Western medicine in a Chinese palace: Peking Union Medical College, 1917-1951

Abstract

ern medicine, thanks to American philanthropic, learned, and missionary societies, which founded medical schools in various parts of China. The most influential of these was the Peking Union Medical College, known all over the world as PUMC. This institution, financed by the Rockefellers, ceremoniously opened its doors in 1921. Its faculty consisted of a group of young but distinguished American and English medical scientists, many of whom were recruited from Harvard University and the Rockefeller Institute. Until it was seized by the Japanese in 1941, the PUMC was the most illustrious medical institution in all of Asia. After World War II it was re¬ opened and remained in operation un¬ der its original auspices of the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation until 1951, when it was taken over by the People's Republic of China. Thus, with all the interruptions caused by war and political changes, PUMC was in operation as a medical school teaching Western medicine for scarcely more than 30 years. Never¬ theless, it has vitally influenced the development and practice of medicine in China, and many of its present leaders have derived from it their sci¬ entific medical training. This scien¬ tific training is currently being ap¬ plied also to testing the effect of acupuncture, the one aspect of tradi¬ tional Chinese medicine that has most effectively caught the imagination of recent visitors to the People's Repub¬ lic of China. Three years ago, Mary Ferguson, a devoted member and former regis¬ trar of PUMC, published a detailed history of that institution and the China Medical Board of the Rocke¬ feller Foundation. As that volume placed its major emphasis on the administrative aspects of both insti¬ tutions, Dr. Bowers' work is all the