Part 5

In addition to the care of her father and the superintendence of the building of the new house, King Eng was kept very busy in the hospital, interpreting for the physicians in the daily clinics, and working among the in-patients. This experience was invaluable to her at this time in giving her a clearer knowledge of the especial preparation needed in her future work. She saw and learned much of the prevalent diseases among the women for whom she was preparing herself to work. She also taught a class of young women medical students, which gave her valuable experience in that line of work.

One of the missionaries has written of the impression she made during this stay in Foochow: "She was kept very busy in the hospital and her home, but she was always cheerful and helpful. Her Christian love and natural kindness drew to her the hearts of hundreds of suffering native women, who felt that there was sympathy for them in her every look and touch. Moreover, the affectionate regard in which she had been held by her missionary associates in Foochow has been vastly increased by her unassuming manner, and the meek and quiet spirit in which she mingled with us in work and prayer through the months."

The new home was beautifully situated, overlooking the river and receiving constant south breezes, which made it cool and comfortable in summer. It was hoped that in its quiet Mr. Hü might live for a number of years, and it was therefore decided that King Eng should return to America, to re-enter the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia in the fall of 1892. On the return trip she said to Mrs. Sites, who was with her, "I have learned to trust God fully, else how could I be going away from my sick father whose every move and cough I had learned to hear so quickly through all the hours of the night, and still my heart be at rest?" Mrs. Sites adds, "Personally, her companionship on the voyage was a continual joy to me, notwithstanding my alarming and wearisome struggle while in Montreal to get permission for her to re-enter this alarmingly exclusive country."

Hü King Eng re-entered the Medical College in the autumn of 1892, graduating with honour the eighth of May, 1894. She spent the following year in hospital work, being fortunate enough to be chosen as surgeon's assistant in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, which gave her the privilege of attending all the clinics and lectures there.

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.

THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN

As Dr. Hü's work grew it fell into four main divisions; the dispensary work, the work among the hospital patients, visits to the homes of those too ill to come to her, and the superintendence of the training of medical students. The city hospital has been crowded almost from the very outset. The situation was somewhat relieved in 1904, by the building of a house for Dr. Hü on Black Rock Hill. This enabled her to move out of the hospital and thus enlarged the space available for patients; but the additional space was soon filled and the building was as crowded as before. Dr. Hü is utilizing the building to the best possible advantage. One of her fellow missionaries writes that every department is as well arranged as in any hospital she has ever seen; every nook and corner is clean and tidy, students are happy, helpful, and studious, and patients are cared for both physically and spiritually.

The hospital records hold many a story of those who found both physical and spiritual healing during their stay there. One day a woman over fifty, whose husband and son had died while she was very young, came to the hospital for treatment. When she was only twenty-two, crushed by her grief, and feeling, as she said, that there was no more pleasure in this world for her, she made a solemn vow before the idols that she would be a vegetarian for the rest of her life, hoping in this way to obtain reward in the next life. At the time she came to the hospital she had kept this vow sacredly for nearly thirty years, being so scrupulous in her observance of it that she even used her own cooking utensils in the hospital, lest some particle of animal matter should have adhered to the others and thus contaminate her food. She was so unostentatious about it, however, that Dr. Hü did not know she was a vegetarian until she prescribed milk for her.

While in the hospital this woman was greatly surprised to hear, in morning prayers every day, that which she could but admit was better than her old belief. Day by day she compared the Christian teaching with her old religion, until finally one morning, after she had been in the hospital about a week, she went to Dr. Hü after the service, and said: "Doctor, your religion is better than mine. I want to be a Christian, but very unfortunately I have made a solemn vow to idols, and now, if I should change my faith, these idols would punish me, my children, and children's children." The doctor assured her that she need not be afraid, since the idols to which she had made her vow were only wood and stone, powerless to harm her. She went off comforted, and a few hours later she created tremendous excitement through the hospital by preparing and eating the first meal of meat she had had for almost thirty years. Some of the patients were much frightened, for the vegetarian vow is considered a most sacred one which, when broken, can never be made again, and they feared that some dire calamity would overtake her. Nothing worse occurred, however, than an attack of indigestion, the natural consequence of too free indulgence in the flesh pots after so many years of abstinence; and the dauntless old lady announced her intention of enjoying many a similar meal in the days to come.

Her home was at some distance, and after she left the hospital nothing more was seen of her until three years later, when she appeared one day, bringing with her several patients for treatment. She had gained so much flesh, and looked so well, that she had to tell the doctor who she was. She said that after she went home, and her vegetarian friends saw the dishes of meat on her table and realized that she had broken her sacred vow, they were indignant and alarmed, and would have nothing to do with her. But within the previous year some of them had gradually begun to come to see her again. "I felt badly for their ignorance," she said, "but, oh, I was very glad to have the opportunity to tell them of what you had told me when I was converted."

