While visiting our work in the Orient last summer, I had the privilege of spending a week in Mukden, and was inspired by what I saw of our medical work there. As I visited the Shen Yang Clinic and Hospital, I was strongly reminded of the White Memorial Clinic, for this is much like it, except on a smaller scale, Doctor Miracle, who was working alone at the time, could have well kept several physicians busy. On the first day of my visit, as we entered the crowded waiting room at one o'clock, I thought to myself, "The doctor will never be able to see all these patients this afternoon." However, by five o'clock the room was empty, and ninety-six patients had received kindly care at the hands of Doctor Miracle or a member of the nursing staff under his direction.
In a very few hours in this clinic one can see almost all the diseases to which the human body is heir. Here I saw my first case of cholera. Tuberculosis in various forms, Particularly skin and joint tuberculosis, is to be seen on every hand. Leprosy is not uncommon. The Orient would surely be a fertile field for a skin specialist.
In the following article Doctor Miracle has been very modest in telling of his work and accomplishnients at this hospital and clinic. He has been obviously overworking, actuated by a sincere interest in the Chinese and a conscientious regard for their physical and spiritual welfare. The poorer classes are largely ignored and unwanted as patients by other European physicians. They are terribly exploited by the native doctors; hence they find in our Seventh-day Adventist institution a haven of refuge where they can receive competent professional care and the kindly ministrations of God-fearing nurses.
We may well be proud of the work that is being carried forward in the Shen Yang Clinic and Hospital. I was personally highly pleased over the progress there, and feel that we are fortunate in having such a representative work in that important center. It was pleasant to see the smiles and expressions of appreciation on the faces of the patients, in spite of their pain. These folk are truly appreciative of the Professional care, and of the efforts that are being put forth for them every day in a spiritual way. Shall we not earnestly respond to Doctor Miracle's request that we pray for the work in Mukden? At our request he has written this interesting retort of the clinic's activities.
H. M. W.
Fellow medical workers, I should like to take you with me to the Shen Yang Clinic and Hospital in Mukden, Manchukuo, to see how urgently medical service is needed in these parts. In this country sin, degradation, strife, and all the evil superstitions of heathenism are rampant to an extent beyond the realization or imagination of one who has spent his life in a Christian country. The task truly looks hopeless from man's point of view. It surely takes an Almighty God to change the hearts of these people. I believe you would agree with me, if you knew conditions here, that the gospel of the kingdom needs to be preached in no other country more than in Manchukuo. And the means of preparing these people to receive the message which they so sorely need is largely through the medical missionary work—the true right arm of the message.
The glamour of adventure that a worker anticipates when he goes to a foreign field is very fleeting. The daily routine of medical practice in China is tiring as well as stimulating. The host of patients to be seen, the large number of operations which must be performed, many of them as a last resort, the great responsibility, and the knowledge that one is constantly being watched, tax one's strength and cause discouragement. On the other hand, the end results that any modern trained physician gets at times are most exhilarating. For instance, I have seen strangulated hernias of ten days' duration, requiring extensive resection, live and have good end results. I have taken ten to twelve roundworms out of the peritoneal cavity, repaired the perforated intestines, and had the patient recover. One could tell worm stories that would dwarf most fish stories. The good accomplished by the removal of large tumors is a source of pleasure. Many, many enjoyable experiences are bound to come to us over here. We also see many horrible things which have resulted from the ignorant practices of the native doctors, whom the masses usually consult first. Such terrible cases as transverse presentations with the baby's arm pulled off, large ulcers of the extremities with perhaps a foot or a hand literally sloughing off due to filth, the intestines protruding outside and covered with dirty rags and mud, have come to us to receive attention.
And now I should like to give you a little of the setting of our medical work here in Manchukuo, and let you see a few of the things that a missionary doctor must do. At Mukden is the headquarters of our union work for the whole of Manchukuo, and there also are located our two medical institutions—a sanitarium and a clinic-hospital. The sanitarium is located at Peiling, one of the most historic and beautiful spots in Mukden. It is in the center of a big pine woods and on the edge of the burial grounds of one of the old Manchu emperors, who was buried there three hundred years ago. There are thirty-five beds in the sanitarium, and the institution is enj oying an ever-growing patronage from the better class of Chinese. Drs. Herbert and Ethel James have been very busy caring for the work there, with a far-too-small staff of workers. They have had to carry all the load of business management, in addition to the responsibility for the grounds, etc., which is usually outside a doctor's field.
