【窦大夫 Jean DOW, Isabelle MCTAVISHE 】--- 彰德府

 

 

河南第一个加拿大医学传教士史美德医生)

该书的最新颖之处在于每个章节后所附的人物故事。如第一代医学传教士中的杰出代表，加拿大籍传教医生

史美德(James Frazer Smith，詹姆斯·弗莱则·史密斯，又名史雅格)，于1888年9月最早来到中国，

罗维灵医生，1888年作为第一批传教士来到中国，1893年主持楚旺福音堂附设医院;1896年，把楚旺的男科诊所迁往安阳，成为广生医院的前身;1902年亲任卫辉博济医院院长。作为当时世界上脑炎和震颤麻痹症的诊断、治疗专家，他不仅医术高明，而且治学严谨，仁心远名，被豫北人民亲切地称作“老罗大夫”。在他的领导下，患者从冀、鲁、豫三省涌来，使教会医院进入鼎盛时期。1917年加拿大和美英教会联合办起了山东齐鲁大学，60岁的他被聘为齐鲁大学医学院的教授，成为该校唯一能用流利的汉语教学的外籍教师，深受学生爱戴;他翻译了许多西方医学著作，为中国的西医教育和西医传播做出了重大贡献;并利用回国休假的机会，不辞辛苦，将多伦多大学多余的病理学标本运来中国用于医学教学。直到1938年抗日战争爆发，80岁高龄的他才回到祖国。他把毕生献给了中国人民和中国的医学事业，为中国现代医学界培养了无数优秀的人才。

(图为：传教女医生科玉贞)

传教女医生科玉贞(Dr. Jean Isabel Dow，简·伊莎贝尔·窦)，1895年开始在河南工作，在安阳女子医院做了20多年的院长，尤其是在20世纪20年代初的大饥荒中，她拯救了400位母亲和孩童的生命，受到当地政府的褒奖。而她自己却因感染了一种不明原因的疾病而于1927年1月17日去世，被永远安葬在她工作了33年的安阳。

(图为：罗维灵的儿子罗光普医生)

最让我感动的是，当时第二代医学传教士中的佼佼者，罗维灵的儿子罗光普医生(Robert Bob McClure，罗伯特·鲍勃·麦克卢尔，1900-1991，又名罗明远)。我总不由自主地向学生们讲起他传奇般行医故事。

罗光普出生在义和团运动的逃亡途中，豫北的卫辉传教总站承载了他的童年记忆。15岁他独自回到加拿大接受高中教育。1922年从多伦多大学医学院毕业后，他接受了教会的请求，像父亲一样，走上了行医传教的道路。1923年6月，他被教会任命为怀庆恩赐医院的院长。到任后大力推进医院的现代化建设，与焦作煤矿合作，为医院解决了照明、自来水和院内电话通讯问题，购置了X光机等先进设备，并学习掌握了当时世界上最先进的用于治疗癌症的镭放射疗法和深度X光照射法，推出了放射针治疗癌症的新方法，用放射针治疗唇、舌、面颊和子宫颈癌，疗效显著，使恩赐医院声名远播。抗日战争期间，他积极救助中国伤员及百姓，并发明改进了很多医疗器械设备，用于枪炮伤的病人，1938年豫北沦陷后，他转战到西南，被国际红十字会任命为华中地区的代表，帮助打开了缅甸向国内运送物资医药的通道。

他具有极高的医学天赋和充沛的精力，一生不断地引进当时世界上最新的医学科学技术，并结合豫北的客观实际进行改革创新，使之本土化，成为解决当地医疗问题的实用的方法。他因经常接诊枪炮致伤的病患而成为这方面的专家，能根据不同种类和型号的枪炮伤害采取不同的治疗方法。在抗日战争期间，他参加了公谊救护队，在云南保山的第72野战医院里负责一个重症外科病房，当时，前线下来的伤员很多是腿部中枪。当子弹以极高速率射穿腿骨时，好几公分长的骨头就在那一刻灰飞烟灭，治疗时，如果不使用牵引，伤腿愈合后会比健腿短上两寸左右，而当时的专用牵引装置主要在美国本土生产，非常昂贵，罗光普就将在豫北行医时发明的用自行车轮辐代替牵引装置的办法介绍给公谊救护队的医生们采用，这样，治疗后两腿的长度差别只在一公分左右，基本看不出来。很快，这个方法就在前线和后方的医院里普遍推广开来。罗光普还用了当时加拿大蒙特利尔一个医生的方法救治头部负伤、碎头骨压迫大脑的伤员，这种手术风险很大但是效果特别好。因为设备创新与技术过硬而让他的名声不胫而走。