At one time a former patient of the doctor's, who belonged to a prominent family in the city, brought an old man of seventy-one for treatment. The rule of the hospital is that only women and children shall be received as in-patients, so the doctor directed him to go to Dr. Kinnear's hospital. But the old man looked greatly disappointed and begged pitifully: "I am a poor old man and my limb is very painful; I-seng (doctor), do help me and have mercy upon me. Do not look upon me as a man, but a child." The doctor's tender heart finally prevailed and she made an exception of him. When the old man was cured he came back to the hospital regularly, every day, for the morning service. After listening attentively for a few weeks, he said to the doctor, "I-seng, I truly know this is a good religion and is just what I want, and I have decided to bow down to this very God."

His health did not improve as rapidly as the doctor thought it should; and upon making careful inquiries she learned that it was because the small amount of money which it was possible for him to earn, was not sufficient to provide him with the nourishing food he needed. She at once gave him some money, telling him to buy the sort of food which would build-up his strength, and not to tell any one that he had been given this help. But this was altogether too much to ask of the grateful old man, and "he went out and began to publish it." The family who had sent him to the doctor were much touched by this fresh evidence of her kindness, and thereafter they sent their son with the old man to the morning services each day, saying: "The Christian doctor is so good and kind. She has not only treated this poor man free of charge but has helped him with money. Surely this religion must be good."

Often patients come from far away villages to enter the hospital. One young girl from a town many miles up the Min River, who became a happy, eager Christian in the hospital, went home with the hope of coming back to study in the Girls' Boarding School the next year. She was very eager to tell the people of her village, in the meantime, of the glad truths she had learned. "I will be the only Christian in the village," she said. "How I wish Dr. Hü and Lau Sing-sang Moing (the Bible woman) would come and tell my people about the new religion. I will tell them all I know, but I don't know very much." One case is related of an old woman with double cataracts, whose son brought her on a wheelbarrow a distance of several hundred miles to consult Dr. Hü. The doctor performed a successful operation, restoring the woman's sight, and thereby earning the title of "The Miracle Lady."

A large work is done every year in the dispensary, where Dr. Hü receives patients each morning. This work has grown from 1,837 cases the first year to 24,091 in 1910, and has made literally thousands of friends for the doctor and her work. When she planned to erect the little building in which she lives on Black Rock Hill many people told her that they were sure the priests, especially those of the Black Rock Hill temple, would strongly object to the erection of a mission building on that site, which was considered a particularly sacred one. But Dr. Hü felt no anxiety in regard to that, for the priests had been coming to the dispensary for treatment for some months previous to the time of beginning the building. "Some have come from Singapore monastery," she wrote, "others from Kushan, still others from those in our own city. Thank God that their illnesses were quickly healed."

She tells of one of the Singapore priests who was so grateful to be well again that he came to the hospital one morning, dressed as for some festival occasion, and bringing with him two boxes of cakes and two Chinese scrolls, the Chinese characters of which he had himself written. These he presented to Dr. Hü with his lowest bow, saying, "If I had not come to you and taken your medicine I would have been dead, or at least I would not be able to go back to Singapore." Many priests even came to the morning services and listened attentively to what was said there.

A somewhat incidental but very useful work carried on largely in the dispensary, by the Bible women, is a crusade against foot-binding. Dr. Hü's useful life, and the important part her strong, natural feet play in it, is a most effective object-lesson; and the annual reports usually record a goodly number of those who have unbound their feet during the year.

The most difficult part of the work is that of visiting the sick in their homes, both because of the great distances that have to be covered, and because in many cases the doctor is not called except as a last resort. One of Dr. Hü's reports reads: "I am very sorry that we do not yet have foreign vehicles, railroads, or street cars. It takes much time to go from one place to another. Fortunately my Chinese people live near together, with their relatives, so when I am invited to go to see one case I often have to prescribe for sixteen or twenty cases before my return." Often when the doctor answers a call she finds that the patient has been ill for a long time, while the relatives have been seeking to obtain help from the Chinese doctor or from idols. She herself shall tell the story of an experience of this kind:

"Last week I was called to see a woman very ill with cholera. Her people had had all known doctors, both in and out of the city, and had consulted with and begged many idols to heal her, but the woman had grown worse and worse, until, when she was apparently hopeless, having been unconscious for two days, one of the doctors suggested to try me. I went at once, and found the room crowded with friends and relatives. They could not tell me fast enough what a good and filial woman she was, but that the idols had said certain spirits wanted her, and no amount of offerings could buy her back again. I told them that the woman was very ill, and that I feared it was too late for my medicine to help her. Many voices replied, 'We know, we know, and if she dies we will not blame you.' With a prayer, and three doses of medicine left for the woman to take, we left them."