When Doctor Livingstone dedicated his talents and his life to the needs of a hundred million Africans, there were no medical licensing boards to tell him whether he was authorized to give medical aid to those who came under his benign influence. From the time of Doctor Livingstone to our own Doctor Tonge, West Africa was recognized as a needy field for the medical practitioner.
The limitation of the ministry of healing in these lands would have been regarded as unthinkable up until a few years ago. Mission organizations and government agencies were glad to welcome the services of Christian physicians who were willing to devote their lives to this noble enterprise. The native populations learned to entrust their lives to the skill of the missionary physicians, often regarding them as veritable deities. Government officers, missionaries, commercial men, travelers, planters, traders, and other foreigners in these areas were happy that they could call on the Christian doctor in time of illness.
In the life of the native or of the foreigner; in the social and economic life of the community; yes, even in the diplomatic life of the nations and countries concerned, the Christian doctor has played a very important role. So also in South and Central America, and in Mexico. There was, until relatively recent times, a standing welcome to the Christian physician to enter these lands with his service of healing. Many medical missionaries, some our own Adventists, went to these Latin lands and laid the foundations of medical missionary work. There was little thought in the minds of these earlier workers, of the limitations which were to be placed upon their activities in the future. During these years physicians were sent to mission lands as pioneer workers, to open up new enterprises or to replace those who were required to return home.
In more recent years, particularly since the world depression of a decade ago, there has been a great slowing up of the movement of doctors to the mission field. Many hospitals of other societies, as well as a number of our own, have been closed, and others are on minimum staffing because of circumstances over which the mission societies have had no control. Unfortunately timed with this retreat from the field has been a movement of which many have not been aware. In South America, Mexico, Central America, and a number of the colonies of Africa, there has been a growing national consciousness among the medical fraternity. With the organization of active medical societies in these lands, the question of protection against the foreign practitioner has drawn increasingly fiery attention.
At first, only modest barriers were raised. Board examinations were the only limitation in some of these countries for a time. Later the requirement of taking the senior year's work in the country concerned, or taking quiz courses previous to examination, was advanced as a further step. In other lands the requirement was stepped up to taking the entire course in the schools of the country, and in some territories there now stands the unconditional requirement of full citizenship as well as taking the whole course in the country. In some places there is a rising determination on the part of the medical profession to prevent entry of foreign doctors at all costs.
In order that none may feel that these various nations are utterly unreasonable in their demands, it should be mentioned that our own American medical profession is one of the most difficult for a foreign doctor to invade.
Persecution of the Hebrew race has driven thousands of Jewish physicians out into the world's market. These refugees have found their way to Africa, South America, the West and East Indies, India, Burma, Malay, Egypt. the Near East, Arabia, and other parts of the Orient. The defenses being raised. against this group are equally effective against the missionary doctor.
Lands which are already closed, are, of course, outside this present discussion. Our doctors are now excluded from parts of South America, most of Mexico, and considerable portions of Africa. It is too late to lament our inability to place men in these countries. Our respensibility is with the fields which are still open. Other fields are closing, and the process is being accelerated. Are we alive to the danger that within a short time territory which is now freely accessible to the medical missionary may be closed to his entry? Present hospitals and other avenues of active medical work may of necessity be closed with the departure of the present staffs.
Then, as the Indian would say, "What to do?" Perhaps there are constructive solutions to this problem. It would scarcely seem that God has brought our medical school into existence for the limited purpose of providing doctors for this home field. Recognizing the great work which is being accomplished by our doctors in America, we should realize that there must be a wider field of service in lands where the need is even greater.
Might it not be well for us to bend every effort to encourage our medical graduates to find places of usefulness in these needy fields on their own responsibility? God-fearing physicians, carrying successful private practices in the cities of China, India, Burma, Africa, the Philippines, and the Mohammedan lands of the Near East, could become great factors for good when these fields are closed to the entry of new medical workers. What would it not mean to our work in Portuguese territory at the present time if we had several men licensed to work in those lands! Other African territories may shortly present similar problems.
We know that by God's grace the ministry of healing is to play an important role to the end of time. Is it not possible that the present is an exceedingly vital time in which to be planning for the future welfare of medical missions?
