Notable Women of Modern China

by Margaret E. Burton

"That afternoon her husband came to report that she was better. I went to see her and to my great surprise she was better. While there a famous idol arrived to drive out the evil spirit. I said, 'Do you want me, or do you want the idols? We cannot work together.' They insisted that I continue to prepare my medicine and said that the idol could wait. He did wait twenty minutes, and I have been told since that no one ever dared to ask an idol to wait before. Before leaving they promised me that the idol should not go near, or do anything outrageous to the woman. This is now the tenth day and the woman seems to have quite recovered."

"The woman's husband came yesterday and told me that not only he, but many friends and relatives, were convinced that the idols were false; for one idol would give one cause for the illness of his wife, and another idol would give another cause; while once they did not give the medicine sent by an idol and he (the medium) said later, 'The medicine has done her good.' The husband said, 'We see plainly that my wife was saved by your God, by you, and your medicine.'"

While Dr. Hü has done a great deal of work for the poor, her practice is by no means limited to that class, for she is often called to the homes of the official and wealthy classes. One grateful husband, whose wife and baby Dr. Hü had saved, told her that he would not only give money towards her new hospital himself, but would also help her to obtain subscriptions from his friends. "Chinese doctors have learned to use clinical thermometers," he observed, "but the Chinese medicine does not seem to fit the foreign thermometer, for the patients do not seem to get well as with the foreign medicine."

The first student to receive a diploma from the Woolston Memorial Hospital was Dr. Hü's sister, Hü Seuk Eng, who graduated in April, 1902. The graduation exercises, held in the Sing Bo Ting Ancestral Hall, which was willingly loaned for the occasion, created a keen interest, and numbers of the city people gathered to witness proceedings so unusual. Many of them said, "This is the first time a Christian service was ever held in a temple." But what was even more wonderful to them was the revelation of the possibilities of Chinese young womanhood which they received. Dr. Hü wrote that after the exercises an official who lived near by announced: "I will buy a girl seven or eight years old and I will have a tutor for her. Then I will send her to the Girls' Boarding School to study, and then she may go to Dr. Hü to study medicine. Then she will go to Sing Bo Ting Ancestral Temple, too, to receive her diploma. Besides, we will all be Christians." Others were heard to exclaim, "Who knew girls could do so much good to the world—more than our boys!"

When the exercises were over, greatly to Seuk Eng's surprise, her sedan chair was escorted all the way back to the hospital, to the accompaniment of the popping of hundreds of fire-crackers, set off in her honour. A Chinese feast was prepared for the guests in the hospital, after which another unexpected explosion of congratulatory fire-crackers took place. Thus ended in true Chinese fashion, amid noise and smoke, the first graduation exercises of the Woolston Memorial Hospital.

They were by no means the last, however, for this department of work has been steadily carried on ever since Dr. Hü took charge of the hospital. In 1904 she reported: "Our little medical school is getting on nicely. The success of the school is mostly due to our good teacher and the students themselves, who have a great desire to learn. They have had written examinations this year; the highest general average was 98 and the lowest 85. Can any one dare to think, 'What is the use to teach these Chinese people?'"

Dr. Hü wrote of the commencement exercises of the class graduating the following year: "Quite a number of the gentry, and the teachers of the government schools for young men, had asked to come to attend the graduating exercises; and of course we were very much pleased to have them. They did seem to enjoy it very much. Some of them have told my friends that they were surprised and delighted to see that their countrywomen could be so brave and do so well. They also wished that their students might have come to see and to listen for themselves. One of the gentry decided that day that his daughter should come to us to study medicine."

Up to this time no girl who did not have a diploma from a mission school had been admitted to the medical course of the Woolston Hospital. But in 1906, yielding to the great desire of many other young women to take medical training, Dr. Hü opened the course to any who could pass an examination on certain subjects which she considered essential prerequisites to a medical course. Four of the seven who presented themselves for examination were passed; only one was a Christian girl, two were daughters-in-law of officials, the other a daughter of one of the gentry.

An extract from the examination paper of one of them shows the real earnestness of purpose with which the work was undertaken. The first question asked was, "Please give your reasons for coming to study medicine?" "Alas, the women of my country are forgotten in the minds of the intellectual world. How could they think of a subject as important as the education of medicine! The result is that many lives are lost, simply on account of no women physicians for women. Though mission hospitals for women and children have been established for a number of years in the Fuhkien province they are far less than we need. For this reason I have a great desire for a medical education, hoping that I may be able to help, and to save my fellow sisters from suffering. It is for this reason I dare to apply for this instruction."

The graduates of the medical course are as yet not great in numbers, but they are doing earnest, efficient work. Some of them have remained in the hospital as assistants or matrons. Of a recent graduating class, one went to the Methodist hospital in Ngu-cheng to assist Dr. Li Bi Cu, the physician in charge; another went to a large village, to be the only physician practising Western medicine; the third to Tientsin, as an assistant in the Imperial Peiyang Woman's Medical College.