated with him at the station of Pao-ting-fu, where his 
 faithful and patient work laid the' foundation for the flourishing 
 station we have there now. There I opened our first hospital, 
 being the pioneer in the work in this mission. 
 
 " My colleague, Dr. H. D. Porter, who is m.d. as well as d.d., had 
 been for some years on the field, but being the only man of medi- 
 cal training had been called a great deal from station to station to 
 attend cases of illness among the missionaries, and had never been 
 able to establish regular hospital work. For the sake of absolute 
 accuracy I will note the fact that Dr. Treat, son of Secretary 
 Treat, had been for a short time in connection with the mission, 
 but had returned to America before I came out, and I understand 
 had never settled down anywhere. So that I may fairly say that I 
 was the first unordained medical missionary to establish regular 
 hospital work in connection with the North China Mission ; and 
 from the fact that since then such a department has been eagerly 
 sought for every station of our mission except Tientsin, where it 
 is not wise to add another to the many hospitals already existing, I 
 read in this development a practical acknowledgment of the great 
 usefulness of this department of missionary effort. 
 
 " It may not be uninteresting to note that since I came out seven 
 unordained medical missionaries, of whom two were ladies, have 
 joined this mission ; while in addition since the opening of the 
 station of Pang-chuang Dr. Porter has carried on regular medical 
 work until my transfer in 1884 enabled him to devote himself 
 mainly to the (to him more congenial) evangelistic work. And 
 we should also give full credit to the large and valuable medical 
 work done by Rev. I. J. Atwood, m.d., now of Shansi, who was 
 for a time in this field ; also to Rev. H. P. Perkins and Mrs. Per- 
 kins, who are now in America but soon to return. 
 
 " Thus from small beginnings the medical work has grown to the 
 proportions indicated, absorbing the time of a number of mission- 
 aries and making a large item in the yearly appropriations required 
 for carrying on the work of this mission. The fact of the growth 
 is the evidence pointed to in proof of the value set on it by this 
 mission. And I may refrain from quoting from my clerical col- 
 
43 
 
 leagues any formal expressions of opinion as to the helpfulness of 
 the medical work. Proceeding to a consideration of 
 
 WHAT DOES IT DO : 
 
 " First, It blesses physically thousands of otherwise helpless 
 ones. In our own land only the poverty-stricken need such humane 
 provision. Those who have money can procure the best help that 
 science can give them. Here there is absolutely no other provi- 
 sion for the thousands who throng us. I have often felt grieved 
 that this philanthropic aspect of our work did not appeal more 
 strongly to the supporters of missions at home. Blessed sympathy 
 there so often expends its glad munificence in the form of build- 
 ing and endowing hospitals both by public and private charity 
 that it would seem in the light of the earthly life of our Lord this 
 might be considered for its own sweet sake a legitimate part of 
 Christian missions — for His sake and in His name ; and all the 
 more heartily, since — 
 
 " Second, It does this work at far less cost than such charitable 
 enterprises can be provided for at home. The entire cost of a 
 hospital like Williams Hospital, capable of accommodating loo 
 patients besides taking care of the very large dispensary clinics, 
 is less than is usually paid to endow a single bed in one of our 
 great hospitals at home. We do not have in our operating 
 rooms the finest appliances for modern antiseptic surgery, nor has 
 the attending staff the time and strength in the great press of 
 work to meet the exacting demands of it in its late wonderful 
 development. 
 
 " We furnish neither food, fuel, bedding, nor nursing to our 
 patients, all of which must go into the expense of a free hospital 
 at home. In the matter of drugs, too, it is my habit to use the 
 cruder forms, so that many of my patients are taking the same 
 sort of unpleasant decoctions that our respected grandparents 
 used to swallow, rather than the elegant but more expensive prod- 
 ucts of modern pharmaceutical chemistry. 
 
 "Third, The presence of a medical missionary gives the mem- 
 bers of the missionary force at each station constant and compe- 
 tent advice ; this is not a light matter either as regards the health 
 and comfort of the missionaries or the occasional avoiding of 
 expense to the Board. I think that during the past winter two of 
 the members of one station would have died had it not been for 
 very assiduous care given through a long and dangerous illness. 
 
44 
 
 " Fourth, The medical work brings to our doors thousands of 
 people every year who would not otherwise come near us. These 
 are not all sick people ; those who cannot serve themselves must 
 bring some one of their family to wait on them. In one instance 
 this last winter five came to wait on an old lady from whom I 
 removed a cancer. So that the number of patients reported in 
 hospital does not represent by a considerable fraction those who 
 are reached by the presentation of gospel truth. 
 
