I - WITH UNBOUND FEET

On the “first day of the third moon” of the year 1873, a young Chinese father knelt by the side of his wife and, with her, reverently consecrated to the service of the Divine Father the little daughter who had that day been given them.  They named her “Maiyue,” ­“Beautiful Gem” ­and together agreed that this perfect gift should never be marred by the binding of the little feet.  It was unheard of!  Even the servant women of Kiukiang would have been ashamed to venture outside the door with unbound feet, and the very beggar women hobbled about on stumps of three and four inches in length.  No little girl who was not a slave had ever been known to grow up with natural feet before, in all Central or West China.  That the descendant of one of the proudest and most aristocratic families of China, whose genealogical records run back without a break for a period of two thousand years, little Shih Maiyue, should be the first to thus violate the century-old customs of her ancestors, was almost unbelievable.

Even the missionaries could not credit it, not even Miss Howe, whose interest in the family was peculiarly keen, since Maiyue’s mother was the first fruits of her work for Chinese women, and had ever since been working with her.  To be sure Mrs. Shih had said to her, “If the Lord gives me a little daughter I shall not bind her feet.”  But Miss Howe had made so many efforts to induce the women and girls with whom she had worked to take off the crippling bandages, without having been successful in a single instance, that she did not build her hopes on this.  One day, when calling in the home and seeing little Maiyue, then five years old, playing about the room, she remarked, “My dear Mrs. Shih, you will not make a good job of it unless you begin at once to bind little Maiyue’s feet.”  But Mrs. Shih never faltered in the purpose which she and her husband had formed at the little girl’s birth, and promptly answered, “Did I not tell you I should not bind her feet?”

The first years of Maiyue’s life were unusually happy ones.  Her father was a pastor in the Methodist church, and had charge of the “Converting to Holiness” chapel in Kiukiang; her mother was successfully conducting a day school for girls.  From her mother Maiyue received much of her earliest instruction and before she was eight years old she had studied several of the Chinese classics and memorized the Gospel of Matthew and the catechism in Chinese so thoroughly that she has never forgotten them.

But as she approached the age when custom required that her feet should be bound, the little girl discovered that the way of the pioneer is not an easy one.  The unbound feet were a constant source of comment and ridicule, not only by older people, but by other children as well.  She was stopped on her way to school one day by an older girl, who taunted her with her “big feet” and refused to let her pass unless she would kneel down and render obeisance to her own bandaged stumps.  The small descendant of the proud house of Shih absolutely refused to submit to such humiliation; but it was only after her mother’s assistance had been invoked that she was allowed to proceed on her way.

Relatives and friends protested vigorously against such apparent indifference to their daughter’s future on the part of her parents.  “You will never be able to get a mother-in-law for her,” they declared.  Mr. and Mrs. Shih felt, no doubt, that this was true; for who could have then prophesied that the time would so soon come in conservative old China when young men would not only be willing to marry girls with natural feet, but would decidedly prefer them!  Maiyue’s father and mother never reconsidered their decision that their daughter should grow to womanhood with natural feet; but they did try to devise some plan by which her life might be a useful and happy one, even though she might never enjoy the blessing of a mother-in-law.  They were very much impressed with the service which Dr. Kate Bushnell was rendering the suffering women and children of Kiukiang, and when Maiyue was eight years old her father took her to Dr. Bushnell and announced, “Here is my little girl.  I want you to make a doctor of her.”

This was almost as startling as the unbound feet!  A Chinese woman physician was unknown and undreamed of.  But this young father’s faith in the possibilities of Chinese womanhood was not to be discouraged.  The necessity of general education, preliminary to medical training, was explained, and Maiyue was put in charge of Miss Howe, then at the head of the Girls’ Boarding School of the Methodist Mission.  In this school she spent most of the next ten years of her life, studying in both Chinese and English, and fitting herself under Miss Howe’s direction for her medical course.

In 1892, Maiyue and her friend, Ida Kahn, accompanied Miss Howe to America, there to receive the medical education for which they had long been preparing.  If America held much that was new and interesting to them, it was no less true that they were something new and very interesting to America.  “What makes these girls look so different from the other Chinese women who come here?” the Government official who examined their passports asked Miss Howe.  “All the difference between a heathen and a Christian,” was her prompt response.

That there were Chinese girls who could successfully pass the entrance examinations to the medical department of the University of Michigan, in arithmetic, algebra, rhetoric, general and United States history, physics, and Latin, was a revelation to the people of America, and their college career was watched with the greatest interest.

While in Ann Arbor, Maiyue took pity on the professors who found it so difficult to pronounce her Chinese name, and decided to use the English translation of it, Mary Stone, during her stay in America.  Accordingly one morning when the professor started to call on her, she announced, “I have decided to change my name, professor.”  The burst of laughter with which the class greeted this simple statement was most bewildering to her; but after she had seen the joke she often declared that she was “one of the products of Christianity, an old maid,” for, as she pointed out, an unmarried woman is practically unknown among non-Christians.