20世纪30年代，他学习掌握了当时世界上治疗癌症最先进的技术——镭放射疗法和深度X光照射法。由于镭放射疗法费用昂贵，而深度X光照射又需要稳定而充足的电力，要在豫北开展起来都相当困难。后来从报刊上得悉，瑞士和法国巴黎正在推广一种放射针治疗的新方法，他立即前往学习，并将这种方法引进豫北，广泛用于治疗唇、舌、面颊和子宫颈癌，疗效显著。也正是由于这项技术的应用，使怀庆恩赐医院一度闻名全国。

罗光普对豫北医学事业的发展所作出的最大贡献，应该归属于怀庆农村医疗网的建设。最初的想法只是源于看到，病情并不严重的病人，从几十里外送到教会医院，只需泻药或驱蛔药就能够解决问题，但因为农村地区没有医生，给病人造成很大的困难。为了实现每个居民在8公里范围内可以找到能够解决基本问题的“赤脚医生”、20公里范围内就可以找到经过专门培训的专业医疗人员、55公里内可以找到规范的教会总站医院的农村医疗网络建设目标，罗光普把怀庆地区所有传统中医和受过西式培训的医生联合起来，建立起一个医疗网络体系。培训了8名快速医生，分别派到周边8个县建立教会医院分院，并为其提供技术、药品供应、辅助检查与资金的支持，鼓励各分院培养下一级的乡村卫生站或“赤脚医生”。总站医院的医生定期下乡巡诊，解决疑难问题及重大手术，畅通双向转诊的路径，分院解决不了的病症，便可直接送往总院。并对各级医务人员进行定期专业培训，大大提高了当地有限的医疗卫生资源的覆盖面积与医疗质量的安全保障，同时，也为农村医疗保健设于的发展积累了成功的经验。并发起了一场革新，怀庆农村医疗网经加拿大长老会的推广，提高了豫北地区的整体医疗卫生水平，推动了豫北医疗卫生事业的进步，在国内产生了较大的影响。

(图为：20世纪30年代的黑热病患者)

再有，就是20世纪初在豫北儿童中流行最多的黑热病，有90%的患者因得不到治疗而死亡。在20世纪之前，中外医学典籍中鲜有记载此类病例，直到1903年英国学者利什曼(Leishman)最早发现，之后各国医学者纷纷研究该病的诊断及治疗方法。

1920年，由豫北调任山东齐鲁大学医学院任内科学教授的加拿大籍医生杜儒德提出通过对黑热病疑似患者进行脾脏穿刺活检，在显微镜涂片下查到病原体进行确诊，并在齐鲁大学医生的协助下，试用强毒性药物酒石酸锑钾进行治疗，早期治疗周期虽长达8个月，但治愈率可达到80%～95%。以后通过引进新型有机锑疗法，在治愈率保持不变的前提下，又将治疗周期缩短到了3周。1935年，杜儒德任齐鲁大学医院内科黑热病和其他寄生虫病主任。并将他在豫北地区治疗黑热病等病例的临床经验发表在《齐鲁医刊》和《中华医学杂志》中，如《黑热病的诊断与治疗》、《胃溃疡出血的治疗》。杜儒德也因在中国接触到了英美所罕见的黑热病，较早发表国际论文而得到一定的声誉，得到美国医学界的赏识，在主要撰稿人都是美国医学作家的美国《内科学课本》中，破格请他撰写黑热病一章，将这种病的历史、发病率、病源及治疗方法作概括的叙述。杜儒德不仅重视黑热病的临床治疗经验和成果发表，还为老百姓撰写科普文章，发表在农村刊物《田家半月报》上，称黑热病为“大肚子痞”，提醒百姓如发现“身上发烧，肚里生硬块，像发疟疾差不多，病拖延到两年或三年”的患者需及时就医治疗，并称“这个病若不治，很能叫人丧命，不过若是治的得法，一百个生这个病的人，就有九十个可以好”。他用通俗易懂的白话，向乡村百姓传播早期发现治疗黑热病的知识。