 " Fifth, They are kept during the period of their stay under far 
 more favorable influences than if reached in any other way. With 
 abundant leisure, with friends at hand ministering both to bodily 
 and spiritual necessities, their home affairs and the cares of daily 
 life removed from their consideration for a time, the reception 
 and growth of new ideas is greatly facilitated ; while a sort of 
 gratitude for benefits conferred often makes them anxious to please 
 us by paying some attention to the instruction given, when other- 
 wise they would be indifferent to it. 
 
 " Sixth, The above remarks are more pertinent to those who 
 remain as in-patients for a time in the hospital than to those who 
 only come to the daily clinics. Preaching to these transient 
 comers in the waiting-room is more like preaching to the crowds 
 at the fairs ; but it is worthy of remark in this connection that more 
 Christian books are sold in the waiting-room of the hospital here 
 than are sold by the force of native evangelists in their continu- 
 ous trips to the fairs, large and small, for the express purpose of 
 preaching and bookselling. 
 
 " Seventh, The reputation which is given to the mission station 
 in the great heathen community by which we are surrounded is 
 very much better on account of the charitable work here carried 
 on. Among a people so capable of appreciating such an institu- 
 tion as the Chinese, it carries great weight and tends largely to 
 allay the feelings of suspicion and irritation with which foreigners 
 are so generally regarded in China. 
 
 " Eighth, The medical work recommends not only the foreigner 
 personally but the religion which he preaches. A curious instance 
 of this comes to my mind as I write. A young man turned up 
 not many weeks ago in my office, having walked a distance of 
 about forty miles ; his errand seemed to be to inquire about our 
 religion. He had never been here before, and to my question as 
 to whether he had heard the preaching of our missionaries or 
 native helpers at the fairs he said he had not. He was not 
 
45 
 
 acquainted with any of our church members and said that so far 
 as he knew none of his neighbors or acquaintances had ever 
 been here for medicine. Upon my pressing him as to how then 
 he knew anything about us and our rehgion, he said he got it 
 from an oil-pedler who stopped in his rounds at his gate. As 
 there are no newspapers here, gossip is the usual means of carry- 
 ing news and the itinerant venders of all sorts, as used to be the 
 case with us, are important disseminators of intelligence. In the 
 course then of this accidental conversation the young man learned 
 enough about us here to pique his curiosity and impel him to 
 take the tramp and spend the money required to come here. 
 He dared not tell at home where he was going, and so had to 
 come away without any bedding, since to take it would have 
 attracted attention. But stealing away he stopped at a temple 
 where an uncle is the priest, told him where he was going and got 
 him to send back word to the family not to be alarmed at his 
 absence. Being curious to know all the hnks of the chain I 
 queried further as to the oil-pedler. Did we know him? No, 
 he had never been here. Well, then the natural question was how 
 did he know about us? The young man said that the pedler 
 learned what he knew from an innkeeper at a place about thirty 
 miles east of us where he was in the habit of putting up on his 
 rounds. Yes, but who is the innkeeper? Do we know him? 
 Oh, no, was the reply ; the innkeeper had never been over here. 
 Well, then, pursued the relentless examiner, what did the inn- 
 keeper know about us? The innkeeper said he had a friend 
 who had been troubled for a long time with a fistula, which the 
 innkeeper, being something of a doctor, had tried in vain to cure. 
 Finally the friend came to our hospital, stayed a few days, was 
 cured, and returning carried not only the story of the marvelous 
 cures performed here, but also something of the doctrine he had 
 heard. At the risk of wearisome prolixity I have traced the 
 windings of this little incident as they unfolded themselves to me. 
 What the outcome may be we cannot tell, but you will doubtless 
 agree with me that it casts an interesting sidelight on the social 
 conditions among this curious people and that it is much better 
 for us to be talked about in this way than in the style of the old 
 stories of digging out hearts and eyes and like cheerful rumors 
 which circulate in all parts of the empire and have provoked 
 many riots. 
 
