Medical missionary

“ Medical missions are sometimes urged upon our attention as though they were founded to meet a medical need of the people, as if it were the recognised and accepted duty of missionary societies and of missionaries to supplant the native medical practice by western scientific methods as certainly and fully as it is their recognised and accepted duty to supplant native religion by the faith of Christ. ”

“ It is true there is a sense in which distinctions may be drawn; but all educational work in the mission field ought to sustain a vital relation to evangelization. The same may be said of literary and medical mission work. In some fields, medical missionary work constitutes an absolutely essential factor. ”

“ Ministry to the Soul "Into the medical missionary work should be brought a deep yearning for souls. To the physician equally with the gospel minister is committed the highest trust ever committed to man. Whether he realizes it or not, every physician is entrusted with the cure of souls.
"In their work of dealing with disease and death, physicians too often lose sight of the solemn realities of the future life. In their earnest effort to avert the peril of the body, they forget the peril of the soul. The one to whom they are ministering may be losing his hold on life. ”

“ One lady medical missionary writes: 'We are always treated with much respect in the Zenanas, and are called upon by all classes of natives. Many of our patients are among the better class of native ladies.' Another lady medical missionary has more work in the best families where she is located than she can overtake, and {250} that, too, although she has let it be well known that she is a Christian missionary, anxious to do all the good she can to the souls as well as the bodies of her patients. ”

“ With respect to the young medical missionary students, it is imperatively incumbent on the ordained missionaries, in charge of the missions from which they are respectively sent, to see well to it that they are really converted men, so far as they are able to judge, and have, more or less, a desire to serve God in direct mission work. ”

“ The medical missionary has a double hold on the people. The dispensary brings them to him, and his outside practice takes him to their homes, and that by invitation. In both respects he has an advantage over the clerical missionary. Moreover, as medical treatment is the ostensible object in their case, anti-Christian opposition is not prematurely excited. Frequent visits of the clerical missionary to a heathen home, brands that home as leaning towards Christianity. ”

“ The dispensary is now open, and patients are treated daily. Medical missionary dispensaries should be open daily. Some are not, I am greatly astonished at this. I fear practice amongst Europeans has something to do with this. We medical missionaries need constantly to remember we did not leave home to be doctors to our own countrymen, who can in most cases be attended by other medical men, but we left home to labour among the perishing heathen, that by the blessing of God on our medical labours we may lead these same perishing heathen to the truth as it is in Jesus. ”

“ It is this in-patient work that gives the most encouraging opportunities to the medical missionary. There in his little hospital he has patients of all creeds, lying side by side; many have been relieved or cured by operation, and will listen gratefully to all the teaching they can get. Each patient before the operation hears the doctor pray a short prayer, asking God to bless the operation and cause it to be successful. ”

“ To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's footprints so closely as the medical missionary, and on no agency for alleviating human suffering can one look 40 with more unqualified satisfaction. The medical mission is the outcome of the living teachings of our faith. ”

“ Simply stated, the medical missionary compels attention, the school teacher takes the one whose attention has been aroused and furnishes an education which enables the pupil to see things in their proper relation, while the minister points out the philosophy of the efforts of the other two and presents the conception of life, which leads both medical missionary and teacher to separate themselves from home and friends and devote themselves to people who are connected with them only by the primal ties which bind each human being to every other. ”

“ Christie, the medical missionary, is the trusted friend as well as the medical adviser of many of the leading officials and their wives, who, with every circumstance of ceremonial pomp, have presented complimentary tablets to the hospital, and alto- gether the relations between the Chinese and the missionaries are unique. ”

“ A medical missionary would be of little use here; but a medically-trained nurse, who would give medicines and proper food, with proper nursing, would save many lives and much suffering. It is of no use to tell these people to do anything which requires to be done more than once: they are just like children. ”

“ The man who has successfully healed the body has some reasonable hope to expect that the patient will accept that medicine that he offers to cure the soul. So medical missions have been started in every place. We visited many excellent medical missions, from chilly Mukden to torrid Canton. There are many stories told how in the days when the Chinese would not listen to {223} missionaries, the medical missionary obtained that hearing which was refused to his clerical brothers. ”

“ On the medical side, it is not clearly understood whether it is the first duty, or the last duty, of medicals to attend to the children whom we gather together in such large numbers, whether the medicals ought to inspect all the children, whether they ought to be at hand to treat children who are obviously sick, whether these considerations ought to influence the location of the hospital, or of the place of residence of the medical missionaries, or whether this work, if they really gave much time to it, should be considered as withdrawing them from their proper work. ”

“ On the other hand, a medical who does his medical work in the Spirit, who speaks to and prays with his patients, exercises an evangelistic influence wider and deeper than that of many of the evangelistic workers directly so called, and in such a case the fact that the evangelistic workers are apparently lacking in the hospital does not at all show that the medical work is not a strong evangelistic force. ”

“ When the medical missionary starts work he may be puzzled by the very common request that he will give the second medicine first. It appears that the people think, with how much truth I cannot say, that their doctors give first a medicine to make the patient worse and then one to make him better. ”

