New book covers intriguing story of respected faculty, which counts Sun Yat-sen among graduates and later weathered Japanese occupation
130 Years of Medicine in Hong Kong: From the College of Medicine for Chinese to the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
Author: Frank Ching
Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore
Veteran journalist Frank Ching has published a book documenting the history of the faculty of medicine at the University of Hong Kong. The College of Medicine for Chinese, the precursor of the faculty, opened its doors in 1887. At the time, the British doctors who founded the college saw the colony as a stepping stone to mainland China, where millions of sick and suffering patients required treatment.
Founding dean Dr Patrick Manson had a vision of the college’s graduates forming an “ever-increasing army” that would “reform medical practice in China and be the pioneers of science”.
The college’s first batch of students included Sun Yat-sen, who became the founder of modern China. In 1913, the college became part of the new HKU.
The university’s faculty of medicine, which celebrated its 130th anniversary last year, emerged as one of Asia’s finest after weathering financial difficulties, the Japanese invasion and the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The following are excerpts from Ching’s book.
The genesis of the college
The College of Medicine for Chinese was founded by Dr Patrick Manson and like-minded doctors who gave freely of their time and service. The College, like the Alice Memorial Hospital in which it was housed, was supported by the London Missionary Society. Many missionaries yearning to deliver the word of God to China’s teeming masses saw the British colony as a path into the mainland. Manson, who spent more than two decades in Hong Kong and China, was not a missionary out to save Chinese souls but a medical man who saw Hong Kong as a stepping stone to China’s millions of maimed and sick bodies.
The foundation stone of the Alice Memorial Hospital, on the corner of Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street, was laid on June 3,1886 by Sir William Henry Marsh, then serving his second stint as Officer Administering the Government. The Reverend John Chalmers, who represented the London Missionary Society which operated the hospital, made another announcement related to the Alice Memorial Hospital. “It is intended to make it a school of European medicine and surgery,” he said.
That was the genesis of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. This announcement was welcomed by Sir William Marsh, the acting governor. Up to then, the colony offered no tertiary education and the proposed medical college would be the first such institution.
The first intake, in 1887, consisted of 12 students.
