08 John Kenneth Mackenzie

Chapter 8 JOHN KENNETH MACKENZIE WHEN the nineteenth century had run just half of its course, there was born in England a boy who was not destined for a long life; but his short life was crowded with work of the most unselfish kind. He was to work and struggle toward a beautiful and noble ideal; and though he died before he had reached the meridian of his life, he left behind him a splendid record and an inspiring example. This man was John Kenneth Mackenzie. He was the son of Alexander and Margaret Mackenzie, and was born in Yarmouth, England, August 25, 1850. though his parents moved to Bristol while he was still very young; and in Bristol his boyhood and youth were spent. His first serious religious impressions were received when he heard Dwight L. Moody, at the time of the latter’s first visit to England, in 1867. A year later, he decided that his path in life should be that which was marked out by Christ, in whose footsteps he pledged himself to follow.

Having made the decision deliberately, he was not satisfied with any halfway discipleship. Ragged-school work, visiting the poor in lodging-houses, and holding open-air services were forms of activity in which he engaged. He worked and prayed for the most depraved men and women, one of the men being a notorious burglar known as " the king of thieves" who professed conversion. Young Mackenzie joined older persons in Midnight Mission work, in which men and women from the public houses were sought, in the hope of reforming them. These were, of course, a degraded and debased class, but in his eagerness to do work for Christ, the young man had courage to undertake the most difficult tasks. In some way, his attention had been drawn to China, and after reading a small volume, " The Double Cure, or What is a Medical Mission? " he decided that he would give up a business career and undertake the study of medicine, with a view of going to China as a medical missionary. At first his parents would not consent to so radical a change in his plans. Some friends, hearing of the obstacle in the young man’s path, agreed to meet together one evening, to pray for its removal. Upon returning home, a few hours later, John Kenneth found his father and mother quite reconciled to his desire to spend his life in China. In October, 1870, he entered the Bristol Medical School, and in four years he was graduated. Later, he attended the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital in London. The day he passed his final examinations, his eye fell on a notice, in a missionary magazine, of a vacancy in the hospital at Hankow, China, which had been opened by the London Missionary Society. In a few weeks he found himself under appointment to that hospital.

Hankow, at the junction of the Yangtse and Han rivers, six hundred miles from the sea, is the throbbing metropolis of Central China. No one who ever visited this commanding commercial center could fail to appreciate its strategic location. Seagoing vessels sail up the river as far as Hankow, to load with tea for England, Europe, and America. Smaller steamers go another four hundred miles up-stream to Ichang, while still smaller vessels begin another lap of four hundred miles, against a terrific current and through deep gorges, to Chungking, in far-away West China, close to Tibet. Chinese junks, from up and down the great river, and from far up the Han, make a veritable forest of masts, fringing the banks of both streams. The scene is one that thrills, and it would appeal to the imagination of any one interested in selecting a field for missionary effort. When Dr. Mackenzie reached Hankow, in June, 1875, several other societies besides the London Mission were at work in Hankow center. He was greatly pleased at the spirit of unity prevailing among the missionaries of the several bodies. Of one of the monthly union prayer-meetings he wrote: "Had a most delightful meeting of missionaries in Mr. Scarborough’s house. The subject of a fuller trust in Christ for missionaries and converts was brought up. The Lord’s presence was very manifest. I am sure we all felt it was good to be there. The spirit of union is very sweet." To-day more than one hundred and twenty-five missionaries of various denominations are working in the Hankow center. Forty years have wrought a great transformation.

