01 The Yang Tze River

Chapter 1 THE YANG TZE RIVER

After three long weeks on the blue sea, the Pacific liner dropped anchor in the swirling yellow flood of the Yang Tze River. In the darkness no hint of the shore line of China could be seen, but the travelers knew that they were at the end of their journey as the lights of the vessel revealed the muddy waters of that great river beneath the sides of the steamer. There was a thrill in this first contact with the land of their quest.

How truly this great river, seen first in the darkness, typifies that endless stream of life that is China, sweeping on through countless centuries, full of old world sorrows and old world joys. The river, rising far to the West in the snows of the Himalayas, brings with its swift deep current the blessings of fertility to all its banks, but also at times the bane of destroying floods. It bears the ships of commerce on its navigable waters for a thousand miles, the artery of trade to the heart of China; but, in its wilder moments, it crushes boats with their freight of teas and silks in the teeth of the rapids in the Yang Tze Gorges. Thus also are the possibilities of good and evil in the teeming millions of the land of Sinim. Steadily down the files of time they have come, virile and strong, faithful to their past in a marvelous conservatism, with unlimited resources of man-power, to pour their wealth into the larger oceans of new world relationships. And yet the mouth of this stream of blessing is clogged by the silt of disease, of plagues and infection from fetid cities, by the filth of immorality in homes and of corruption in state, the deposit of low standards of decaying religions. To conserve the power of the river for the benefits of commerce and agriculture comes the engineer. To purify the life of the people that they may have their part in the Kingdom which John saw as a holy city descending from God out of Heaven, comes the missionary. And of all the special types of missionaries, none serve larger ends than those who with their Bibles bring their lancets and their medicine cases. At first, prejudices against "foreign medicine" must be overcome and skill in healing demonstrated, but the day soon comes when the doors of the mission hospital are crowded with the maimed and halt, the diseased and unclean, and there is more to be done than the one or two doctors in charge can possibly accomplish.

There are only about four hundred and fifty medical missionaries among the four hundred million Chinese. Sometimes a single doctor stands alone amidst a great multitude with no other doctor to assist in major operations that must be performed. And because furloughs must be taken to rebuild worn-out strength, and because sometimes doctors die, perhaps of plague contracted from a lowly Chinese to whom the missionary physician has given himself in sacrificial service, hospitals have to be closed for a year and sometimes longer. Time goes on, and all too few of the young medical students in American schools seem to hear the call of the sick of China. There is little of financial compensation and much of sacrifice; there are few great fees, but many dire needs. The appreciation of those to whom loving and skilled help is given is, after all, the greatest reward. The Grand Canal touches the Yang Tze River near the city of Chinkiang. Following the canal northward for ten or fifteen miles, one comes in sight of the walls and the pagoda of the city of Yang Chow. (Yang here is the same character as the Yang of the river. Chow means district. ) Here the canal begins to twist and turn as a serpent until it passes by the walls of the city, for an evil spirit could enter the city along the course of a straight stream. The canal is crowded with ancient junks, but much of the traffic nowadays along this single outlet of Yang Chow is in steam launches which swarm with Chinese who pack them to their limits. Inside the city walls the streets are very narrow and the odors that rise from the congested population are seldom fragrant. Conditions of life from the modern standpoint are unsanitary and primitive. Chinese doctors of the old school have never been able to alleviate such conditions. At the best their services are inefficient palliatives. What can feeling the pulse in four or five different places and piercing the body with needles to release the evil spirits do to bring health and sanitation to such a city?

Fifteen years or so ago, Dr. Philip Evans, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, and his wife, the daughter of one of the leading business men of Baltimore, entered Yang Chow as missionaries of Jesus Christ and apostles of modern medicine. Not long thereafter, they were joined by Dr. Adrian Taylor and his wife, who came from Mobile, Alabama. Dr. Taylor had made a brilliant record at the University of Virginia and had quite disgusted one of his professors by deciding to "waste" his talents on the ’’heathen Chinese," when he might do so well in America. Later still. Dr. Richard V. Taylor, Jr., with his wife, followed his brother to the hospital in Yang Chow. Calls came to Dr. Evans and Dr. Adrian Taylor to give themselves to training Chinese physicians in two different medical schools, and so shortly after Dr. R. V. Taylor was settled in Yang Chow, he found himself alone in charge of the men’s and women’s hospitals with an enlarging clinic on his hands. He was so occupied with this work that he did not consider it feasible to leave the hospital even during the hot summer months. Day in and day out he ministered to the crowds of sick who came for treatment, seeking always to heal their souls as well.

Back in America, there was a young physician serving out his internship in a New York hospital. In his college days he had been touched by Dr. R. V. Taylor, when, familiarly known as Dick Taylor, he had been traveling for the Student Volunteer Movement. The inspiration of that contact with this enthusiastic secretary, who was soon to sail for China, lived on in this young college man through his own medical course and was one of the cords that drew him steadily toward the foreign field. Perhaps neither of them dreamed that they should one day be together in a medical mission in China, but in the fall of 1917, Dr. John T. Anderson sailed up the Grand Canal and landed at the stone wharf of Yang Chow. He had come to help share in the heavy burdens which were bearing down the strong shoulders of the doctor who stood alone. A short year passed by and the Red Cross Unit with the American Expedition in Siberia began to send appeals to missionary doctors in China to volunteer for service with the Unit. The call came to Yang Chow and though there were only two physicians to care for the host of patients in the hospital and outside, the two agreed together that one of them should go. The decision fell on Dr. Taylor and Dr. Anderson was left in charge of the hospital. On the night of November the twelfth, 1918, Dr. Anderson left for Shanghai to attend a committee meeting of the mission. In crossing the Yang Tze River to take the train, the small sampan in which he was riding was run down in the darkness by a large river steamer and he was thrown into the river and drowned. The great relentless tide swept his body on in the darkness and it was never recovered. After all, what could one life do pitted against that stream? What could one missionary physician accomplish with that Augean task? Wasn’t it hopeless in the beginning? Wasn’t it waste in the end?