上述事例，让我想到了在《全球医学最低基本要求》对本科医学毕业生的总体目标中所提到的“把对疾病和损伤处理与健康促进和疾病预防相结合的能力”、“在维护职业价值和伦理的最高准则的同时，适应变化中的疾病谱、医疗实践条件和需求，医学信息技术发展，科技进步，卫生保健组织体系变化的能力。”这些能力对于任何一个时代的临床医生来说，都是非常重要的，但如何使学生获取这些能力，却是一件很难的事情。近代豫北加拿大传教医生们的表现是对这一能力的最好诠释。

(图为：卫辉惠民医院护士培训学校的首任校长饶秀贞女士)

还有那些创建了豫北护理事业的加拿大先驱们，如：卫辉惠民医院护士培训学校的首任校长饶秀贞女士(Mrs. Jeanette C. Ratcliffe，珍妮特·拉特克利夫夫人)，她所提出的创办护士学校的目：是要“提供一种训练，首先，要护士们看到病人对身体和精神的无知以及为此而产生的痛苦;其次，使她们意识到自己对这些情况的责任;最后，教会她们如何有效地减轻并驱除这些无知和痛苦。”这些教育理念至今仍然值得医学教育工作者借鉴。女传教士盖麻姑(Margaret Russell Gay，玛格丽特·罗素格·盖伊)1910年来到豫北，从事了13年传教工作，在见证了豫北农村居民对于医疗的巨大需求，感悟到需要实践技巧才能提供帮助时，36岁的她毅然决定放弃单纯的传教，而去温哥华总医院接受了长达3年的护士培训项目，并以优异的成绩毕业。学成归来的她制订了疾病护理的标准：强调效率、有效，最重要的是干净。并发表了一篇题名为《洗涮》的文章，来阐述干净和卫生在护理实践中的重要性。她终身未嫁，在河南工作了30年(1910-1941)。被誉为“战争中的无名英雄”的传教护士彭纯修(Louise Clara Preston，路易斯·克莱拉·普雷斯顿)，1922年来到豫北，在照明用油灯，取暖做饭烧煤炉，纸糊的窗户无法通风，苍蝇、蚊子、跳蚤、臭虫随处可见，连基本的便盆清洁都很难维持的条件下，她正视现实，积极创造条件，推进豫北规范化护理的进程，特别是在抗日战争期间，1939年，她从豫北撤离后，调往重庆西部使团医院工作，当日本飞机空袭时，一些重病人或正在分娩或接受复杂手术的病人无法转移到防空洞内，她就坚持待在病人身边进行陪护，并给予安慰。因此她被誉为“战争中的无名英雄”。

“国际平民教育之父”晏阳初曾谆谆告诫协和医学生：“你们需要一个科学家的头脑和一颗传教士的心灵。”所谓“传教士的心灵”，应该说的就是这些曾经在豫北工作过的传教医生和护士对待职业的态度和对待病人的情感吧，这种“传教士的心灵”，究竟仅仅是出自于狭隘的基督精神?还是更高层次的人道主义?有没有脱离开宗教意义上的“传教士的心灵”?这些都值得今人思考。

作为“新医人”，我们为百年校史而感到骄傲与自豪，但值得“新医人”深思的是百年校史，除了留下6幢充满了历史沧桑感的古老西式建筑和数10棵刻记下历史年轮的古树之外，还给我们留下了点什么?

这本书不仅史料丰富，而且可读性强，不仅将历史的脉络清晰地展现在读者面前，还通过章节后所附的人物故事，展示了西方传教医生与护士们对医学精神的理解，对医院建设的严格要求，以及对医护职业的不懈追求，对病人艺术性服务的至高境界，值得读者尤其是医务工作者好好体味。同时，她也不失为在校医学生人文素养教育或医学史教育的一部好教材。可以启发医学生思考如下问题：

1、为什么被称之为“科学医学”的近代，“西方医学”会和“基督教”这样的“洋教”有着这么多千丝万缕的联系?