Dr. Mackenzie did not find the Chinese eager to receive his religious teachings or to seek his medical aid. Even as late as 1875, and in such a center as Hankow, where foreigners and foreign institutions had been in evidence for many years, the prejudice against them was not easy to overcome. Even the small group of Chinese Christians were often slow to turn to the new medical treatment from the West, but the critical illness of an old Chinese deacon gave Dr. Mackenzie, at the beginning of his career, an opportunity to exercise his skill; though he realized keenly that the failure of the patient to recover would be a distinct blow to his prospects for immediate usefulness. In that case, he would have been charged with hastening the deacon’s death. The foreign doctor in China, in a community where Western medicine is still strange to the masses, is frequently at his wit’s end. Should he receive into his hospital a patient whose chances for recovering were very small? And should he do his best to lengthen life, although he believed there was little hope? Dr. Mackenzie knew that the death of the deacon under his care would be attributed to him, and might result in the immediate departure from the hospital of such patients as were there and well on the way to recovery. He knew, too, that others whom he might help would not consent to come to him for treatment, after the announcement of a death in his hospital. What should the perplexed doctor do?

Some five Chinese doctors, prescribing the usual Chinese remedies, had given the deacon no relief, and in desperation the family consented to call in the new medical missionary. Dr. Mackenzie thought the sick man was sinking rapidly; he considered it his duty to do all he could, although he believed the man to be dying. He recognized the possible disastrous effect on his own professional standing in the event of failure, nevertheless he decided to do all he could. Heroic remedies were employed and presently the sick man responded. In time he recovered and confidence in the new medicine was thenceforth established among the deacon’s friends. In 1875, and for many years thereafter, Rev. Griffith John, whose name was known in missionary circles as simply Mr. John, was one of the most active and beloved preachers of the gospel in all China. He delighted in opportunities for preaching in the villages, and was eager to have the cooperation of Dr. Mackenzie in his cross-country work. In some of the villages the reputation of the foreign doctor had preceded him, and a few patients awaited him. In other regions, hatred of the "foreign devils" was so intense that the lives of the two earnest and intrepid missionaries were actually endangered. In at least one of the country tours, Mr. John and Dr. Mackenzie narrowly escaped with their lives. The people met them shouting, " Go back to Hankow and preach your Jesus there; you shall not come here." Soon the crowd began to pelt the missionaries’ heads with hard clods of earth, and quickly an infuriated mob of more than a thousand angry men, determined on mischief, surrounded the two foreigners. Although they suffered some injury, both men finally reached the home of a Chinese Christian, who gave them refuge and refreshment, despite the risk which he incurred for himself and his family by receiving the " foreign devils." In these later days, when the Chinese have assumed a friendly attitude towards missionaries, it is well to recall the hardships of the pioneers. It is well to remember, too, when the believers were sometimes called in derision " rice Christians," that there were intrepid and loyal Chinese disciples, even in early days, who risked their own lives to protect the foreign messengers of the gospel. The young medical missionary soon discovered that blindness, total or partial, afflicted so large a proportion of the people of China that he could profitably spend all of his time in treating such cases, to many of whom sight might be restored through simple operations. However, he gave himself to general practice, and, as far as possible, attempted to relieve suffering in any form. When the dreaded cholera appeared, he did what he could for those who were stricken, as well as suggested measures to stop the progress of the plague. Then there was always before him the visible evidence of opium’s baneful effects on the Chinese. When it was known around Hankow that the Mission hospital offered hope to those who were enslaved by the drug, they came in such numbers that it was difficult to find places for them to sleep.

Dr. Mackenzie had sailed for China in 1875, un-married, believing that, as a bachelor, he would give more time the first year or two to language study, and wishing to try the climate before undertaking the responsibility of marrying. Griffith John had strongly advised such a course. But as time went on, his thoughts turned often to the English girl, Millicent Travers, to whom he was betrothed in Bristol before he sailed for his distant field of labor. In Bristol they both had been engaged in Christian work, and Dr. Mackenzie felt that, after two years’ study of the Chinese people and their difficult language, he was justified in establishing a home of his own; so he wrote to Miss Travers and asked her to join him in his distant field of work. This she agreed to do. In December, 1876, he journeyed to Shanghai to meet Miss Travers, who arrived early in January. On the 9th of that month they were married and left at once for their station in Hankow.

