WILLIAM MALCOLM, M. D., MISSIONARY OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH TO CHINA
The medical missionary needs no apology. We have very high authority for medical missions. Our beloved Saviour was a medical missionary. Jesus is our model missionary. He came from a far country,—he was a foreign missionary. He went about doing good and healing diseases at home,—he was a home missionary. If the Samaritan had sat down by the man who fell among thieves, and had simply talked to him about his sins and about the law and the prophets, this matchless parable would never have been written; but, instead, he bound up his wounds, pouring in wine and oil, the best antiseptic dressing known at that time, I dare say. He then put him on his own beast, the best ambulance service he could get, and took him to an inn, the best hospital obtainable in those days. This was the true missionary. The medical missionary follows very closely in the footsteps of his Master.
As has been said, and I think truthfully, China has been opened to Christianity at the point of the lancet; that is, the medical missionary has been, and is, the kind of missionary called for in China, to win the hearts of the people. There is something about the surgical work that appeals to the people; for example, a painless operation upon the eye by the use of a few drops of cocaine. The effects of chloroform, ether, and other anæsthetics in surgical operations are perfectly marvelous in the eyes of the Chinese. Imagine a native coming to our dispensary, afflicted with a great tumor—such instances occur time and again. He despairs of life. He has appealed repeatedly to native doctors, but they could not perform the operation. What is he to do? He says, “I can’t trust myself in the hands of these foreign devils.” His friends tell him the same thing. But he is tired of life, and finally asks our doctor if he can cure him.
“Yes,” he answers, “by the help of God we can remove the tumor.”
“But it would hurt me too much.” “You would not feel the least pain during the operation.” “Impossible! Impossible!”
He is assured that it is true, and at last he signs his name to the agreement that no harm or blame shall accrue to the surgeon in case of any unfortunate result of the operation. When he comes out of the anæsthetic, the tumor is gone, and in a few days he is ready to go home. He says, “O doctor, I never believed this! I will now believe anything you say.” Is he then not ready to receive the gospel?—Surely he is; and when he hears it, he believes every word of it.
If the medical part of the work were all that could be done for the Chinese, I do not think I would be willing to go to China. But it is a great means to an end,—it is a preparation for the reception of the gospel. The dispensary is opened in the morning, and the patients throng in, are treated, and then hear the gospel. After coming hundreds of miles, in many instances, to be cured, they willingly wait after treatment upon the words of the doctor,—and they will hear no one else. He gains their interest by telling them of different kinds of machinery, bicycles, electric lights, and other improvements, and then he tells them the gospel story which, though old, is ever fresh and new.
But the missionary doctor has many difficulties to contend with in China. The women are kept in the background there, and when they come for treatment, they think we should be able to make a correct diagnosis from feeling their pulse and hearing their story, often impossible to understand, for they know nothing of anatomy, and do not know how to describe their feelings. I think a veterinary surgeon in our own country has a better chance, because a horse does not tell lies at least.
Our last report shows that one doctor, with three or four native medical assistants, treated in one year over twenty-eight thousand cases, and performed five hundred operations, a large proportion of which were major operations; such as, removal of tumors and cancers, amputations, operations for harelip, stone in the bladder, cataract, and nearly all ills that flesh is heir to,—and I think they have many more of them there than we have here. I might mention a case as a sample: A woman came to our dispensary one morning, suffering pain from the sting of a scorpion. While making her bed the evening before (as the common people are too poor to burn oil, they go to bed at dark and rise at daylight), she was stung by a scorpion among the bedclothes. The pain was instantly relieved by the injection of a few drops of cocaine, and her screams of pain were immediately turned to laughter. This is perfectly miraculous in their eyes.
Our operations for cataracts are numerous and successful. A man comes to the dispensary who has been blind for perhaps twenty years. I remove the opaque lens, and immediately he is able to count my fingers. He sees my face,—the first face he has seen in twenty years. He sees me smiling. He tells me how many fingers I have, and whether I have whiskers or not. One can scarcely hold him on the table, he is so glad. Just think how happy a surgeon must be over such an operation. I performed eighty-six of these operations in one year, and operated for five cataracts in one hour and five minutes.
Do you think these people want to drive us out of the country? They love us,—they can’t help it. The race rebellion and the hatred manifested against missionaries were confined to those who knew nothing about us, and who had listened to false reports. There is plenty of room for medical missionaries in China. They are greatly needed there.
I feel sad to think of the many cases11that come to us for treatment, to whom I have to say, “It is too late; I can do nothing for you now.” I remember a boy eleven years old whose father brought him to us. I told him he was too late in coming. “I am not too late,” he said. “I am not too late, doctor. You are too late in coming here. I have been here all the time. He is my only son, and you must cure him; we have no means of support.” “But I tell you, you are too late; I can’t help you.” “Well, then, if he can’t live, we can’t afford to keep him; we shall have to starve him to death.” And notwithstanding all my pleading, I dare say he did as he had threatened.
