Missionaries and the early development of nursing in China

By the late 1930s, nursing, which had come into being in China in the 1880s, had developed into a profession represented by a well-organized national association with a membership of 6,000, which was continuously expanding by hundreds of new recruits trained at nearly 200 nursing schools all over the country. The progress was remarkable. In retrospect, we can easily discern the outstanding contribution made by the Western medical missionaries. To the latter's dedication, the profession owed its birth and its incipient growth in particular. Trained missionary nurses, following in the footsteps of missionary pioneers, penetrated into all parts of the country to start dispensaries and hospitals literally from nothing. In 1923, China had 53 percent of the missionary hospital beds and 48 percent of the missionary doctors in the world. Missionary nurses constituted 32 percent of the total number of nurses in China in 1923 and their number reached a peak of nearly 700 in 1927. Although the number of medical missionaries, physicians, and nurses was tiny compared to the size of the nation's population, and although their interest in "healing the sick" aimed to serve their primary goal of "saving the soul," their contribution to nursing development in China, especially their efforts in training native nurses at numerous missionary hospitals and nursing schools, can hardly be overestimated. Derived from missionary involvement was another important contributor to the rapid progress of nursing: the Nurses' Association of China. Born in a critical stage of nursing development in the country, the NAC organized the profession and regulated its training through sponsoring registration, holding examinations, and developing a standard required curriculum. Essentially, it played the role of a great organizer and paved the way for the further growth of the profession. Coming from a totally different culture, missionaries had to overcome a lot of difficulty to adapt themselves to the environment in China. The problems they encountered varied from place to place. Geographically, the interior areas were more prone to antiforeign and anti-Christian feelings, whereas the coastal areas were, comparatively, more receptive to new ideas and techniques brought by Western missionaries. Fluctuating with the political developments in China, the missionaries' cause peaked when the nation welcomed them following the quelling of the Boxer upheaval and the overthrow of the dynastic monarchy, and ebbed when xenophobia or nationalism ran high in any form of massive political turmoil.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)