BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 1911-1923, was a key player in the development
of the First National Midwifery School. Williams had widely lectured and published on the
abhorrent state of maternal and child health in the United States (his Williams Obstetrics is still
in print in its 22 nd edition), and he started the first academic department of obstetrics in the
United States at Johns Hopkins.
Furthermore, PUMC served as a training ground for some of the most influential public
health personnel in China. C.C. Chen, a graduate of PUMC, was simultaneously appointed in
1936 the superintendent of both the Peking First Health Demonstration Station and the Dingxian
Rural Health Station. J. Heng Liu, former director of PUMC hospital, was also Vice-minister of
Health and later Director of the National Health Administration. 458 Marion Yang, a PUMC
obstetrics/gynecology graduate, was director of the First National Midwifery School from 1929
to 1936.
Perhaps most importantly, the China Medical Board and the PUMC graduates like those
listed above advised the Nationalist government on local and national health policy. Dr. John
Grant, Professor of Public Health at PUMC, stated in a letter to Dr. Victor Heiser of the
Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division that he was anxious to get his star
OB/GYN physician Dr. Marion Yang entirely into government service. 459 According to C.C.
Chen, initial Guomindang support of health projects was minimal and the Ministry of Health was
weak. Chiang Kai-shek had first given the Ministry of Health to “a warlord as a token of
appreciation for his support of the party.” 460 However, party leaders were not interested in the
Ministry, so the new warlord minister turned to PUMC to staff his agency and to help formulate
458
Liu Ruiheng was head of the Chinese Ministry of Health 1928-31 and the National Health Administration-
Central Field Health Station 1931-37.
459
Grant, letter to Dr. Victor Heiser, 1926.
460
Chen, Liu, and Liang, "An Investigation on Dow Hospital in Peking (Beijing)," 61.
187