 " Ninth, I hope that in reckoning the value of our medical 
 
46 
 
 work no one would wish to estimate it by calculating the number 
 of conversions among our patients. The problem is by no means 
 so simple. It is a time of patient seed-sowing (so to speak), 
 x^nd yet it is a fact that there are very many of our Christians 
 who were first brought to us through the hospital. I remember, 
 many years ago, when I was stationed at Pao-ting-fu, a little old man 
 who came to have a large tumor removed from his neck. He 
 had never seen a foreigner until he came into our courts, and had 
 only heard of us through the reports carried away by patients. 
 Yet before coming he sold all his httle property to get the means 
 to come with. To the remonstrance of friends and neighbors he 
 only replied that the tumor made his life a burden, and that he 
 was going to try this foreign doctor anyway ; saying in the 
 expressive idiom of his vernacular, 'If he was cured well, he 
 could earn some more money; and if he was cured dead, he 
 would not need it.' His simple faith would not take account of 
 the dangers of the operation, which I rather shrank from myself, 
 so I yielded to his insistence and was gratified that he did not die 
 on the operating-table. After a prolonged convalescence and 
 when he had eaten up the supplies he brought with him, he left 
 the hospital suddenly at daylight one morning while he was still 
 in a dangerous condition from an intercurrent attack of erysipelas, 
 only saying to the gatekeeper that he could not think of accept- 
 ing my offer of food until he should be better, as he was already 
 under great obligations to us for what we had done, and he did 
 not like to be a further burden on our charity. We had no 
 acquaintance in the region he came from and so I sent a bottle 
 of medicine by some one going in that general direction, hoping 
 that it might, after being passed from one to another, finally 
 reach him. We heard nothing from him, and I concluded that 
 he had probably died. Months afterward, however, one of our 
 colporters found him, as he said, 'very much alive' at a fair; he 
 had not only entirely recovered but was preaching the gospel ; 
 this was the more surprising as while in the hospital he seemed to 
 be even stupider than the average ; but after all he had really 
 taken in a little of the doctrine he heard, and moreover had 
 bought a little book called the ' Trimetrical Classic,' a most elemen- 
 tary statement of the outlines of Christianity in a jingle of three 
 characters to a line. He had paid for it and he had learned to read 
 it, and he rolled it up in his bedding and carried it off with him. 
 When he got well he began going again to the little local fairs, as 
 
47 
 
 all well-regulated Chinamen do in the country districts, for there 
 all the business is transacted and all that is going on in their little 
 world is to be seen and heard. He had been well known for 
 years as ' the man with the big tumor,' and when he came 
 around without it he was a great curiosity. But they said he 
 used to keep a big handkerchief tied about his neck and when a 
 little crowd of people would want to know all about it he would 
 say : ' Yes, I got cured up there, but they had a doctrine up there 
 too that is better than the medicine ; and I 've got a little book 
 here that tells about it ; so if you will sit down here and let me 
 tell you about the doctrine, then I '11 show you my neck ! ' So 
 his excited audience must needs put their curiosity in their 
 sleeves while he pulled out from his his little book and told the 
 ' Old, old story of Jesus and his love.' I am glad to be able 
 to add that he was afterward invited to a winter class at Pao-ting-fu, 
 learned more of the truth, joined the church, and has ever since 
 been a zealous, warm-hearted Christian ; while his district, Po Yi, 
 you will find now reported in the station reports of Pao-ting-fu as 
 having a little church and being one of the hopeful out-stations in 
 this developing work. 
 
 "Tenth, The great numbers attending our dispensaries and 
 hospitals are far beyond the ability of one man to handle, and 
 this implies the training of young assistants. They are taught 
 from medical works that have been translated into Chinese and 
 this, with the immense clinical experience they get, rapidly gives 
 them a considerable degree of skill in the treatment of the 
 more ordinary ailments. And they are able not only thus to aid 
 the missionary but make useful companions for the preaching 
 evangelists in tours through the country. 
 
 " Some of the young men whom we have had in training have 
 not proved as competent or as worthy as we wished and they 
 have been dismissed. We demand a high degree of Christian 
 growth and culture as well as zeal and ability. Much to our 
 regret several have failed to come up to the standard and have 
 been dismissed ; so that these losses, with one or two deaths, have 
 kept our force only equal to the expanding work. In my judg- 
 ment the time has come for the consideration of the question 
 as to whether a medical education should not be provided for 
 larger numbers ; and young men of ability who have had some 
 Hterary training in our Tung-cho school may be selected for this 
 department. 
 
48 
 
 " If the Christian physician is felt to be a power in a community 
 at home, how much more would he be here ! I came to China 
 with high hopes that the native practitioners of medicine might 
 be induced to attend our clinics, and seeing the advantage of 
 foreign medicines be glad to get at least a little superficial knowl- 
 edge of it, and so prepare the way in this^ generation for a more 
 thorough education for the next. This has been the case in 
 Japan, but Chinese conservatism is as yet too much for this inno- 
 vation and my hopes in that direction have been blasted. 
 
 "It now remains to be seen what with wise prescience we can 
 do for future generations, beginning with those who are children 
 to-day. A thorough scientific education as we understand it is 
 perhaps neither necessary nor desirable for this first generation 
 of such practitioners, but a plain, practical, somewhat empirical 
 knowledge of modern medicine is enough where the popular 
 ignorance is as yet dense. The profession will always keep in 
 advance of the general intelligence." 
 
 These fourteen testimonials from the missionary field speak 
 for themselves. They emphasize the importance of the medical 
 arm of the missionary service and make the call for enlarged 
 plans and for enlarged contributions for this department impera- 
 tive. The apostolic motto for this paper may appropriately be : 
 " Luke the beloved physician saluteth you." 
 
■l^pl^L'3 Bros. 
 !^ "Makers 
 1 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 PAT, M. 21. 1908