China and Modern Medicine. By Harold Balme. (United Council for
Missionary Education. 58. net.)—Mr. Balme, who is the Dean of the School of Medicine at the Shantung Christian University at Tsinan, has written a highly interesting book about the work of the medical missions in China. The pioneers had to encounter much suspicion, and were poorly equipped, but the medical missionaries are now welcome everywhere, and the only complaint is that there are not many more of them. Native medical students, both male and female, are now being trained on Western lines, and Chinese women are taking up the profession of nursing. It is characteristic of China that not until 1913 did the Government permit bodies to be dissected for instruction or for post-mortem examination. Mr. Balme says that there are only 1,500 Western-trained physicians in the whole of China, with its 360,000,000 people ; at least a hundred times as many are urgently required. He declares that the medical missions have dissipated the traditional dislike of foreigners, have done much to promote Christianity, and have modified for the better the average Chinaman's attitude towards the poor and needy. Mr. Balme's book will certainly stimulate fresh interest in this remarkable development of mission work.
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