2、随着西方“传教士”而来到中国的“西方医学”，除了解剖学、生理学和病理学知识;先进的医疗设备;精细的手术技术和快速起效的西药之外，还有哪些是中国人所不曾认识的?是中国西医医院没有很好地加以移植和应用的?

3、21世纪医学昌明，西医医院的技术、设备、条件如此先进，为什么在中国，医患关系会紧张到如此白热化的程度?

4、作为医学教育者、医院管理者，如何从史学研究的角度去寻找答案?如何从行业自身去发现问题?如何寻求改善“医患关系”的出路?

5、在近代中国大背景下做比较研究，从基督教关于“疗灵”与“疗身”关系的认知演变，去探讨“科学家的大脑”与“传教士的心灵”对于培养好医生的重要意义。

6、以史为鉴，反思当今中国医生的医学精神，及医学教育中对“科学精神”与“人文精神”的平衡。

进而，我们需要和学生坐在一起深入地探讨“三医”问题：

1、医学是一个什么样的学科?

2、医院缘何而建，应该是个什么样的场所?现代化医院的组织架构是什么样的?

3、医生是个什么样的职业，未来社会“好医生”的标准是什么样的?

4、百余年前西方的医学传教士在豫北行医过程中的所作所为，对今天的医生有什么样的借鉴意义?

以上，便是我从书中获得的点滴启发与思考，在此与大家分享。对历史事件及人物的解读往往会受某个时代的政治、社会、经济等多方面的影响，仁者见仁，智者见智。但在培养医学生掌握精湛医术的同时，培养他们的仁爱之心和艺术性服务的技巧，这一观点恐怕是任何时代的医学教育工作者都应该坚守的共同之道。

作者：陈娓(新乡医学院临床技能培训中心)

http://www.onesheng.cn/zwjd/read/31233.html

1888年，加拿大传教士用医学敲开豫北大门；庚子之交，在安阳、卫辉、怀庆等地建起西式医院；1920年，一份医院科学效率报告，促使惠民医院落成，标志着豫北正规化医疗体系的新生；一所护士学校，一支卫生宣传队，一张农村医疗网；两代人，四度重返，六十年筚路蓝缕，西医精神沉淀百年。

 

近代豫北医学传教史研究 Paperback – June 1, 2015

by 邵金远 (Author)

基督教会医疗事业与近代河南社会

李娜  

【摘要】： 基督教在近代中国的传播是伴随着鸦片战争而进行的,由于是在不平等条约的庇护下才得以传播,因此基督教在中国最初的传播并不顺利。传教士们经过多次尝试,发现医疗事业是他们打开传教事业局面的非常有用的工具。传教士们进入河南以后,面临着同样的困境,基督教在河南的发展经历了一个艰难曲折的过程。在早期,传教士开办的诊所使他们成功的打开了传教的困境,随后在豫北地区、省城开封创建教会医院辅助其传教事业。在民国时期,教会医院更加注重教会医疗事业质量的提高,在护士教育、医院管理等方面做了很多卓有成效的工作。基督教在河南的医疗事业对近代河南社会产生了很重要的影响,本文拟对基督教在河南的医疗事业做一个整体的描述,并从文化的角度来分析教会医疗事业对近代河南医学,以及对河南民众思想观念和风俗习惯等方面的影响。全文分为七个部分。 第一部分:绪论。首先对1949年以来的国内基督教会医疗事业的研究做一个简要的回顾;然后对近年来河南基督教史的研究现状做一个总结;最后在回顾河南基督教史研究的基础上指出河南教会医疗事业研究存在问题和不足之处。 第二部分:中国基督教会医疗事业的产生及其在河南的传播。基督教在近代传入中国,为配合传教事业,传教士们利用开办诊所和医院逐渐打开局面,并逐渐产生了“医务传教士”这一特殊群体和“医务传道”的特殊方法。随着一系列不平等条约的签订,传教士们的足迹逐渐遍及全国。基督教会的医疗事业也由广州、澳门到五口通商口岸,最后在内地全面展开并进入河南。 第三部分:河南教会医疗事业的发展。基督教会进入河南以后,传教事业发展缓慢。为配合传教事业,一些差会设立诊所、开办医院,取得了很好的效果。基督教会在河南的医疗事业发展良好,但是在二十年代却接连遭遇北伐战争和五卅运动的冲击,教会的医疗事业遭受重大损失。此后,教会的医疗事业进入了调整时期。随着本色化的进程,中国人越来越多的参与到医疗事业的管理和运营。经过努力,基督教会在河南的医疗事业也迎来了繁盛时期。 第四部分:河南教会医疗事业的衰落与消亡。随着抗日战争的爆发,基督教会医疗事业在河南的良好发展势头也戛然而止。在烽火连天的岁月里,教会医疗事业遭受严重破坏。在艰苦的条件下,教会医院在战争期间做了大量救死扶伤的工作,值得肯定。抗日战争结束后,联合国公谊救护队接管了一批教会医院,帮助其恢复。解放战争的爆发,使得稍有起色的教会医疗事业随着大批外国传教士的回国,又陷入瘫痪的局面。中华人民共和国成立后,对教会医院接受、改造,使其为人民服务。 第五部分:河南教会开展医疗事业的方式及教会医院的管理和运营。对河南教会开办医疗事业的方式:诊所、医院、护士学校做了简要叙述,对三者之间的关系做了概括;对教会医院的收费制度和医院的医生及病人的来源进行考察。 第六部分:基督教会医疗事业对近代河南社会的影响。基督教会医疗事业在河南的发展实际上是西方医学文化在中国的传播,并且在许多方面产生了重要的影响。为近代河南社会培养了大量的医护人才,影响了民众的治病和护理观念,促进了中西医文化的交流,为当地民众创办医院起到了示范作用。 第七部分:结语。对基督教会在河南的医疗事业做客观的评价。

