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

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eturned to establish medical mission work in Jiujiang in 1896. Kang and Shi were two of the<br />

earliest advocates of medical education for Chinese women. According to Connie Shemo in her<br />

study of these two women, they saw Chinese nurses as fulfilling two crucial goals: modernizing<br />

the nation through health and saving souls through Christ. 480 Kang and Shi envisioned a new<br />

Chinese womanhood of educated women, some of whom would marry and reproduce more<br />

educated Christians, others who would devote themselves to public health work and evangelism<br />

controlled by “Chinese women medical professionals.” Central to their mission was nurse<br />

training, which necessarily included midwifery education. They encouraged women to become<br />

nurses instead of physicians because the nurse training period was shorter and could more<br />

quickly satisfy China’s desperate need for Western-trained medical personnel.<br />

Kang and Shi had started their medical work in Jiujiang in 1896 with three students from<br />

the affiliated Jiujiang Mission School run by American Methodists. This school provided the<br />

primary source of nurses for Danforth Hospital. Their training was rudimentary at first,<br />

comprising working in the dispensary, filling prescriptions, attending patients, and reciting daily<br />

lessons.” 481 Shi reported her first class of five graduates in 1909 from Jiujiang’s Danforth<br />

Memorial Hospital, where she treated over 24,000 cases in her lifetime. Danforth also contained<br />

“an excellent school for the training of midwives.” 482 In 1903, Kang moved to Nanchang to start<br />

her work there, and Shi opened Bethel Hospital (Boteli yiyuan 伯特利医院) with her partner<br />

Jennie Hughes in Shanghai in 1920. Shi eventually had over 200 students per year at Bethel in<br />

the attached nursing school and school of obstetrics (hushi chanke xuexiao 护士产科学校). 483<br />

480<br />

Shemo, "'An Army of Women.'"<br />

481<br />

Ibid., 159.<br />

482<br />

Balme, China and Modern Medicine, 111.<br />

483<br />

Shemo, "'An Army of Women,’” 195, Shanghai boteli yiyuan hushi chanke xuexiao (Students of Bethel Schools<br />

of Nursing and Obstetrics), eds., Boteli Niankan (Bethel Annual), (Shanghai: Boteli yiyuan, 1936).<br />

195

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