An appeal to the religious and benevolent public on behalf of a proposal to establish a medical school for the natives of China, in connection with the Chinese medical mission at Hong-Kong / [Benjamin Hobson].

  • Hobson, Benjamin, 1816-1873.
Date:
[1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the religious and benevolent public on behalf of a proposal to establish a medical school for the natives of China, in connection with the Chinese medical mission at Hong-Kong / [Benjamin Hobson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    a effected, to educate and qualify the natives themselves for the office of evan- gelists and teachers. And if a similar agency can be brought into operation to introduce the practice of a more enlightened system of medicine, and to diffuse it to others, it requires no prophetic eye to predict that it would be one of the most effectual means of overturning the present erroneous systems, and substituting in their place the more modern and correct views and practice of the European schools ; this united to the diffusion of Christian truth, would prove incompatible with the continuance of paganism, superstition, and error, and increase a hundred-fold the happiness of the people of China. . The plan now proposed is to commence a permanent establishment of this kind at the British Colony, to be called, The Hong-Kong School of Medi- cine for the natives of China. To show the necessity of such an institution, it may be here mentioned in a few words, that there is no university, college, or examining board, to educate or exercise any control over native practitioners, so that their knowledge is confined to books that were written 2000 years ago, utterly false and absurd in theory, and ineffective in practice. The true circulation of the blood is unknown, and all anatomical research discountenanced and forbidden. Sur_ gical operations, except of the most trivial kind, are never attempted, and even diseases of the eye, affecting as they do so large a portion of the native population, are equally misunderstood and mismanaged. The importance of the above object will be best shown by mentioning some of the advantages that would result from its accomplishment. Such are—the more effectual and extended relief of the maladies incident to so large a population,—the gradual introduction and extension of abetter system of medicine, and other useful branches of knowledge,—and the liberalizing influence of these upon the Chinese mind. Medicine is intimately connected with many of the natural sciences, which strikingly display the wisdom and beneficence of the great Creator, and to which the attention of the students would be carefully directed. These studies, together with moral and reli- gious training, will, with the Divine blessing, prove a powerful instrument of good, by forming a class of men of superior talents and acquirements, well suited to move and remodel the torpid, stereotyped mind of China. It may be little by little, and step by step, that such a change upon the ancient customs of the country will be accomplished; but this kind of agency does appear to many to be that which is most likely to attain the proposed end. To show that the scheme is not a visionary one, it is proper to state that it has been tried on a small scale, and found successful. A native assistant is now conducting (with only occasional supervision in im-