aaaaa HONG KONG UNIVERSITY Quadro
I
THE HONG KONG COLLEGE OF MEDICINE.
N December 1883, Sir Patrick Manson left Amoy and settled in Hong Kong being as a private practitioner. The medical profession of Hong Kong singularly exempt from jealousy Manson came rapidly to the fore, not In 1888 Manson only as a private practitioner but also as a public worker." was mainly responsible for the establishment of a local Medical Society of which he was first President. He also played a leading part in the establish- ment of the Dairy Farm. In 1887 the London Missionary Society opened the Alice Memorial Hospital, and it was in this hospital that Manson started the Hong Kong College of Medicine for the Chinese. The staff of the College con- sisted of Manson and the hospital staff, assisted by the private medical practi- tioners of the Colony.
The College was inaugurated at the City Hall on the 1st October, 1887, and Manson, as Dean of the new institution, delivered the inaugural address. There were grumblers of course, even in those days. Why should Hong Kong saddle itself with the task? Why was not the attempt made in Peking, Tien- tein, Shanghai, or in Canton? Manson's reply was that attempts at medical teaching had been made aud were being made in China; that individual teachers had worked hard and done a great deal. ** Medical Sir Galahads be called them-inen who had buried theruselves in some wretched inland town, surround- ed by squalor, filth and disease, men careless of praise and silent about their deeds. Manson's thought as he met such men was The pity of it!** To do effective work Sir Galahads must fight in disciplined squadrons.
It is hard to say
L
M
Manson saw the difficulties ahead of the College. what sort of a being the Chinese Bob Suwyer will prove to be and we may have trouble in managing and repressing him." But Hong Kong was a great coni- mercial centre and in Manson's view the Colony should be more than that. The promoters of the College were starting with no endowment and no building of their own.
-
Manson saw princes of commerce and finance in America, England and the British Colonies doing kings' work and every year some great lighthouse of learning rising at their bidding to help to illuminate the world. And he look- ed forward to such a man being found in Hong Kong one who would build and endow his college and thus raise a monument to himself more enduring than bruss. Of such a man it will be said He has deserved well of his country."
TH
The primary aim of the College was the training of Chinese students, but students of other nationalities began to join the institution and in February 1907, the Court of the College, with the concurrence of Sir Matthew Nathan had the words for Chinese struck out of the title. By an Ordinance of the 28th March, 1907, the institution was incorporated as The Hong Kong College of Medicine." By March 1910 one hundred students had been enrolled and of these 31 had passed out as licentiates. Of these licentiates, Sun Yat Sen was one.
In 1932 when Manson House was opened in London by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the University of Hong Kong sent its salutations and a gift of fifty guineas.
7
26