marked success with those who permitted her to operate soon overcame their
fear. The results of her skilful use of the knife have been most marvellous
to them. That a young woman of over twenty, who could not be betrothed
because of a hare lip reaching into the nose, with a projection of the
maxillary bone between the clefts, could be successfully operated on and
transformed into a marriageable maiden, seemed nothing short of miraculous.
Nor was it less wonderful to them that an old woman could, by an operation,
be relieved of an abdominal tumor from which she had suffered for sixteen
years, and which, when removed, weighed fifty-two pounds. "The people
appreciate surgery more and more," reads one of Dr. Stone's recent letters.
"A lot of the tuberculosis patients who have seen the quick results from
operations want me to operate on their lungs."
Another large department of Dr. Stone's work has been the training of her
nurses. This has been an absolute necessity, for, as Dr. Stone said: "When
I found I had to run a hospital with accommodations for 100 beds, and an
out-patient department with sometimes 120 patients a day, I at once found I
had to multiply myself by training workers. These workers I selected from
various Christian schools with good recommendations as to qualifications. I
do not dare to take into training any one who has failed as a teacher or in
any line of work, because nursing is an art still in its embryo. To succeed
in this profession one must not only know how to read and write, but also
know arithmetic and some English."
The course of study which Dr. Stone gives her nurses is about the same as
that prescribed by the regular training schools, or hospitals, in America.
To do this she has had to translate several English text-books into
Chinese for the use of her students. The reliable and efficient nurses who
have completed the course and are now her trusted assistants in all her
work, have amply repaid her for all the time and labour she has expended
upon this part of her work.
In an article on "Hospital Economics" she speaks of the efficient service
of these nurses:
"I am blessed with five consecrated young women," she says, "who
have completed a course of nursing and studies with me, and I have
divided the work into different departments, holding them
responsible for the work and for the younger nurses under them. For
instance, one of the graduates is the matron, who looks after all
the housekeeping and the accounts, watching for the best market
time for buying each article in connection with the diet, the best
foodstuff for the money expended, and looks after each and all of
the servants so that they do their work properly. Another graduate
nurse looks after the dispensary, the filling of prescriptions, the
weighing and compounding of medicines, and superintends the sale of
drugs in that department. Another one has charge of all in-patients
upstairs, and another downstairs, including private cases, with
junior nurses under her. These look after the special diet, and the
carrying out of orders in all the wards and the charting of
records. (This is done in English.) Still another nurse has charge
of the operating room, with all of the sterilization necessary for
all major and minor operations, the distillation of water, and the
responsibility of going out to cases with the doctor. In this way
it is arranged that in case of all operations the one doctor has
her assistants in the operating room, and yet does not interfere
with the regular working of the hospital."
"Dr. Stone is multiplying herself many-fold by her splendid training of
nurses in the Kiukiang hospital," is the verdict of Mrs. Bashford, wife of
the Methodist Missionary Bishop of China. She has watched Dr. Stone's work
with keen and intelligent interest, and her opinion seems to be justified
by the results. When after weeks of unusual strain Dr. Stone was persuaded
to take a short vacation in the mountains back of Kiukiang, her corps of
fourteen nurses, five of them graduates, kept up the work of the hospital,
and treated about eighty patients a day in the dispensary. Twice, in answer
to telegrams, Dr. Stone returned to Kiukiang, only to find each time that
everything had been done to her entire satisfaction. "Were it not for the
efficient help I have from my nurses, I should not be able to manage this
work at all," she says.
Doubtless one great reason for Dr. Stone's success in raising up efficient
workers is her confidence in them, and her sympathetic attitude toward
them. "I believe many a valued worker is lost to her profession through
lack of sympathy and encouragement when needed," she once said. "Surely the
Lord values the workers as well as His work, and we who want our work to
prosper cannot afford to ignore the interests of those upon whom we depend
so largely for success."
The nurses in turn have a pride in the hospital as great as the doctor's
own, and are as devoted to it. "The nurses are fine in standing up for our
standard of cleanliness," Dr. Stone wrote to a fellow-physician. "For
instance, when this patient came (a very poor woman) the nurses got hold of
her, bathed her, and put her in our clean, white clothes and tucked her
away in one of these clean white beds in no time.... She begged to keep the
bandages on her bound feet. 'No,' the nurses said, 'such dirty bandages in
our clean bed! No!'"
Writing to Dr. Danforth of her first graduating class, Dr. Stone said: "You
may ask if they are going to run away and earn large sums for themselves.
No, they are going to stay and help me in the hospital work, or earn money
for the hospital. You see, I assign each one to a department of work, and
she is the head-nurse of that department. Then by turn I send them out to
do private nursing, and the sums they earn are turned into the hospital for
caring for the poor who cannot help themselves. Mrs. Wong is nursing Mrs.