The clinic-hospital, with its new unit just completed, has sixty beds, and is located, in contrast to the sanitarium, in the most crowded district of Mukden. Not only is it in the most crowded section of the city, but also in the vilest and noisiest. The streets are so crowded from one sidewalk to the other that one is forced to elbow his way through at times, rubbing against the dirty coolies as he goes. The cheap street radios literally roar with noise from early morning until late at night. To add to the already loud tumult, the Chinese merchants are shouting their wares, each trying to drown the others out. Then very frequently we see, or mostly hear, a Chinese fight. Their fights are mostly word battles. The man who can call the other the vilest names is the victor. These fights attract large crowds and completely block traffic.
There are several opium dens within a block of the hospital. And there is that most thriving business of all—the government controlled and licensed red-light traffic, with its hundreds of disease-ridden prostitutes let loose to infect the masses. This traffic accounts for the fact that 66 per cent of the population have positive serology tests from an actual count of five hundred routine serology tests on hospital patients. We naturally see many cases of these diseases in advanced, and sometimes in horrible, forms. The incidence of gonorrhea is much higher than for syphilis.
In such surroundings our hospital is located. In the midst of all these vile human iniquities, we are seeking to prepare a people to meet God. We are most fortunate in having a staff of some twenty-five loyal nurses, students, and graduates. These, along with myself and a Korean doctor who is not an Adventist, are trying to care for fifty to sixty house patients and about one hundred and twenty outpatients a day. Besides this, we perform an average of two operations a day and deliver a baby every three days. There is no reasonable limit to the number of beds that one could fill with acutely ill patients, were there space and staff to care for them. This does not account for the pulmonary tuberculosis cases that come to us, for which we should care. However, our space is limited, and the environment is anything but conducive to restoring tuberculous patients to health. I would like to give you a brief glance at a few of our patients who are present in the hospital at this writing, so that you may realize how difficult are some of the cases that we must treat. We cannot call a specialist. On our care rests the life of the patient.
First look at two obstetrical cases. One came in with the head and one arm of the baby pulled off, and the parts so swollen that delivery of the remaining parts was impossible except by small pieces at a time. Naturally, the patient, who had been in this condition a whole day, was already severely infected. The second case had the bag of water ruptured four days, the dilation was complete, the outlet was far too small to permit delivery, the baby was alive, and we were not permitted to perform a destructive operation. Some of the other cases in the hospital now are an ulna fractured in two places, with the head of the radius displaced, a bladder stone, a tuberculous spine, a mastoiditis with a draining sinus, a ruptured appendix, a case of acute cholecystitis with a colon bacillus, cancer of the esophagus, empyema of the left chest—you might think that this last diagnosis is incorrect, but it is not—and many other simpler, yet not so simple, cases.
In spite of the problems that have arisen, God has blessed the medical work in a remarkable way, and we have been able to modernize our hospitals and increase our equipment, so that now we are fairly well equipped to care for most of the patients that come to us for treatment. We have been able to spend about twenty thousand yen on enlargement and equipment here this current year, in spite of increased cost due to war conditions. However, we still need much specialized equipment, and we hope to add it before another year has passed.
Naturally you are interested to know what we are doing in religious work. We have in the employment of the hospital one half-time native minister, one full-time Bible worker, and one part-time Bible worker. They conduct daily Bible studies in the wards and rooms, besides distributing large numbers of tracts and other papers. The patients are urged to attend our church meetings when they are able. Follow-up Bible studies are given in the homes when possible. If you could come into our crowded waiting room, try to elbow your way through, and see the blind, maimed, dead, and near dead, I am certain that you would at first be brought to wonder if one soul for God could be found in such an uncouth, dirty, diseased people. But if you would come on Sabbath to our churches, and note the earnestness of many, I think that you would be aware that missions pay.
We have four churches within the Mukden city limits. To the largest of these, a hundred new members were added last year. We feel that in no small way the medical work is bringing these people to know our truth. The medical work is truly the entering wedge, and far less would be accomplished in these heathen countries if we did not carry on a strong medical work along with the ministerial. I might mention other duties and privileges that a doctor over here has. The business end of the hospital requires the constant watch of the doctor; the nursing school is a big problem; and the language handicap is also a serious one, for one cannot learn a language well and work long hours at the same time. We are trying to establish nurses in connection with our chapels, to help teach our people a better way to live. These stations must be visited occasionally. I have given two lectures recently in the capital of Hsinking, in connection with an effort which Brother Raymond Cottrell is conducting there.
All these things, along with the many other daily problems, tend to keep one busy and on a nervous tension. A worker is kept happy, however, by the knowledge that he is doing God's work. The blessing of the Lord is evident in the results seen, and in the change made in the natives when they become Christians. Pray for our work here in Manchukuo, that we may be able to spread the gospel more efficiently.
