MAP-CHANGING MEDICINE 



the uncontrolled power of yellow fever. 

 In their records, for which dates ap- 

 pear to be fixed definitely as far back as 

 the beginning of the Christian Era, the 

 peoples of those times have left evidences 

 of the horrors of yellow-fever epidemics. 

 In their inscriptions they show the dis- 

 ease to have been one in which the patient 

 vomits blood. They called the malady 

 oc-nat-chucil, meaning the "when-the- 

 buzzards-entered-the-house" disease. 



When we remember that, even with 

 modern methods of treatment, three out 

 of every five people attacked die, and that 

 in Maya days the treatment consisted of 

 magic instead of medicine, we can very 

 well see how deaths were so numerous 

 and illness so general that the dead could 

 not be buried. 



And so it has come to pass that sanitary 

 science is able to hold out to humanity a 

 charter of freedom from three of the 

 greatest scourges that have beset man- 

 kind. Nations are beginning to follow the 

 splendid standard raised by Great Britain 

 a half century ago which bears the in- 

 scription, "The people's health is the su- 

 preme law." 



In the Philippines, in Porto Rico, the 

 gospel of good health is America's fore- 

 most contribution to the inhabitants' wel- 

 fare. The United States Government has 

 untiringly sought to cut down the death 

 rate in our dependencies. Throughout 

 the British Empire, in Africa, in India, 

 in tropic seas, British sanitarians have 

 carried the glad tidings of better health. 

 In Indo-China, in Madagascar, French 

 sanitarians, through the Institute of Co- 

 lonial Medicine, have labored with stir- 

 ring success to prevent sickness and cir- 

 cumvent death. In Formosa, Japan has 

 shown how high death rates may be cut 

 down and well-being promoted, even 

 among illiterates. 



Gradually all the microscopic monsters 

 that have challenged man's dominion on 

 the earth are being circumvented. Before 

 the days of Jenner, smallpox was the pop- 

 ular disease, as unescapable as measles 

 and whooping cough now. Men are still 

 living who remember when typhus was 

 one of the great scourges of oar cities, 

 and who recall the time when a full fifth 

 of the doctors of Ireland died from the 

 disease. 



But after all that Western civilization 

 has done for the release of humanity from 

 the terrible scourges that in the past have 

 decimated mankind, there still remains 

 that wonderful one-fifth of the human 

 race we know as China, all but helpless 'he- 

 fore the onslaught of contagion's spread. 



Commerce, as has been well said, car- 

 ries dangerous infections as well as goods 

 and ideas ; but China has struggled to 

 combat them with agencies as antiquated 

 as the oxcart and the pony express. The 

 consequence has been that this countrv 

 has the world's highest death rate, esti- 

 mated at as much as 40 per thousand, or 

 thirteen million a year. 



To reduce this terrible toll by bringing 

 the gospel of modern medicine and sani- 

 tation to the vast hordes of people of Chi- 

 nese blood, American altruism has thrown 

 a king's ransom into the work of medical 

 education in that country. 



Here and there influences were at work 

 for the bringing of the blessings of mod- 

 ern medical knowledge to the great Asi- 

 atic republic. Missionary societies had 

 labored valiantly against overwhelming 

 odds. Christian missionary societies had 

 supported 317 hospitals, besides mam- 

 dispensaries. 



In addition, there were some medical 

 schools maintained by the central and 

 provincial governments, with teaching 

 staffs recruited from students of some of 

 the institutions of Japan. A few rather 

 weak schools were maintained by the mis- 

 sionary activities of America. But all to- 

 gether they constituted only a drop in the 

 bucket compared to China's needs. 



"THE GREEN CITY OF PEKING" 



To-day, thanks to American friendship 

 for and faith in China, the "Green City 

 of Peking" is an accomplished fact. A 

 great medical university, with its faculty 

 recruited from the best institutions of the 

 West, has thrown open its doors, its major 

 aim being to develop in China an adequate 

 corps of trained Chinese physicians and 

 nurses and to establish thoroughly 

 equipped hospitals. 



That university is the Peking Union 

 Medical College. The construction of fif- 

 teen buildings was a sight that interested 

 "young China" very much. The making 

 of uniform sash, door, and window- 