Mrs. Mackenzie proved a real helpmeet to her husband, taking up at once the study of Chinese which proved, of course, immediately useful. Work among the English sailors absorbed much of her time, though it did not interfere with the womanly task of home-making.

"We are now established in our pretty home," wrote Dr. Mackenzie to his brother, " and it looks both homelike and comfortable, thanks to Millie’s deft fingers." At another time he wrote, " What a joy it is to have a dear wife to look after you! Millie is a splendid housekeeper, and makes the house and surroundings look as pretty as any in the place."

Meanwhile the doctor’s work pressed him hard. During the year 1877, more than a thousand patients were treated in the hospital, and nearly twelve thousand received medicine and advice at the dispensary. At that time he wrote his mother: " The hospital is flourishing more than ever; one thousand and fifteen out-patients one day, and ninety-four the next, all to be seen and to be attended to pretty well by myself. The in-patients, too, are very numerous; we have forty-two beds, but they are full, and many lying on the floor; I am having new beds made. Many of the people come from long distances; twenty arrived in one day from the same town’. Although his medical work made such heavy demands on his time and strength, he never lost his appreciation of the importance of personal piety on his own part nor his original fervor in leading men to Christ.

Sometime in 1878 circumstances arose which caused Dr. and Mrs. Mackenzie to desire a change of field. The necessity for making a change appears to have given them great pain, but, as is usually true when earnest souls accept in faith and courage the upheavals in their lives, or a reversal of their plans, in time they came to see that a greater work was awaiting them elsewhere. The later years of Dr. Mackenzie’s life were saddened by the serious failure of his wife’s health; and although this shadow had not then darkened their lives, the doctor could not but feel that on his wife’s account a change was necessary. Their own preference, if a change must be made, was for Chungking, in Szechuen Province, far up the Yangtse toward the borders of Tibet. But at that time the London Missionary Society did not think it safe for a missionary to go with his family to Chungking and in 1879 they were transferred to Tientsin, the port for Peking, the capital of the empire, and in other respects an exceptionally important city. When they reached Tientsin, they found there was no appropriation for the medical work. A doctor without money to buy drugs! The Mission adopted a resolution requesting the Society to grant money for medicines, but in those days, before the Trans-Siberian Railroad reduced the time for mail between Tientsin and England, no less than five months were required to write to the Board and receive an answer. In his disappointment, Dr. Mackenzie resorted to prayer and invited his colleagues to join him in praying for the needed relief. It was suggested by one of the missionaries that a petition be presented to the Viceroy, setting forth the advantages of establishing a hospital for the benefit of the Chinese, and soliciting his assistance. The memorial, which set forth the neglected state of the city and the prevalence of sickness, was presented directly to the Viceroy of Chihli Province, who was none other than Li Hung Chang, sometimes called " the Bismarck of Asia." This well known man was one of the ablest Chinese statesmen of modern times. Earlier, he had joined ’ Chinese ’ Gordon in opposing the Tai-ping rebellion against the Tartar rule. Later, he was Senior Grand Secretary of State, continuing to be the intermediary between China and the world at large until the war with Japan in 1894. He was Prime Minister of China from 1895 to 1898. The petition to the Viceroy was received by him with expressions of commendation and a promise to consider it. However, two months passed without further word from him. A few foreign drugs had been secured from Shanghai, and Dr. Mackenzie was attempting to help the people, but only a few came to the dispensary. The Chinese of Tientsin were known as especially anti-foreign. However, the period when they were unwilling to accept his help was used profitably by Dr. Mackenzie in acquainting himself with the differences in the Hankow and Tientsin dialects. While waiting, there came a call for service which the missionary considered as a direct answer to prayer. On August 1, the day for the weekly prayer meeting for missionaries and Chinese, when the subject was "Ask and it shall be given you," and the medical needs of the Mission were included in the petitions, a member of the British Legation at Tientsin was closeted with the Viceroy. The Englishman, observing that Li Hung Chang seemed very sad, ventured to inquire as to the cause. " My wife is seriously ill dying; the doctors have told me this morning she cannot live," replied the statesman. " Well* said the Englishman, " why don’t you get help from the foreign doctors in Tientsin? They might be able to do something even yet." The Viceroy remarked that it would be impossible for a Chinese lady of rank to be attended by a foreign physician. In time, however, Li Hung Chang determined to break with thousands of years of tradition, and to call in Dr. Mackenzie and Dr. Irwin to treat Lady Li. Just as the prayer-meeting was breaking up, the messenger arrived.

