530
1916 the Superintendent was able to write "Nursing the sick is gradually coming to be held in higher esteem and the difficulty of obtaining well-educated women for training has now largely disappeared - a marked contrast to the conditions which prevailed twenty years ago.
Concluding Miss Ward said: Although I have only talked of the training of nurses in these Hospitals, we do not forget that progress of the same kind has been taking place all over China during the same period. Doctors and nurses from Europe and America, along with doctors and nurses of this land, have been teaching in just the same way and great advances have been made. As early as 1909 the Nurses Association of China was formed, and every year many names are added to the roll of trained nurses from very many training schools.
FIRST OF ITS KIND
The graduation ceremony on Saturday evening was the first public function of its kind held by this Mother School of Nursing in Hongkong. Twenty-four probationers are now under training at the Affiliated Hospitals, the course consisting of three years' general nursing and one year's midwifery.
The proceedings were presided over by Dr. R.M. Gibson, who has been associated with the work of the Hospital for more than 30 years and who has the distinction of being amongst the earlier missionary medical pioneers in the Colony.
Quite recently the Alice Memorial and Affiliated Hospitals in Hongkong issued a booklet giving a short history of the work done by the London Missionary Society since 1843. Previous references to both the Alice and Nethersole Hospitals have appeared in these columns, but there is much additional information in this new, comprehensive booklet.
As early as 1843, Dr. Benjamin Hobson of the London Missionary Society began hospital work here, and with only a few interruptions, this work was carried on until 1853 when the hospital had to be closed.
Though the first effort had to be abandoned, the need still existed and in 1881 a second attempt was made. A meeting was held at which the following gentlemen were present: Mr. H.W. Davis (Chairman), Mr. J. MacGregor, Mr. D. Crawford, Dr. W. Young, The Rev. F. Eichler and The Rev. J.C. Edge (Secretary).
It was decided that a Medical Mission Dispensary should be begun as soon as suitable premises could be rented, that the interest on a sum of $5,000, which had been given as a fund for medicines, should be used for the purchase of medical supplies, and that the Secretary should write to the London Missionary Society asking that a doctor be appointed and supported by the Society, who should devote his whole time to the Dispensary.
Premises were found and Dr. William Young, a local practitioner, took charge of the clinic, pending the appointment of a full-time doctor.
The necessity for this work was due to the fact that the benefits of Western medical treatment were hardly known to the Chinese and little had been done to bring Western medical treatment within the means of the poor. That there was a need for the Dispensary was shown by the numbers who attended the clinics and the Committee soon began to consider the possibility of erecting a hospital.