During her medical course Mary became more strongly impressed than ever before with the evils of foot-binding.  Her mother’s feet had, of course, been bound in childhood, and although Mrs. Stone had never bound the feet of any of her daughters, she had not unbandaged her own.  For she said that if she also had unbound feet people would say:  “Oh, yes, she must be from some out-of-the-way place where the women do not bind their feet, and so she does not know how to bind the feet of her daughters.  That accounts for such gross neglect.”  On the other hand, she reasoned that if she herself had the aristocratic “golden lily” feet, it would be evident that her failure to bind her daughters’ feet was due to principle.  But while Mary was pursuing her medical studies she became convinced that the time had come when her mother ought to register a further protest against the harmful custom, by unbandaging her own feet, and wrote urging her to do so.  Mrs. Stone readily agreed to this.  Moreover, at the annual meeting of the Central China Mission in 1894, when a large mass-meeting was held for the discussion of foot-binding, she ascended the platform and in a clear voice, which made every word distinctly heard to the remotest corner of the large chapel hall, told why she had never before unbound her feet, and why she was now about to do so.  Her husband was so in sympathy with her decision that later in the meeting he added a few words of approval of the course she had taken.  The last shoes worn before the unbinding, and the first after it, were sent to Ann Arbor to the daughter who had so long been a living exponent of the doctrine of natural feet.

After four years at the University of Michigan, during which she and her friend, Dr. Ida Kahn, had won the respect and friendship of both faculty and students by their thorough work, Dr. Stone went to Chicago for the summer, in order to attend the clinical work in the hospitals there.  It was at this time that she met Dr. I. N. Danforth of that city, who was ever afterward her staunch friend.  He was about to leave for Europe, but found time before his departure to introduce Dr. Stone to many of the Chicago physicians and hospitals.  He says:  “She won the hearts of all with her charming ways, and got everything she wanted.  When I took her to clinics she would often not be able to see at first, being such a little woman; but the first thing I knew she would be right down by the operating table.  The doctors would always notice her, and seeing that she couldn’t see would open up and let her down to the front.”  After what Dr. Danforth considered a thorough clinical training, including visits to practically all the good hospitals in Chicago, Dr. Stone sailed for China with Dr. Kahn, reaching there in the autumn of 1896.

II - THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

On their return to China, Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn received a most enthusiastic welcome from the Chinese.  It had been expected that it would be necessary for them to spend the first few months in overcoming prejudices and gradually building up confidence.  But on the contrary, patients appeared the third day after their arrival, and kept coming in increasing numbers, until in December it became necessary to rent dispensary quarters and rebuild a Chinese house to serve as a hospital.  Dr. Stone reported in July, 1897, that since October of the preceding year, she and Dr. Kahn had treated 2,352 dispensary patients, made 343 visits, and had thirteen patients in their little hospital, besides spending a month in Nanking visiting the hospitals there.

The following year the little hospital was presented with what was probably its first, though by no means its last, “merit board.”  One of Dr. Stone’s letters gives an account of this event: 

“Two days ago we had quite an occasion.  A child had been sick for a long time, and the best Chinese physicians pronounced him incurable.  Then it was that they gave us a chance.  He is recovering and the parents, wanting to show their gratitude, gave us a ’merit board,’ thinking in this way they would ‘spread our fame.’  Accordingly a day was selected to present the board to us, and we prepared tea and cakes for those who would come.  On the day appointed at 2 P.M., we heard a lot of fire-crackers, rockets, and guns, and a band playing the flute and bugle at the same time.  The ‘merit board,’ consisting of a black board with four big carved and gilded characters in the centre, and with red cloth over it, was carried into our guest hall by four men, and set on the centre table.  The characters complimented us by a comparison with two noted women of ancient times, who were great scholars.  I acknowledged the honour with a low Chinese bow, and a tall, elderly gentleman returned me a bow, without a word being spoken by either of us.  Then I withdrew, and he took tea with two of our gentlemen teachers.  The company stayed to see the board put up on our wall.”

As the fame of the young physicians grew and their practice steadily increased, they found themselves greatly hampered by lack of a proper building in which to carry on their work.  In 1898 Dr. Stone wrote back to America:  “Our tiny hospital is crammed full.  An observer might think that we carried home but a slight idea of hygiene.  Our hospital measures on the outside 28 by 21 at Chinese feet (our foot is one inch longer than yours) and we have been compelled to crowd in twenty-one sleepers.  The building being so small and not protected from the heat of the sun by any trees or awnings, by evenings it is fairly an oven, which is certainly not a very desirable place for sick people.  We are looking forward all the time for signs or signals from the women of America to build our new hospital, but not a letter comes to bring us this kind of message.  Still we are thankful for the hope of building some time.”