Three years earlier, in Hankow, Dr. Mackenzie had been asked to treat a sick woman, but he was compelled to make a hole in a curtain around the patient’s bed, through which her arm was protruded, that he might examine her pulse and diagnose the illness. In the case of Lady Li, permission was given to examine and question the patient. For six days the two physicians were in close attendance before she was apparently out of danger. For complete restoration of health, it was necessary to adopt a course of treatment which, according to Chinese custom, could be administered by a woman only, so a certain Miss Howard, who was a physician and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Mission at Peking, was invited to take up her residence, for a time, in apartments especially prepared for her in the Chinese palace. The service rendered to Lady Li was important in itself. It was of very great value, also, to the cause of Christian missions. It helped to open doors that had been locked to foreigners. The daily visits of the physicians to the palace became known to the populace, and the recovery of the Viceroy’s wife was cited widely by the Chinese as evidence of the foreign doctors’ extraordinary ability. Very soon Dr. Mackenzie and Dr. Irwin were besieged by patients. Of the impression made ’On the people, Dr. Mackenzie wrote: " It was a truly strange gathering we found daily collected round the outer gates the halt, the blind, and the deaf were all there, waiting to be healed; indeed, that whole city seemed to be moved. High officials sought introductions to us through the Viceroy himself." One day the Viceroy consented to witness several operations which were performed in the court, in front of his audience chamber. He and lesser officials, with their attendants, looked on while various operations were performed, without pain, to patients under the influence of chloroform. The effect on the Viceroy was immediate and marked. He knew there were multitudes needing treatment. He knew, too, that Chinese physicians could not accomplish what he had seen done by foreigners. He was so deeply impressed that he arranged immediately for a room, just outside his official residence, to be placed at the disposal of Dr. Mackenzie as a dispensary; and when it became evident that a single room would not suffice, he set apart an entire quadrangle in one of the finest temples in the city, placing over the entrance his three official titles and the words " Free Hospital." At the same time, he made a contribution of two hundred taels for the purchase of medicines, and gave commissions to the medical missionaries to attend his family at his official residence, as well as to conduct the free hospital at the temple. The entire cost of the conduct of the hospital, not including the missionary’s salary which was paid by his Society, was defrayed by the Viceroy. Dr. Howard, who had attended Lady Li, was transferred from Peking to Tientsin, where she and her assistants took complete charge of the department for women, in the medical work at the temple.