“ Women's hospitals as a base of operations are needed, so that those [Pg 294] who cannot be attended to in their own homes, with any hope of cure, may be admitted to the hospital. But there should be associated with every nurse or doctor some workers who are wholly given up to evangelistic work. Through lack of these much of the influence of the medical missionary fails to accomplish its wished-for result. The doctors and nurses feel this themselves strongly. The same is felt everywhere amongst educational missionaries. The work of the school needs to be followed up by the visit to the home. ”

“ There is a serious danger in an institution, whether medical or educational, of dividing the work in this way. We have already asserted our conviction that medical missionaries should be evangelistic, and educational missionaries evangelistic also. ”

“ Medical missionaries, thank God, do evangelistic work, and so do educational missionaries, and one day we shall learn that the evangelistic missionary, technically so called, is doing a most important educational work, and often truly medical, healing work. The division is a technical one and missionary-hearted men begin to resent it ”

“ The medical mission work was started at Moukden in 1882 by Dr. Christie, who has steadily built up the work there, and whose new hospital is the model for what such institutions should be. Despite the prejudices of the people, the work has steadily grown. The renown of the foreign doctor has spread for hundreds of miles, and the message which is nearest to his heart has been carried into remote villages in the Long White Mountains by [24] patients who return from the hospital not only cured, but also imbued with the missionary spirit which has brought a new life to them. ”

“ Two hospitals in a single area are probably not in the same place and imply more widespread influence; but if each has twenty beds, in proportion to population it is of no importance whether the forty beds are in one place or two: forty in-patients fill the beds.
But in medical work, when we are considering the need of the district, another factor of importance often enters. The medicals of the mission are often not the only men meeting that need. There are often others, Government officials, or private practitioners, who, from the point of view of medical practice, are doing the same work. ”

“ In these if the highest spiritual results are to be obtained, there must be on the part of the worker a determination rather to guide the organisation towards them, than to depend on its essential qualities as a missionary force. It is not that hospital equipment is an essential for a doctor who wants to preach the Gospel, but no matter what a missionary may be, clergyman, lay evangelist, or medical, it is only by getting into close touch with the native, and by systematic and persevering teaching, that he can expect to extend Christ’s Kingdom in Persian towns. ”

“ We have had 48 eleven o’clock Sabbath services, 48 Sabbath night services, 40 Wednesday night services, 360 early morning six o’clock services, not including the class and children’s Friday afternoon services. I have received eight persons into the church, five on profession of faith in Christ, have baptized 25 children, and married one couple. I have traveled two thousand miles in search of medical treatment and in the interest of the mission, notwithstanding that I have been confined to my bed and room twenty-two times with this most dreadful fever. ”

“ It would be a sad day for our missions if medical and educational missionaries ceased to be at heart evangelists, and were content to leave evangelistic work to others. Nevertheless, the technical distinction is a real one and must be expressed. Some men express their evangelistic fervour naturally and providentially in medical form, others in scholastic, others in teaching, preaching, and organising of the converts and the hearers. ”

“ The examinations made by a physician appointed by the mission boards are usually mere farces, for the desire to go as a missionary frequently covers up many physical weaknesses and prevents a thorough examination. The examination should therefore be made by a disinterested medical man, who will not be influenced by such motives. ”

“ They are not co-equal and they ought not to be separate. Education does not necessarily reveal Christ, medical science does not necessarily reveal Christ, only as education and medicine assist the revelation of Christ are they proper subjects for Christian missionary enterprise, that is, only when they are clearly and unmistakably subordinate to an evangelistic purpose. Of course we do not undervalue medical and educational efficiency: efficiency should increase evangelistic power. ”

“ They have had great difficulty in finding suitable medical missionaries, and they ask their friends to make it a matter of earnest prayer that the Spirit of God will touch the hearts of the right men to offer their service to His cause.
The Directors adopt these moderate measures for the extension of the Society's usefulness in hope. From every quarter they continue to receive gratifying proofs of the increased interest taken in their work. ”

“ Even those who have invited him are quite ready to turn against him, at any rate behind his back. These difficulties, although real, are minor ones, and there are very few European doctors, possessed of an ordinary amount of common-sense and a good material equipment, who cannot get over them in a short while. The real danger is lest the missionary by regarding these difficulties as more serious than they really are should become too absorbed in his efforts to overcome them. Medical work [254] is really an enormous power. ”

“ Some are pastors of churches, others preach almost entirely to the heathen. Some are training students in seminaries. Some superintend a range of simple schools; others, in Indian cities, give large time and effort to the important Institutions taught in the English and Native languages. A few are revising translations of the Bible; others are preparing commentaries, school-books, and other Christian literature. All have to share in building; and, besides the Medical missionaries, a great number constantly give medicine to the sick. ”

“ Again, we hear it argued that missionary societies ought to establish medical schools, hospitals, and institutions of the finest possible type in order to show how the thing really ought to be done, to demonstrate the very best example of western medical work, and to train natives to a western efficiency. ”

“ Absolute necessity has forced medical work on many missionaries in the field. The most elementary knowledge of nursing and hygiene appears miraculous to women sunk in utter ignorance. A white woman too modest to give them remedies for every ailment is usually regarded as unkind. A neglected missionary dispensary is practically unknown.
(Photo supplied by the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.)
OUTSIDE THE VERANDAH OF THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL AT TARN TARAN.
(Showing some of the patients placed out to spend the hot night in the open.) ”