Background
Traditional medicine in China has an ancient history. Daoists developed breathing exercises, and some vegetable and mineral remedies, but their efforts were made in hopes of gaining immortality rather than for providing therapy. Buddhism brought new ideas on the aetiology of disease to China, emphasizing the part played by the mind. Buddha himself is reported to have said to Chi Po "You go and heal his body first, I will come later to treat his mental suffering."
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The first hospital in China was reportedly founded by the poet Su Shi in Hangzhou during the Song Dynasty about the same time that St Bartholomew's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospitals were founded in London. Su Shi's hospital employed Buddhist monks. Records from Mongolia mention a man named "Aisie" (Isaiah) who was a linguist, astrologer, and a chief physician to Kublai Khan under the Yuan Dynasty. He opened a Hospital in Peking in 1271. Aisie may have been of either French or Jewish ethnicity. A record of 1273 describes him as a Muslim, but an earlier record as a Christian.
There is no evidence that the Nestorian Christian mission of 635 A.D. or its later mission under the Yuan Dynasty, or the Franciscan Mission of 1294 under John of Montecorvino, engaged in any medical missionary work.
In 1569 the Roman Catholics founded the "Santa Casa de Misericordia" in Macau. In 1667 the Hospital de St. Raphael was founded there as well. The latter is still under the auspices of the Santa Casa, as is also the Lara Reis Cancer Clinic, Praia Grande, Macau.
Jesuit Missions took part in medical work in the 17th and 18th centuries. Xu Guangqi, a Chinese minister, was converted by Matteo Ricci, and baptized with the name of Paul. Jesuit missionaries used a pound of cinchona bark obtained from India to successfully treat the Kangxi Emperor and members of the court for malaria. Brother Bernard Rhodes arrived in China in 1699 and operated a dispensary from his house. The Court officials remarked about him: "He talks little, promises little and performs much ... his charity extends to everybody, to poor as well as rich. The only thing that discomforts us is that we cannot induce him to accept the least reward".
Read more about this topic: Medical Missions In China
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