B---- of our own mission at Nanking, and when she comes back Miss Chang
will be sent to Wuhu to nurse a lady of another mission. Dr. Barrie, of
Kuling, has written to me to engage several for the new hospital at Kuling
for foreigners during this summer season. I told him I could accommodate
him because I have three other classes in training.... The spirit has been
most beautiful among the nurses. Many of them take their afternoon 'off
duty' to do evangelistic work in the homes of patients."
The well-trained corps of nurses is one of the most convincing testimonies
to that of which the whole hospital is a proof--the administrative ability
of the physician in charge. No detail of a well-managed hospital, from the
record files and wheel stretchers to the hand-power washing machine, is
neglected. Nevertheless the hospital is conducted with true economy. Dr.
Stone defines economy as "the art which avoids all waste and extravagance
and applies money to the best advantage. It is not economy to buy cheap
furniture that has to be replaced all the time. It is poor economy to buy
cheap food and let patients suffer for lack of nourishment.... It is poor
economy to use cheap drugs and drug your patient's life out. It is poor
economy to use wooden beds and have to patronize Standard Oil to keep them
clean. It is also poor economy not to use sheets and thin quilts, instead
of the heavy comfortables the Chinese have, just in order to save the heavy
washing and disinfection. It is poor economy to have cheap servants who can
do nothing. With trained workers to look after instruments, instead of
having to depend on servants, I find instruments last longer." As a result,
the universal testimony of those who visit the hospital is, "Dr. Stone has
one of the finest hospitals we have ever seen."
From the outset the doctor's ideal has been to make the medical work as
largely self-supporting as possible. Of course many of those most in need
of medical aid could pay nothing for it, nor for their medicines, nor even,
if they were in-patients, for their food. Others, however, could pay
something, and still others were able to pay in full. Soon after work in
the Danforth Hospital was begun, Dr. Stone wrote: "Our ordinary charge for
food is sixty cash a day or two dollars per month. For private rooms they
pay ten to twenty dollars, according to the kind of room they have.
Occasionally we meet some generous Chinese who give freely and thus help a
great deal our poor patients, some of whom cannot even pay for their rice.
For instance, one man has paid three hundred dollars this year for his
wife, who is still here for treatment, and will probably give more when she
is through. Another man has given one hundred and forty dollars for his
wife's treatment. Last quarter we received over four hundred dollars, and
this quarter over five hundred dollars here. We are getting to have more of
the well-to-do patients."
A letter written in 1905 tells of ways in which the Chinese assist the
hospital financially: "It has been my privilege to minister unto many of
this poor class of people with the fees I receive from the rich. So often I
find in the morning I earn a good fee, and in the evening I spend it on a
very poor case. Lately I have been sending a subscription book around. I
first sent it to the highest official here, and it was immediately returned
with fifty dollars. It encouraged me very much, for I know the work is
approved of by the officials and the common people, and they are both
helping all they can." Once she reported that at a time when the financial
outlook was unusually discouraging, an unknown non-Christian Chinese sent a
messenger several hundred _li_ with a gift of money to relieve the
situation.
Patients who cannot afford to pay anything, but who can use their hands,
are given sewing to do, and in this way make some contribution toward the
expenses of the work. The nurses, too, who have received training from the
hospital, either give their services or the money which they receive from
private cases. Thus, in various ways, many of the running expenses are met
on the field, but as so much work is done for the poor, the physician's
salary and the larger part of the equipment have come from friends in
America.
Even in the interior of China, and in the midst of the most active of
lives, Dr. Stone has never ceased to be a student. Early in her work she
wrote to a friend in America who was also a physician, "We feel that in
order to keep up in our profession we need occasionally some of the latest
works, especially since medical science is one of the most progressive of
all." Subsequent letters are full of commissions such as, "I need an
English and Latin dictionary very much in the work. Will you buy one--a
good one--for me?" "Will you kindly buy Hyde's work on 'Venereal Diseases,'
not on Skin, for I have that." Or "I should like very much to have a work
on Hygiene. You know the Chinese have such primitive ideas on that subject,
and if I can get a good standard book I can pick out and translate for the
benefit of the people. Then if there is still anything left, I would like a
small book on bandaging and massage, for I want to train new nurses.
Occasionally, when you see something new and well-tested, such as articles
you think will help my work, especially anything on tuberculosis, cholera,
hydrophobia, etc., etc., just remember the back number in China, won't
you?"
With keen recognition of the inestimable value which her scientific study
and training have been to her in her work, Dr. Stone has never failed to
remember the great Source of motive and power, and has ever been eager to
share with her patients the joy and peace of the Christian religion. Every
morning she conducts a service in the hospital chapel for the employees of
the hospital, and such of the patients as are able to attend. At the same
time the nurses are holding a similar service in the ward upstairs. While
the dispensary patients are waiting their turn in the examining room, one
or more Bible women utilize the time by telling them the truths of
Christianity. Dr. Stone's own mother has done such work for years, morning
after morning, among her daughter's dispensary patients.