【学位授予单位】：河南大学
【学位级别】：硕士
【学位授予年份】：2009
【分类号】：B979;K29

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Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0774858214

Sonya Grypma - 2008 - ‎History

Ratcliffe, “Weihwei Hospital,” Honan Messenger 13, 4: 14-15, UCCVUA 83.058C, box 57, file 16, series 3. Ibid. Brown, History of NCM, 66: 7. Preston, “Nursing ...

Religion, Religious Ethics and Nursing

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0826106641

Marsha D. Fowler, PhD, MDiv, MS,, ‎Sheryl Reimer Kirkham, PhD, RN, ‎Rick Sawatzky, PhD, RN - 2011 - ‎Medical

Margaret Williamson Hospital. DUMC. 95. Balme 150. 96. Chen 135. 97. Chen 135. 98. Balme 150. 99. Jeanette, Ratcliffe. “Weihwei Hospital.” Honan ...

Armies of Peace: Canada and the UNRRA Years

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0802093213

Susan Armstrong-Reid, ‎David R. Murray - 2008 - ‎History

35 Ibid., Alex Dobson to 'Dear Friends and Companions,' Wa Mei Hospital, ... Walter Alexander, Hwei Min Hospital, Weihwei, Honan Monthly Report for July ...

 

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Isabelle McTavish - Canadian Missionary Doctor - 1881-1953:

Canadian Genealogy Carnival, Edition 2

梅秀英

Isabelle MCTAVISH,

b. 19 December, 1881 Minnedosa, Manitoba, Canada;

d. 26 January, 1953, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

This post is for the Second Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival - "My Famous Canadian Ancestor".

 

 

Was your ancestor a famous Canadian hockey player, actor or politician? Tell us about famous Canadians in your family. Don't have a famous Canadian ancestor in your family tree? Not to worry; choose a famous Canadian you admire and share why you would like to have this person as your ancestor.

 

 

I have NO famous ancestors at all, and no famous connections either (unless we count the old story about being related to Mary, Queen of Scots, and I don't!), but there are a number of family connections to Canadians who should at least be better known, in my opinion.

 

 

One of those is Isabelle McTavish, a Canadian medical missionary to China. I heard about her when I was young, since she lived in Newdale, Manitoba, where my grandmother and mum were both born. I was always interested in her since I was told she became a doctor in the 1910's, which was certainly uncommon at the time, spent much of her life in China, and never married.

