III Beginning Medical Work in China
In 1895 Dr. Hü returned to Foochow. She at once began work in the Foochow Hospital for women and children, being associated with Dr. Lyon, who wrote at the end of the year’s work: “Dr. Hü, by her faithfulness and skill, has built up the dispensary until the number of the patients treated far exceeds that of last year. She has also been a great inspiration to our students, not only as teacher, but in right living and in Christian principles.” The following year Dr. Lyon returned to America on her furlough, leaving the young physician in entire charge of the hospital work, a responsibility which she discharged so effectively that at the close of the year her co-labourers enthusiastically declared: “Sending Hü King Eng to America for a medical education was providing for one of the greatest blessings that ever came to Foochow. Skilled in her profession, kind and patient, Christlike in spirit, one of their very own, her influence cannot be measured.”
At about this time Dr. Hü was honoured by being appointed by His Excellency, Li Hung Chang, as one of the two delegates from China to the Women’s Congress held in London in 1898. But she was very seriously ill with pneumonia that year, and for weeks it was feared that she could not recover. A letter from Mrs. Lacy, then living in Foochow, reads: “Dr. Hü King Eng has been lying at the gates of death for nearly three weeks. Dr. Lyon said she was beyond all human aid. Most earnest and constant prayers by the native Christians have been offered in her behalf. We are glad to report a decided improvement in her condition although she is by no means out of danger yet. Dr. Hü is a very valuable worker, not only a most successful physician, but a very superior instructor in medicine, and is very greatly beloved by both natives and foreigners, and it does not seem as if she could be spared. We can but believe that God is going to honour the faith of His children and raise her up to do yet greater service for Him.”
Gradually health and strength came back, and the next year it was reported that Dr. Hü had sufficiently recovered her health to teach one class in the Girls’ Boarding School. A trip to the home of a married sister in Amoy, which gave her a sea voyage, and change of air and scene, completed her recovery and in 1899 she was strong enough to take charge of the Woolston Memorial Hospital.
The Foochow Hospital for women and children is situated on Nan Tai Island, three miles from the walled city of Foochow. The physicians had long felt the need of a similar work within the city walls, and a few years before Dr. Hü’s return from America, work had been undertaken in the city. A small building was erected, in which forty in-patients could be accommodated. This little building was named the Woolston Memorial Hospital, and nurses from the Island hospital took turns in working in it, under the supervision of one of the physicians. But until Dr. Hü took charge of the work, in 1899, there had been no resident physician.
Some years later, in telling of her appointment to this work, Dr. Hü said: “It is very different from what I had heard of the city people being proud and hard to manage. I am glad God created Lot. If he did not help any one else he surely helped me. At the time I said nothing and went, simply because I did not want to be like Lot. No one knows how I shrank when I was asked to work in the city; for when I thought of the place, the pitiful picture of the Island hospital students would come most conspicuously before me. I can see them even now, wiping away the tears just as hard as they could when their turn came to go into the city; while the other students were like ‘laughing Buddhas,’ for their turn in the city hospital had expired. I am glad I can speak for myself to-day that in my five years’ experience I have never had to shed a tear because the people were obstinate.”
Nevertheless the first few months were not altogether easy ones. Dr. Hü herself tells the story of the beginnings of the work: “When I first took up my work in the city here, during the first few months what did I meet? People came and said that they wanted a foreign doctor. When our Bible woman told them that I had just returned from a foreign country, and that I knew foreign medicine, what was the immediate reply which I heard? ‘No, I don’t want a Chinese student, but I want a foreign doctor.’ It made my Bible woman indignant, but by this time I usually stepped out and told them just where to go to find the foreign doctors. It surprised my hospital people that instead of feeling hurt I would do what I did.”
It was only a few months, however, before the city people discovered that this “Chinese student” was a most valuable member of the community. By summer the work of the little hospital was so prosperous that Dr. Hü decided to keep the dispensary open for three mornings a week, even after the intense heat had necessitated the closing of the hospital proper. Some of the patients signified their approval of this decision by renting rooms in the neighbourhood, in order to be able to attend the dispensary on the open days.
During this first year of work in the Woolston Hospital Dr. Hü had two medical students in training, who also assisted her in the hospital work, one of them her younger sister, Hü Seuk Eng. She speaks warmly of their work among the patients, and of the patients’ appreciation of what was done for them. “Very frequently,” she wrote at the close of the year, “I hear the patients say, ‘Truly my own parents, brothers, and sisters could never be so good, so patient, and do so carefully for us; especially when we are so filthy and foul in these sore places. Yes, this religion must be better than ours.’”
Thus, although the work was begun in fear and trembling, and the young physician had some obstacles to overcome, she treated 2,620 patients during the first year, and was able to report a most encouraging outlook at its close.