Although a great work was done at the dispensary, as many as two hundred and fifty persons sometimes waiting in front of the doors for treatment, Dr. Mackenzie felt the need of a properly equipped hospital: and wealthy patients, who had been treated at the dispensary, were ready to help. A certain general who had been treated at a hotel subscribed five hundred taels, and the Prefect of the city gave three hundred, while another official contributed a thousand. When the Viceroy heard of the movement, he authorized a public appeal for funds, and he himself offered to give a thousand taels. Grateful patients alone contributed sufficient money to clear the ground on the Mission compound and to complete one ward. The hospital was erected in the best style of Chinese architecture, and when it was opened, the public exercises were attended by Chinese officials and foreign diplomats. It was supported entirely from native sources. The Viceroy was much interested in what he had heard regarding vaccination as a protection against the ravages of smallpox. He sent for Dr. Mackenzie to vaccinate his little son, and he suggested that the medical missionary establish a vaccine department to help, in a large way, to safeguard the lives of the Chinese. In the pressure of many duties that had come to him, where at first nearly all doors seemed closed, Dr. Mackenzie wrote to one of his friends, " The work now is only limited to one’s strength and capacity. May God give us strength in our great weakness." In the midst of his successful work at the hospital, when all indications pointed to war between China and Russia, Dr. Mackenzie met two Englishmen of distinction at Tientsin. One was Sir Thomas Wade, British Minister, to whom Li Hung Chang gave a banquet. Six foreigners (among them Dr. Irwin and Dr. Mackenzie) and eight Chinese were invited. At the banquet, the Viceroy spoke to his guest most appreciatively of the medical missionary work, which was an extraordinary occurrence at a time when the motives of all missionaries were usually misunderstood. The other distinguished Englishman was General Charles George Gordon. His command, in 1863, of the Chinese force known as the " Ever Victorious Army," against the Tai-ping rebellion, which was put down in thirty-three engagements, led to his being known in history as " Chinese Gordon." Dr. Mackenzie was especially pleased with General Gordon, then in China acting as adviser to the Government in its relations with Russia. General Gordon was a sincere Christian, and Dr. Mackenzie characterized him as " a man making all love him who came near him;" and with religion a vital part of his life, though he appeared to abominate anything approaching cant.

After the year 1880, Mrs. Mackenzie’s delicate health made it impossible for her to continue in China, and she returned to England with her little daughter. In 1882 they went back to China, but it seemed clear that Mrs. Mackenzie could not endure the climate of that country. The doctor, with a sad heart, took his wife to London, where he remained five months on the only furlough of his missionary career. In July, 1883, he set sail for China. The last four and a half years of service for China were given at great cost to the entire family, but so much appeared to depend on the doctor’s continuance at his post, that they accepted the sacrifice involved.

One of his most significant achievements was the establishment, at Tientsin, of a small medical college which had the support of the Government. Some years earlier, a number of promising lads, ten or twelve years of age, from good families, had been sent to America for education in medicine. As there were few facilities in China for teaching these young men the branches which must be studied in advance of a medical course, they were necessarily in America so long, during the formative period of their lives, that they departed from Chinese customs and modes of thought. After ten years abroad, when the most advanced students were only halfway through a regular college course, they were called back to China. It is now customary to have Chinese students complete a college course in their own land before going abroad for professional training, and the results are encouraging. When Dr. Mackenzie heard of the return of these students, he requested the Viceroy to place eight of them in his charge, for the study of medicine and surgery for use in Government service. The proposal was accepted promptly, and the first Government medical school in China was opened in December, 1881. Dr. Atterbury of Peking, and many of the medical officers of English and American naval detachments at Tientsin, cheerfully assisted in the medical work. At times, however, the missionary was a " whole medical faculty in himself." In October, 1884, six students received diplomas. By 1887, nineteen young men had completed the medical course.

It is regrettable that more cannot be said regarding the numerous activities of this remarkably useful man. The establishment of a hospital for foundlings (a feature of the organization of the China Medical Missionary Association), his work in the country around Tientsin, his love for the Bible, his belief in prayer, and his growth in grace, in the years immediately before his death, in 1888, are topics of deep interest. But a man who was ’a whole medical faculty in himself" had no time to recount his achievements in journals or letters. Moreover, the making of such a record was wholly; at variance with the character of the man. There was work to do, and he did it. The motto of his life seems to have been based on this fact.

Dr. John Kenneth Mackenzie had achieved a notable success before he passed away, at thirty-seven years of age. At the time of his death, his life appeared to have ended abruptly. But now it is easy for his friends to discover a symmetry and completeness in his work, although his activity ceased at an age when most men are but beginning to see clearly the meaning of life. In thirteen years of active service, he did much to overcome the deep prejudice of the conservative and self-satisfied Chinese against Western medicine. He was permitted, too, to treat successfully multitudes of suffering persons, to establish a hospital that was supported chiefly by prominent Chinese, to found and conduct the first medical school with Government support in the Chinese Empire, and to tell many of his patients of the Great Physician.

