![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
This study examines the significant contributions of Hume in the early twentieth-century, focusing on his establishment of the first Western medical institutions in China and his deep engagement with Chinese medical communities. It explores how Hume's experiences led to a profound appreciation for Chinese culture and medicine, marking him as a key figure in the introduction of Chinese medicine to the West. Through analysis of Hume's interactions and the historical context of China's modernization, the paper offers fresh insights into the East–West exchange and Hume's transformation from a missionary to a pioneering advocate of Chinese medicine.
Notes
1 Anping Xiao, “The Influence of Church-Run Universities and Hospitals on China's Modernization,” Chinese Theological Review: 1989 (Holland: Foundation for Theological Education in South Asia, 1990), 52.
2 John King Fairbank, “Assignment for the ‘70’s,” The American Historical Review, 74, no. 3 (February 1969); James Reed, The Missionary Mind and American East Asia Policy, 1911–1915 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1983); D. E. Mungello, “Reinterpreting the History of Christianity in China,” The Historical Journal, 55, no. 2 (2012); Daniel H. Bays, Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011); Xi Lian, The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907–1932: (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); Eugenio Menegon, Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial China (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.: 2009).
3 Tao Feiya, “Western Missionaries’ Change of Heart in Relation to Traditional Chinese Medicine,” Historical Research, 327, no. 61 (2010). Chinese.
4 Lian, The Conversion of Missionaries.
5 The five cities were Canton, Amoy, Foo-chow, Ning-po, and Shanghai. Kenith S. Latourette, The Development of China (Cambridge: The Binerside Press, 1964), 146.
6 There were five wars: “The Opium War” 1840, “Arrow War” 1857–1860, war with France 1885, Sino-Japanese War 1894–1905, the Russia-Japanese War 1905.
7 Before the arrival of missionaries, European commercial adventurers were largely unaware of China's ancient culture. Unfamiliar with the elaborate ceremonial practices and customs of Chinese etiquette, they often neglected these protocols, despite being instructed by the Chinese to learn the appropriate rituals before engaging with officials. For example, people of inferior status were expected to perform the “Kow-Tow” before their superior -- kneeling and touching the forehead to the floor or ground. The kow-tow was considered humiliating by the Westerners and they refused to comply. The Chinese in turn, regarded them as uncouth barbarians. John F. Donovar, The Pagoda and the Cross (New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1967), 24.
8 Lloyd Eastman, “The Kwangtung Anti-Foreign Disturbances during the Sino-French War,” Papers on China, 13 (December 1959): 4.
9 Ellsworth C. Carlson, “Obstacles to Missionary Success,” Asian Studies (Summer 1965), 24–25.
10 Ibid., 19.
11 By Treaty of Tientsin (1860), further ports, coasts and inland, were opened for trade and residence. Also by virtue of the Toleration Clauses in the Tientsin Treaty, missionaries were allowed to proceed anywhere, protection guaranteed to them and their “work.” Alice H. Gragg, China and Educational Autonomy (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1946), 3. For a short time after Stephen Johnson of the American Board arrived in Foochow -- via opium ship -- he lived with an opium captain; some houses acquired by the missionaries were formerly occupied by opium captains. For a couple of years, the missionaries in Foochow had to visit the opium ships outside the harbor in order to get their foreign drafts changed into silver dollars. Ibid., 21.
12 Prince Kung (1833–1898), a younger half-brother of the Emperor Hsien-feng, was designated as the Emperor's representative to deal with the victorious British and French envoys, while the Emperor fled from Peking. During the T'ung-Chin period (1860s), he joined the regency, and became the head of the Grand Council as well as of the Tsungli Yaman, in a position to act both for the throne and for the central government. Suu-Yu Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), 47. 89.
13 The agreement on opium is contained in the fifth of the Rules of Trade made in pursuance of Article 26 of the Tientsin Treaty (November 8, 1858). W. F. Mayers, Treaties between the Empire of China and Foreign Power, (Shanghai, 1902), 28. Hilary J. Beattie, “Protestant Missions and Opium in China, 1858–1895,” Papers on China, 22A (May 1969): 126.
14 William E. Soothill, A Mission In China (London: Oliphant Anderson, and Ferrier, 1970), 149.
15 K. Chimin Wong, Chinese Medicine (New York: AMS Press, 1973).
16 Jonathan Spence, To Change China, Western Advisers in China 1620–1960 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), 161.
17 Both Oxford and Cambridge had sponsored educational missions in India in the nineteenth century. The references herein were to the Oxford mission at Calcutta and the Cambridge mission at Delhi. Reeves, “Sino-American Cooperation,” 131, 175. Hume, Dauntless Adventurer, The Story of Winston Pettus (New Haven: Yale-in-China Association, Inc., 1952), 30.
18 President Hadley's commencement report, June 1902. Yale-in-China Archives, Yale University Library.
19 Spence, To Change China, 162.
20 Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China (Taipei: Ch'eng-Wen Publishing Company, 1966), 604.
21 Latourette, Christian Missions in China, 604.
22 Spence, To Change China, 162.
23 Ibid.
24 Reuben A. Holden, Yale-in-China: The Mainland, 1901–1915 (New Haven: The Yale-in-China Association, 1964), 30–31.
25 William Reeves, Jr., “Sino-American Cooperation in Medicine: The Origins of Hsiang-Ya (1902–1914),” in American Missionaries in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 134.
26 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1946), 19–20.
27 Reeves, “Sino-American Cooperation,” 136.
28 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 20.
29 Ibid., 21.
30 Ibid., 21–22.
31 Ibid., 22.
32 Lotta Carswell Hume, Drama at the Doctor's Gate (New Haven: The Yale-in-China Association, Inc., 1961), 12–17.
33 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 23.