 

 

Isabelle MCTAVISH, b. 19 December, 1881, Minnedosa area, Manitoba, Canada; d. 26 January, 1953, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Parents: John MCTAVISH (1847-1891) and Catherine Jane WADDELL (1856-1936), married at Perth, Ontario, Canada, 29 May, 1878.

Isabelle McTavish's siblings: John Fraser, James Andrew, Annie (married Thomas Andrew WADDELL).

Although Isabelle McTavish was born near Minnedosa, Manitoba, Canada in 1881, sometime before 1891, her family moved to Newdale, Manitoba. Her father, a farmer and entrepreneur, taught school at Newdale, but died at work in 1891.

 

Life must have been difficult for the family. But in 1915, Isabelle Mctavish was graduated as a doctor from the Manitoba Medical College in Winnipeg. Canada. She and Frances Gertrude McGill, also from Minnedosa area, that year were the third and fourth women to be so graduated, following Dr. Edith Ross in 1913 and Dr. Lavinia McPhee Green, the very first to be graduated. Dr. Green hosted a dinner at Winnipeg's Royal Alexandra Hotel for the four female doctors the evening after the graduation. (Manitoba Free Press, 15 May, 1915, p. 9)
 

 

That fall, Isabelle McTavish left for China to work as a medical missionary with the Presbyterian Church of Canada. Until 1942, with brief periods away, she continued to work as a doctor in China – in North Honan, at Wuan, Wheihwei, and at Changte (at first with Doctor Jean Gow). According to McTavish's obituary, the Chinese government honoured her for this. (Winnipeg Free Press, 26 January, 1953, p.9.) The Newdale 1870-1970history mentions that this honour was the ‘Order of Mercy Decoration Medal, 2nd Degree’. (Printed at Brandon: Newdale Historical Society, 1970, pp. 146-7)

McTavish apparently returned home in 1927 during the period of civil war. My mother remembered her speaking in Newdale to raise money for missionary work. (I'm sure this is how my mother first realized how wide the world was outside Newdale. My mum was fascinated with China all her life. I'm glad she did get to travel there at last.)

 

McTavish didn’t practice locally as a doctor as far as I know, but my mother said she did attend my great grandmother when she was dying at home, as the Newdale doctor was out of town.

 

McTavish returned to China in 1931. During World War II, she and others were taken prisoner and interned; she was freed and returned home in 1942 with other missionaries. The Lethbridge Herald of 25 June, 1942, p.9, reported her among those who had left Shanghai on a repatriation ship for Portuguese West Africa.

From 1942 to 1946, she served at the Bonnyville General Hospital in Alberta, Canada (Katherine K. Prettie Hospital), long a project of the Women’s Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church of Canada and later of the United Church of Canada. 

 

In 1946, she returned to China to help re-open the hospital at Changte.

 

She left China for the last time in 1949 and returned to Newdale, Manitoba, but very soon moved to Winnipeg. She continued to speak, usually to women’s groups, on missionary and medical work in China, and attended conferences, for instance, a Methodist Missionary conference in New York in 1943.

On the 26th of January, 1953, she died in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was buried in Newdale in the McTavish family plot. (North side, Newdale’s ‘Oldale’ Cemetery.) Both her brothers and her sister survived her.

Recently there has been more interest in the work of Canadian women and others in medical missions in China, see for example, Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947 by Sonya Grypma (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008) and In War and Famine: Missionaries in China's Honan Province in the 1940s by Erleen Christensen (Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).

 

So far, there are only brief mentions of Doctor Isabelle McTavish though. I hope in 2009-2010 to write a research piece about her myself.

I'd be interested in learning more about the other women connected with Isabelle McTavish's life, particularly Dr. Lavinia McPhee Green, who I believe has a British Columbian connection.

Here I've used the contemporary newspaper renditions of Chinese place names.

 

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                         Jean Dow Medicine 窦大夫

                       One of the first researchers to isolate the organism

                                    which causes Kala-azar disease

 

                                     The Story

Dow earned her medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1895. Later that year, she traveled to China, where she would spend the rest of her life. Dow was a surgeon in China for over thirty years. For twenty years, she was the only woman doctor at the Canadian Presbyterian Mission in Honan. There, she did research into the organism which causes Kala-azar, a wasting disease which is prevalent in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Her work paved the way for the development of treatment for this illness, which previously had a fatality rate of 70%. Dow received a medal from the Chinese government for her service during the great famine of 1920.
Jean Isabel Dow was born in Fergus, Ontario, 

 

in 1870. She entered high school at age ten intending to become a teacher. She began teaching at the age of fifteen. She had always harboured a wish to someday serve as a medical missionary, a wish which became a reality when she was admitted to the Toronto Medical College and, upon graduation in 1895,  left for China.