One of the other missionaries at Kiukiang tells of going through the
hospital one evening, as the nurses were getting the patients settled for
the night. She noticed a low murmur which she did not at first understand,
until she saw that at every bed someone was in prayer. Here a mother was
kneeling by the side of her little suffering son; there another mother of
high rank was praying that the life of the baby by whose crib she knelt
might be spared to her. In one corner a woman had crept out of bed and was
kneeling with her face to the floor; in other places those who were too
sick to leave their beds were softly praying in them.
The nurses are all Christian women, able to minister to the spiritual as
well as the physical. Dr. Perkins says of them: "The nurses, too, are
strongly evangelistic in their thought and effort, and even to one who
could not understand the language, the atmosphere of Christian harmony and
the remarkable lack of friction in a place so busy and so constantly full
of problems, was very noticeable."
One night Dr. Stone went into the room of a patient who had been greatly
dreading a serious operation which she was to undergo the next day, to be
greeted with a radiant face and the words, "Oh, doctor, I'm not afraid now
of the operation. I've been talking to your God." Earlier in the evening
one of the youngest of the nurses had found her crying bitterly and the old
woman had told her: "I'm so afraid of the operation. You see the other
woman you told me of was a Christian and of course your God helped her.
I've never worshipped your God. I never knew of Him before and He may not
help me." "Why, you needn't cry over that!" the little nurse assured her.
"Our God doesn't blame you when no one had told you about Him. Now that you
know, if you love Him and pray to Him, He will help you." Then she knelt
down beside her and taught her how to pray to Him. After the operation was
over and the patient, fully recovered, was going back to her village, she
said to the doctor, "I am the first one in our village to hear of Jesus.
Won't you come _soon_ to my people and tell them."
Dr. Stone's letters and reports are full of accounts of the way in which,
from the beginning, the work of the hospital has brought the knowledge of
the Great Physician to those whose bodies had been so tenderly cared for by
His followers that their hearts were very open. Whole families, sometimes
almost entire communities, have become Christian as a result of the medical
work. An interesting instance of the way in which the hospital's influence
is spread by its patients is the case of a little girl, eight years old,
who unbound her feet while in the hospital, and became so ardent an
advocate of natural feet that after she had returned to the village in
which she lived, she and her father succeeded in persuading three hundred
families to pledge that their daughters should have natural feet.
It is quite impossible to separate Dr. Stone's definitely religious work
from her medical work; for while Sunday afternoons and the chapel hour in
the morning are set aside by her for purely evangelistic work, her
Christian faith permeates all that she does. In the first years of her
practice she did some itinerating work, but now that the work is so large
and she is the only physician in charge, she has had to give that up. The
nurses, however, still carry it on. "You see, while I am practically tied
to the place," writes the doctor, "it gives so much happiness to be able
to send out workers like these and to spread our influence. As the nurses
say, they will be able to send a lot of patients back to the hospital. You
see the more work we have the merrier we are."
Every time an evangelistic worker goes out on the district, one of the
nurses accompanies her, and with ointments, simple medicines, bandages,
vaccine, etc., treats several hundred patients in the country beyond the
reach of physicians. At one time in the bitter cold weather of winter a
message came from a distant village where smallpox was raging, asking that
a nurse be sent to treat the sick people and vaccinate those who had not
yet taken the disease. One woman in that village had once been at the
hospital, and it was through her that the call came. One of the nurses at
once volunteered to go, and with a Bible woman and a reliable man-servant
she took the trip down the river, in a little sampan, to the smitten
village. During four days she treated over one hundred patients not only in
the village, but also in the region round about; for she and the Bible
woman walked thirty _li_ every day to sufferers in the country. While the
nurse worked, the Bible woman preached, and in this way hundreds of people
heard of Christianity for the first time. As Dr. Stone says, "The cry now
is not for open doors, for we have free entrance into the homes of the rich
and poor. What we need now is an efficient force of trained evangelistic
workers to ... follow up the seed thus sown broadcast on such receptive
soil." This need the Training School for Bible Women is helping to meet.
Mrs. Stephen Baldwin writing to Dr. Danforth said, "The Lord honoured your
investment by placing in it one of the most wonderful doctors in all this
world." But Dr. Stone is not only a physician, but an all-round woman. "She
is equal to any sudden call to speak," said one who heard her often when
she was in America. A report of the Missionary Conference at Kuling, China,
states that "Dr. Stone's paper on 'Hospital Economics' was the finest
feature of an attractive conference." At the request of this conference she
prepared a leaflet on the diet suited to Chinese schoolgirls, and a few
years ago wrote a very useful book on the subject: "Until the Doctor
Comes."