34 Lloyd Eastman, “The Kwangtung Anti-Foreign Disturbances during the Sino-French War,” Papers on China, 13 (December 1959): 4.
35 Ibid., 19.
36 Ibid., 28.
37 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 32.
38 Ibid., 38–39.
39 Ibid., 39.
40 Spence, To Change China, 164.
41 Yale-in-China Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., letter Hume to A. C. Williams, Kuling, March 27, 1906.
42 Ibid., Hume to E. B. Reed, September 11, 1905.
43 Bible, John 5: 2–9.
44 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 59–61.
45 Ibid., 85.
46 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 108–9.
47 Hume, Doctors Courageous, 2–3.
48 Ibid., 2–3.
49 Ibid., 3.
50 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 76.
51 Ibid., 77.
52 Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1940), 112–3.
53 Ibid., 114.
54 Ibid., 16.
55 Edward H. Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1940).
56 K. Chimin Wong, Chinese Medicine (New York: AMS Press, 1973).
57 The contemporary Pa Kua, slightly different from the original, is depicted as a circle divided by a double curved line into two pear-shaped sections, representing Yang and Yin, the fundamental forces of nature. See Hume's explanation in The Chinese Way in Medicine, 63 & 67.
58 Wong, History of Chinese Medicine, 16–17.
59 Ibid., 53–56.
60 Celebrated for his diagnostic skills, Chang was renowned as the era's most famous doctor. He is particularly remembered for his work “Shang Han Lun – Essay on Typhoid,” a key medical classic in China, covering not only typhoid but other fevers as well. Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine, 78–79.
61 Li dedicated 27 years to writing Great Herbal, referencing 360 medical and 591 other treatises, and consulting 41 special medical monographs. The book discusses 1892 substances, including 1074 plants, 443 animal substances, and 354 minerals, introducing 374 substances for the first time. It contains 11,091 prescriptions and is illustrated with 142 rudimentary drawings. Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine, 110–11.
62 Marilynn M. Rosenthal, Health Care in the People's Republic of China (Boulder: Western Press, 1987), 37.
63 These needles, categorized as hot or cold, targeted 365 body points linked to internal organs. Moxibustion involved burning Artemisia tinder on or near the skin, often at the same points used in acupuncture. Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine, 85.
64 Ibid., 50–60.
65 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 116–19.
66 In old custom, when a bride came to her husband's home, his mother became her mother and had all the authority.
67 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 116–22.
68 Ibid., 184.
69 Ibid., 183–92.
70 Ibid., 66.
71 Ibid., 65–67.
72 Hume, The Chinese Way in Medicine, 129–30.
73 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 146.
74 Ibid., 138.
75 Hume, Doctors Courageous, 244.
76 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 167–68.
77 Hume, Doctors Courageous, 244–45.
78 Reeves, “Sino-American Cooperation,” 147.
79 Holden, Yale in China, 140.
80 Yen, “The Hunan-Yale Medical College,” 702–3.
81 Ibid., 630.
82 In 1927, Hume felt that he had reached the goal which he had set for himself in China. In his letter to the Board of Trustees of Yale-in-China he explained his feelings as "The turning over of the Hsiang Medical College to a Chinese Board of Directors marks the completion of the task for which I left India in 1905. It was my hope at that time, to take part in building up medical education in China under Chinese auspices."82 So, he resigned his office at Hsiang-Ya in 1927, and returned to the United States. L. C. Hume, Drama at the Doctor's Gate, 147–48.
83 Edward Hume's key presentations and publications on Chinese medicine include:
May 8, 1929: Presented “Medicine in China, Old and New” at the New York Academy of Medicine, later published in the 1930 Annals of Medical History (Vol. 2) (3): 272–80 and reprinted in The Open Court in 1934 (4): 242–51, 252.
November 1, 1933: Presented “A Note on Narcotics in Ancient Greece and Ancient China” at the New York Academy of Medicine, published in Bull NY Aca Med in 1934 (10):618.
1934: Published “The Square Kettle” in the Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine.
April 6, 1937: Presented “Some Foundations of Chinese Medicine” in Shanghai, published in Chinese Medical Journal in 1942, 61 (5): 298.
March 7, 9, & 19, 1938: Delivered the Hideyo Noguchi Lectures on Chinese medicine at Johns Hopkins University, later compiled into the book “The Chinese Way in Medicine” (1940).
1941–42 to 1954–55: Appointed lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, teaching Chinese medicine, and invited Chinese medicine scholars like Dr. P.C. Hou to lecture in 1947.). Sigerist HE. Report of the activities of the Institute of the History of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University: during the academic year 1938–1939 in Bulletin of the History of Medicine 7(7): 847. Ibid., 14: 566 (2): 567 (1947).
January 14, 1953: Presented “Relationships in Medicine between Asia and the Western World” at the New York Academy of Medicine.
84 J. G. Vaughan, “Foreign Outlook,” Methodist Review (March, 1931), 290.
85 Hume, Doctors Courageous, 14.
86 Hume, Doctors East, Doctors West, 17.
87 Hume, Doctors Courageous, 2.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Liyan Liu
Liyan Liu is Professor of History at Georgetown College. Her primary research interest is the Chinese intellectual and social history of the late Qing and early Republican periods. His major works include Red Genesis: The Hunan First Normal School and the Creation of Chinese Communism, 1903–21 (SUNY Press 2012). Correspondence to: Liyan Liu, Department of History, Georgetown College, 400 East College Street, Georgetown, KY 40514, USA.