Late in March, 1888, the busy missionary contracted a severe cold, and with his powers of resistance lowered, through the severe strain in body, mind, and heart, fever set in, and the good man entered into rest and reward on Easter Day, April 1, 1888.

Much of the interest of the Chinese in the medical work at Tientsin ceased with Dr. Mackenzie’s death. But he had helped to lay the foundations of that which we find in China to-day, where great medical schools are being established, and where Chinese physicians are demonstrating their ability and their readiness to serve in the spirit of Christ, as they minister to their own people. In the days that have passed since Dr. Mackenzie encountered the strong Chinese prejudice against Western medicine, a great change has come over the land where, as a pioneer, he did notable work in laying foundations upon which a large superstructure is now in process of erection. Indeed, much of the superstructure is already erected.

It is not strange, now, to find trained Chinese physicians in charge of hospitals. At Kiukiang, on the banks of the Yangtse River, only a few hours’ sail from Hankow, where Dr. Mackenzie began his missionary career, may be found a thoroughly modern hospital, conducted by the well known Christian Chinese woman, Dr. Mary Stone, and her large staff of well-trained assistants and nurses. This single hospital, including its dispensary, gives almost 25,000 treatments during a single year to the suffering people in its vicinity. Occasionally, its capable and successful superintendent leaves the hospital entirely in the hands of other Chinese women, while she comes to America for special study. In missionary institutions, many Chinese physicians are associated with medical missionaries, while the number of institutions established by the Chinese, independent of foreign help, increases steadily. Recently a central hospital at Peking has been opened, with three resident Chinese physicians, graduates of medical colleges in China and Japan, and seven visiting physicians. The building was erected at a cost of more than $250,000, and the work is maintained at an expenditure of $4,000 a month. As soon as the hospital was opened, patients came at the rate of a thousand a month, but as only small fees were charged, the income was inconsiderable. It is a fine tribute to public-spirited Chinese physicians at Peking, and their generous supporters, that such an institution, without connection with any religious organization,; is being conducted on such a large scale and so successfully.

While the foreigner may be said to have led the way in most of the modern medical movements in China, to-day there are numerous Chinese who are deeply interested in whatever pertains to the health of the people. The Red Cross is well known in many sections, especially by reason of the splendid service rendered under the leadership of medical missionaries in the revolution of 1911, and in subsequent political upheavals, when thousands of wounded soldiers were cared for in a field hospital or in mission compounds. After a severe engagement, in one of the recent revolutions in Szechuen Province, as many as twelve hundred wounded soldiers received attention in the hospital and other buildings of a single mission. The example set by medical missionaries is being followed by the Chinese themselves.

There is a growing interest in public health education. The National Medical Association in China and the China Medical Missionary Association are doing their best, with the support that is given them, to conduct a nation-wide campaign against tuberculosis and other diseases, through the education of the public. Sanitation and hygiene are being taught publicly and privately. In this movement, the Chinese and the medical missionaries are cooperating cordially, and they have worked out plans, the execution of which will be an inestimable blessing to the nation, whenever friends can be found who will support it adequately.

To-day there are several medical colleges in China in which Western medicine is being taught, some with, and others without, missionary support. At Peking and Shanghai great colleges are being established by the China Medical Board, which will endeavor to give instruction of as high grade as can be found in similar institutions in America or Europe. The China Medical Board generously recognizes the foundation-work of those pioneers who, with inadequate support, did much to prepare the way for what is now possible. It seems only a matter of a few years before the great work of ministering to the suffering millions in China will be undertaken chiefly by well-trained Chinese physicians. As the larger day dawns, it is apparent that the missionaries were the pioneers in medical work, as well as in education in the Orient, and among the pioneers must be counted the devoted and faithful worker, John Kenneth Mackenzie.