The first and second reports of the Medical Missionary Society in China : with minutes of proceedings, hospital reports, &c.

  • Medical Missionary Society in China
Date:
1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first and second reports of the Medical Missionary Society in China : with minutes of proceedings, hospital reports, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    58/68 (page 58)
    These encouraging cirouinslaiices, iiutwitlirilanding, it ought not to be supposed that all prejudice is yet overcome. Instances to the contrary occasionally occur. At the particular desire of a friend, a brother of one of the hong-merchants, who was considered dange- rously ill, ret]uested to be attended, at his own house. He was found very sick, but apparently not beyond the power of European medi- cine to recover. A favorable prognosis was given, which had the undesirable effect of encouraging him to try native remedies still lon- ger. The danger of-a day’s delay was pointed out: it might involve fatal consequences: it would be the height of folly to defer calling a fire-engine to a burning house until after all other means of extin* guishing the flames should be first tried—an argument likely to be well understood by a Chinese: but remonstrances were in vain. ‘The foreigner’s prescription,’ said the sufferer, ‘I cannot read, and how can I know what he is giving me.’ It is in accordance with Chinese habits to see the prescriptions of their own physicians, and of men acquainted with books, many have studied the different medical theories that are upheld among them, and pretend to .some knowledge of the pulse, the diseases of which it affords diagnosis, and the appro- priate remedies. Yielding to his prejudices, the patient, after, trying a little longer his own physicians, died a victim to his folly. Just before his death, he desired the foreign physician to be again called in, but it was then too late. “The first in.siauce of death, supervening upon an operation, the circumstances of which will he hereafter given, has occurred during tb« past term, and the result also illustrates the degree of confidence that generally exists. The husband was asleep by the patient’s side when she died. On being Informed of her decease, he pointed upward, saying, ‘heaven has determined it,' a.nd so far from regret- ing the operation, he justly remarked, ‘she would not have lived so long as she has done, but for the medicine and care she has received at the hospital.’ A similar event in any European hospital could not have been attended with less unpleasantness, or have been better understood. The same operation, too, has since been submitted to with all the confidence and cheerfulness manifested in previous in- stances- During the months of July, August, and September, the hospital was closed and under repair, and that at Macao was meanwhile opened, as shown by the Report of that hospital already published. “'Fhe patients that have been admitted during the term are 505; the aggregate since the opening of the institution is 6300.”