[On medical risk control in Chinese missionary hospitals in China during 1820-1860]

In the missionary hospitals founded in the nineteenth century by the missionaries in China, the sprout of consciousness of medical risk control emerged. They did their best to avoid medical accidents which might lead to anti-missionary struggle by the Chinese people, and were especially cautious to control the happening of medical accidents. First of all, the hospitals made careful screening on patients by giving priority to those patients pursuing treatment of eye diseases, and barely forced to accept patients with intractable and critical diseases. Second, before the operation, the missionary doctors usually let the patient sign an agreement of consent for surgical operation, with the patient him/herself responsible for all the consequences of operation. Generally, the patient(s) won't be hospitalized, even though the work of their nursing was generally done by the patient's relatives. All these three initiatives promoted the spread of western medicine in China and expanded a positive influence of western medicine, though it seemed to be contradictory to the principles of equality and universal love of Christianity.