 

In China she assisted Dr. McClure at Chuwang dispensary. Jean worked there until 1900.

 

In 1901 she moved to Changte city were the women’s dispensary and small hospital were opened in 1918. Dow was hospital superintendent as well as sole physician until 1918.

From 1902 to 1904 she was engaged in evangelical and touring work. During the famine of 1920-1921 she did wonderful work in saving the “famine babies” for which she was awarded the medal from the Chinese government.

 

Jean furthered her medical education when on furloughs, at the School of tropical medicine in London in 1908, and later in obstetrics at a New York city hospital. For fourteen years she was the only woman physician in the Honan field. She was devoted to improving medical standards in the mission and she became a scientific researcher in the field of microbiology through her work on the dread tropical disease Kala Azar. She died in January 1927 in Beijing.

 

by Adele Pocci

Sources: The Indomitable Lady Doctors, Carlotta Hacker, Irwin Clarke Pub. 1974;

Looking for Jean Dow : Narratives of Women and Missionary Medicine in Modern China / Margo S. Gewurtz. In: Figuring it out : Science, Gender, and Visual Vulture / edited by Ann B. Shteir and Bernard Lightman. Hanover, N.H. : Dartmouth College Press : University Press of New England, c2006, p. 267-288.

 

The Person

Birthdate

November 30, 1869

Birthplace

Fergus, Ontario

Date of Death

January 1, 1927

Place of Death

Beijing, China

Status

Deceased

Awards

• test

Last Updated

May 23, 2011

Popularity

27999

Profile viewed 27999 times

 

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http://ccc-news.com/index.php/news/4524-2016-02-14-20-49-41

 

 

 

 

 

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DOW, JEAN ISABELLE (baptized Jane Isabella), medical missionary;

b. 25 June 1870 near Fergus, Ont., fifth of the eight children of Peter Dow and Agnes Wilson;

d. unmarried 16 Jan. 1927 in Peking (Beijing, People’s Republic of China), and was buried in Changte (Anyang).

Jean Dow is representative of the first generation of Canadian women doctors who chose a missionary career. A granddaughter of Scottish immigrants, she grew up in a progressive “farm home of the best type” with a large library. The Dows were members of the very mission-minded Melville Presbyterian Church in Fergus and it was in this atmosphere that Jeannie, as she was known, felt called to foreign-mission work. A winsome, beautiful girl, she was inordinately shy and quite brilliant. She graduated from primary school at age 10 and high school at 13, and was a teacher by 15. After attending model school in Mount Forest, in 1891 she applied to the Presbyterian Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, intending to enter Woman’s Medical College in Toronto. She received her mb from Trinity College in 1895 and on 30 September of that year was appointed to succeed the late Dr Lucinda Graham in North Honan (Henan), China.

The Presbyterian mission there had been founded in 1888 by Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth and others, but they had been unable to gain a foothold in the province because of anti-foreign attitudes. Eventually, in 1894, they managed to lease a house in Chuwang, a “wretched” town inside the border. By the time Dow arrived, they had been forced out, but the station was soon re-established.

Studying Chinese gave Dow new freedom – “loosening my English tongue” she called the experience. She learned the colloquialisms of illiterate women and the Chinese equivalents of medical terminology. “Medicine was her profession,” in the words of one biographer, “Evangelism was her passion.” She was always surrounded by women, “gossiping the gospel” as she asked about their families. “Day by day they come in ceaseless procession to the dispensary,” she wrote. In 1897 she opened the first women’s hospital in Honan – a mud-brick ward and chapel-dispensary, which treated 400 patients in its first month. The Boxer rebellion of 1900 forced a harrowing evacuation to the coast, with the missionaries being mobbed and beaten. Dow then went on furlough, during which she studied tropical medicine in New York City, “to get rid of the rust” according to mission historian Margaret H. Brown.