"I observed her in her home," writes a missionary who stopped at Kiukiang
for a few days _en route_ to Peking, "a housewifely woman, thoughtful of
every detail that might ensure a guest's comfort. In a single month
recently she treated 1,995 women and children, yet she is not too busy to
be a gracious hostess. Chinese ladies delight to visit her, and such is the
influence of this modest woman that the Hsien's wife has unbound her feet."
It may well be questioned, great as are Dr. Stone's achievements, which is
of more value, the actual work she is doing, or the inspiration which her
efficient, self-sacrificing Christian life is bringing to the awakened
womanhood of the new China. The words of Miss Howe regarding Dr. Stone and
Dr. Kahn indicate their influence: "They seem to be an inspiration to the
girls and women of all classes. When our schoolgirls learn of anything 'the
doctors' did when they were pupils, they seem to think they have found
solid ground on which to set their feet." A letter from another
fellow-worker stated that Dr. Stone was to give the address at the
graduation exercises of the class of 1909 of the Nanking Normal School for
Women at which the viceroy and "other notables of China" were to be
present. Dr. Stone was greatly touched when the daughter-in-law of a
viceroy once said to her that she would gladly give up all her servants,
her beautiful clothes, her jewels, even her position, if she could lead a
useful life like hers, instead of making one of the many puppets in the
long court ceremonies, with nothing to think of except her appearance, and
nothing to do but kill time.
It is a great joy to the doctor to have a part in bringing about a
realization of the achievements of which Chinese women are capable, and she
has been willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do this. Soon after Dr.
Kahn's transfer to Nanchang had left her with almost double work, Dr.
Danforth wrote that he had found a nurse in one of the Chicago hospitals
who was willing to go to China, and asked Dr. Stone what she would think of
having her come to the Danforth Hospital. Dr. Stone replied that while she
would take her if Dr. Danforth wished, she would really rather not, on the
whole. Personally, she said, she would have been very glad to have her
come, but she was eager that her work should accomplish two things which it
could accomplish only if it were purely Chinese: first, that it should
convince the Chinese women themselves that they are able to do things of
which they have never dreamed; and, second, that it should show the people
of other nations that the only reason why Chinese women have for centuries
lived such narrow lives is that they have not had opportunity to develop
their native powers. She feared that if an American nurse came to the
hospital it would look as if the purely Chinese work had failed, and that
it had been necessary to call in help from America.
Accordingly, although Dr. Stone has sometimes been forced to admit that her
work has been so heavy as to tax both heart and strength to the utmost, she
has carried it all these years with no help, except from the nurses she has
trained. She has counted no task too hard, no labour too constant, if she
may thereby benefit her countrywomen physically, intellectually, or
spiritually. "She does not spare herself," one of her friends writes, "she
seems unable to do so, and is too tender-hearted to turn the suffering away
for her own need."
The past year has brought peculiar burdens to the doctor. She carried on
her regular hospital work as usual, until the disturbances caused by the
Revolution came so near that all the women and children in the schools and
hospital were ordered into the foreign concession. This order came at
night, and by two o'clock the next morning not a patient was left in the
hospital.
Dr. Stone turned over the hospital to the revolutionary leaders, and each
day she and her trained nurses cared for the injured soldiers sheltered in
it. The leaders of the Revolution urged her to wear the white badge which
was their emblem, but she told them that while her sympathies were with
them, as a Red Cross physician she must remain neutral, that she might be
able to render assistance to the wounded on both sides. Her explanation was
courteously accepted, and an armed guard was furnished to escort her to and
from the hospital each morning and evening.
When the Manchu governor of Nanchang was captured he was taken to Kiukiang,
where, in chagrin at his imprisonment, he attempted suicide. Deserted by
his servants and soldiers, he would have died alone and uncared for had it
not been for Dr. Stone, for no one else dared to go near him. Dr. Stone and
two of her nurses cared for him until the death which they could not
prevent, but which they made far easier than it would otherwise have been.
It was this same governor who, but a few months before, had refused Dr.
Stone the rights of Chinese citizenship because, in purchasing land for a
men's hospital at Kiukiang, she was buying property for foreigners.
When the leaders of the revolutionary party learned that their prisoner
had committed suicide they were greatly disturbed. None of them dared to
carry the news to General Ma, lest, in accordance with an old Oriental
custom, he should punish the bearer of ill tidings. In their perplexity
they went to Dr. Stone and asked her to take the news to the general.
Accordingly the little doctor, accompanied only by one of her nurses, went
to the general's headquarters to break the news to him. It is significant,
not only of the universal respect accorded the doctor, but also of the new
position accorded woman in China, that these women, who ventured unattended
into a soldiers' camp, were received with every courtesy. General Ma asked
the doctor many questions about her work, and at the close of their
interview exclaimed, "When things are settled once more, I intend to find
support for such a work; the Chinese ought to help it."