In native practice, there is nothing in China worth mentioning. I am sorry for the poor Chinese when in health; but, O! when they get sick, I am ten times more sorry for them! If they get well, it is in spite of their treatment, and not because of it, I assure you. Here, for instance, is a man with a tumor. A native doctor thinks he can get a big sum of money for taking it off. So he gets a barber’s razor, and takes off a slice, and then, if the patient is able to endure it, he takes off another slice. But they have nothing that compares with modern surgery.
The sand storms in China, and numerous other things, combine to produce a great many eye diseases. If the person thus afflicted gets well, there is a contraction of the eyelid, so that the eyelashes are turned inward on the eyeball, causing inflammation at first, and in a short time, blindness. We perform an operation by which we transplant the eyelashes. We had many of these operations, frequently five or six a day, day after day. The medical missionary goes to the heathen with a lancet, so to speak, in one hand, and the gospel in the other, armed with a double power for good.
A man came to the dispensary one day for treatment for stomach trouble. He had been ill for a long time. I found that he had been eating stones for the purpose of curing his dyspepsia; he used to eat a handful of ground-up stones every day. He told me that he had eaten, in all, half a millstone—about sixty pounds. At his second visit he told me that he had eaten forty pounds of cinnamon bark, twenty centipedes, a lot of unborn lambs and dead things, and was no better for this treatment, “but rather grew worse.” I put him upon a simple diet, with a suitable prescription, and he went home. He bought a native Testament, and he used to come to my house and read this Testament by a student lamp, and ask me for explanations of Scripture. Time and time again, he said, “Doctor, I am so glad I am sick! If I had not been sick, I should not have found my precious Saviour, this precious book, and this glorious gospel.” I have learned many lessons of humility, of Christian love and charity, from this man. To hear him pray was a blessing in itself. He was very sick, however. He had waited too long before coming to the dispensary.
The dreadful remedies which he had used had made great inroads upon his strength, and he died just before the war; but his was a beautiful Christian death.
This is a glorious work, and, as I have said, I would not go to China for the medical part of the work alone. Every morning when I go to the dispensary, I find forty or fifty patients with their friends. I tell them some gospel story or some parable, and explain it to them, and O, how thankful they are for the truth, and how gladly they drink it in!
But there are difficulties and dangers. The doctor’s family is constantly exposed to diseases; as, typhus fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, etc. For example, a native mother with her sick child wishes to find the dispensary, but mistakes the residence compound for it, and before the mother of the family, who is busy with her duties—teaching native missionaries or learning the language—is aware of it, her children are playing with this diseased, scabby child, and are exposed to smallpox. Such a thing often happens. We are asked, “Why don’t you have better sanitary protection?” But if we try to keep the people out, what is the use of going to China? We go there to teach them the gospel, and we must do it. “What is to be done?”—Trust in God, and be sure to be thoroughly vaccinated before you go.
Another difficulty is the bad water. We drink the river water. “Why don’t you drink well water?” you ask. The well water is unspeakable. The wells are all flush with the ground surface, and the people water their cattle, horses, and mules there. Any old bucket from a stable is kept there; for if a good one were left there at night, it would be stolen before morning. They have no pumps,—they know nothing about pump making. About the time the trouble broke out, we saw three corpses floating down the river, and there were any number of animals in the water. The water of the river is so dirty that you cannot see a quarter of an inch below the surface; it is running,—and that is the best we can say of it,—but it is almost too thick to run. And yet it is said that missionaries go out there for romance! Romance? I wish you could see that water—there was almost everything but romance in it.
Members of the graduating class, you are looking forward to making a success of your profession. Just define that word “success.” What does it mean? Is it to be the first surgeon of the country? That is not necessarily success. What did our blessed Saviour say success in life was? Do you remember John the Baptist and his six months’ ministry, which closed in imprisonment and death? What did Christ say of him?—“Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.” There is success. His life work won favor in the eyes of God. Keep that point ever before you; that is success in life.
Do you believe in foreign missions? I do, with all my soul. What proof have you that I do? During the ten years in which I have been a missionary, I have recollections of smallpox and cholera that I dare not recite to you; my beloved ones taken away; one hundred and eighty-nine missionaries and their families ruthlessly murdered; and yet I am so in love with the glory there is in the work that I want to go back to those Chinese.
Is it not a testimony for the Chinese work and the Chinese Christianity that forty thousand of them have died rather than trample upon the cross of Christ? Many of them were brought to this test,—the sign of the cross was marked in the sand, and they were bidden to trample upon it, or be thrust through with a sword. They have taken the sword. We think our standard is high, but how many of us would stand that test?
I feel very highly honored in being invited to stand before you to-night, in this capacity, and I wish I could say something that would make you feel as I do, but my faltering tongue cannot give expression to my feelings upon this subject. My only apology for standing before you upon this occasion is just this: I have spent the best part of ten years in China, and I know of what I speak. I want to go back to China. I expect to sail in about two weeks; and I hope that fact will speak more eloquently for me than anything else that I could possibly say.