Jean Dow returned in April 1902 and “dwelt among the ruins” in Chuwang while making extensive evangelistic tours. When the Chuwang station was closed she moved to Changte, a major city, where she opened a women’s hospital. As the only practising female physician in North Honan for 20 years – other, married women doctors did not practise – she was at the centre of a controversy over separate facilities for women. Governed by an all-male presbytery, the North Honan mission considered separate wards “useless and unnecessary.” Dow got around the opposition unobtrusively; in 1904 and again in 1913, when a new men’s hospital was constructed, she adapted the old buildings as women’s wards.

Dow’s practice had grown from simple surgery for such problems as cataracts and wolf bites to complicated obstetric treatments and X-rays. Her foremost achievement, with Dr William McClure, was her work on the microbe causing kala-azar, the sandfly-transmitted disease that decimated the children of north China. During the famine of 1920–21 she was credited with saving 400 expectant mothers and children. For her heroic services the Chinese government gave her a medal. She was held in the “highest esteem” too by her mission, as much for her physical and spiritual beauty and strong “womanhood” as for her medical skill.

Despite her fluency in Chinese, her natural reticence hindered her relations with colleagues. Here she was helped over a 30-year period by her “beautiful friendship, based on mutual love,” with another Scots missionary from Wellington County, a nurse named Margaret I. McIntosh. Because Dow was “never articulate in public” (so Margaret Brown recalled), in discussions of her work she would whisper responses to Margaret, who would repeat them aloud. When women were admitted to the mission’s executive committee, Dow was one of the two female members, a role she filled with common sense for several years. In the 1920s her drive for facilities for women was challenged by a new generation of professionals, men and women, who argued for integration on the ground that separate realms led to substandard facilities. The mission, however, deferred to Dow and Dr Isabelle MacTavish, allowing them to build the only women’s hospital in North Honan.

Jean Dow went on furlough at the beginning of civil unrest in 1925. A few months earlier the mission had voted unanimously to join the United Church of Canada. She returned to China in October 1926 in time to open the hospital she had worked for. She was there only two months before she succumbed to an internal complaint and was taken to the Peking Union Medical Hospital, where she died, worn out at 56. Her body was buried in the mission cemetery at Changte.

If Dow had stayed in Canada, she might never have “loosened” her tongue or built a hospital. As one colleague said at her memorial service, being a pioneer worker “she was at liberty to set up her own ideals of personal worth and work, and did set these very high. . . . She touched multitudes of lives for good.” According to recollections compiled in the 1980s, the women of Honan who remembered her agreed.

Alvyn J. Austin

AO, RG 80-2-0-12, no.19270. LAC, RG 31, C1, Nichol Township, Ont., 1871, div.1: 58; 1881: 13 (mfm. at AO). UCC-C, Biog. file; Fonds 127, 79.205C, boxes 5–9; Photographs. UTA, A1973-0026/87, files for J. I. Dow (53), her brother the Reverend James A. Dow (52), her cousin Dr James Dow (51), and other relatives. Daily Mail and Empire, 18 Jan. 1927. Evening Telegram (Toronto), 18 Jan. 1927. Globe, 18, 22 Jan., 8 Feb. 1927. New Outlook (Toronto), 9 March, 27 April 1927. A. J. Austin, Saving China: Canadian missionaries in the Middle Kingdom, 1888–1959 (Toronto, 1986). D. McD. Beattie, Pillars and patches along the highway: a history of Nichol Township ([Elora, Ont., 1984]). M. H. Brown, “History of the Honan (North China) missions of the United Church of Canada, originally a mission of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1887–1951” (4v., typescript, n.p., [1970]; copy in UCC-C). Ruth Compton Brouwer, New women for God: Canadian Presbyterian women and India missions, 1876–1914 (Toronto, 1990). [M. R. Griffith],Jean Dow, m.d.: a beloved physician (Toronto, [193-?]). Carlotta Hacker, The indomitable lady doctors (Toronto, 1974). Presbyterian Record (Montreal), 1895–1926. Hugh Templin and J. M. Imlah, Melville Church, Fergus: a history of the congregation from 1845 to 1945 (Fergus, Ont., 1945).

General Bibliography

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