This hope was realized almost at once, largely through the generosity of the friend Dr. Stone had made in Chicago, Dr. I. N. Danforth, who felt that no more fitting memorial could be erected to his wife than a hospital for Chinese women and children.  Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn drew their own plans and sent them to Chicago, where they were perfected in every detail by an architect of that city, and sent back to Kiukiang with the necessary specifications and instructions.  These plans were carried out to the letter and in 1900 an airy, grey brick building, finished with white granite and limestone, plentifully supplied with comfortable verandas, and bearing over its pillared entrance the name, “Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital,” was ready for occupancy.  But on the very day that the furniture was moved in, the American consul advised all foreign women and children to leave Kiukiang immediately.  The other missionaries were so unwilling to leave the young doctors to face the possible dangers from the Boxers alone, that they finally prevailed upon them to go to Japan with them.

The hospital escaped any injury, however, and in her report for 1900, Dr. Stone said:  “Our new hospital is a comfort and constant inspiration to us in our work.  We were indeed grateful, after half a year’s enforced exile, to come home and find it intact and ready for use....  During six months there have been 3,679 dispensary patients, 59 in-patients, and 414 visits.”

The hospital was formally opened on the seventh of December, 1901, during the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist Mission, held that year at Kiukiang.  The North China Daily Herald gives the following account of this interesting occasion: 

THE OPENING OF A MODEL HOSPITAL IN KIUKIANG

“On Saturday afternoon the 7th instant, some foreign residents of Kiukiang, the members of the Methodist Central China Mission, and many native friends gathered together at the formal opening of the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, of which two ladies, Drs. Stone and Kahn, are the physicians in charge.  There were a number of Chinese ladies, whose rich costumes showed the official rank and wealth of husbands and fathers.  The Chen-tai, prefect, assistant prefect and magistrate added their official dignity to the occasion.  These were noticeably appreciative of the first hymn, ‘God save the Emperor.’”

“Bishop Moore presided, formally opening the hospital; Mr. Clennell, H.B.M., Consul for Kiukiang, gave a very good address, to which Dr. Stuart, American Vice-consul of Nanking, made fitting response.  Then followed short, pithy speeches by Drs. Beebee and Hart.  The two heroines of the occasion kept modestly in the background, refusing to be introduced, much to the disappointment of the audience.  The officials insisted that coming forward would be in entire harmony with etiquette and propriety, but the Chinese young ladies remained firm and were represented by their wise teacher, Miss Howe, who has planned with them and for them since their childhood.  After refreshments guests were at liberty to saunter across verandas and through the various wards, the room for foreign patients, the convalescents’ room, solarium, dark room, offices, reception room, etc., of this admirably planned hospital.  The operating room with its skylight, its operating table of glass and enamel; the adjoining sterilizing room, containing apparatus for distilling, sterilizing, etc., are especially interesting to Chinese visitors.  The drug rooms are well stocked and furnished with modern appliances, instruments, a fine microscope, battery, etc., and there is the nucleus of an excellent library.  Everywhere one finds evidence of wise forethought and careful expenditure.”

“The Chinese have a high regard for the skill and ability of these gifted young physicians.  One sees this appreciation, not only in the commendatory tablets hanging in the entrance hall, but in their equally gracious and more serviceable gifts, which together with fees amounted this year to about $2,500.  The doctors have had within the last twelve months, 7,854 patients and have made 531 out-visits.  Their services have been requested by different official families of Kiukiang and Nan-chang, the capital of Kiangsi.  Patients come to them from different provinces.  The young physicians fearlessly make journeys far out in the surrounding country, crossing the mountains perhaps, but always in perfect safety, as they meet only with respect and courtesy.  Sometimes after a successful visit their chairs will be draped with a red cloth and the physicians will be carried home in triumph through an admiring crowd, and accompanied all the way by fire-crackers.  They hear only pleasant and complimentary remarks from passersby.  ’We are afraid of foreigners, but you can understand our nature’ ­so the simple-minded country folk sometimes tell them.”

Dr. Stone, describing the opening of the hospital to Dr. Danforth, wrote, “The Chinese were very much impressed with your way of commemorating your wife.”  Dr. Kahn added that one of the highest officials, who was being shown through the building, signified his approval by emphatically declaring, “It would make any one well merely to stay in such a pleasant place.”

As a matter of fact, work had been carried on in the new building for some time before the formal opening.  It had been ready for occupancy none too soon, for in the summer of 1901, the Yangtse River overflowed its banks, working great havoc among the crops and homes of the people living near it.  Dr. Stone wrote Dr. Danforth:  “Tens of thousands have been rendered homeless and destitute.  Some of them are literally starved to death.  The sick and hungry flock to our gates, and for several months we have had over a thousand visits each month to our dispensary.”  Some idea of the part which the hospital played in relieving the sufferings of the flood refugees is given by an article in Woman’s Work in the Far East, written by Dr. Stone at about this time: 

“Perhaps friends would like to know how we dispensed the clothes and quilts so kindly sent us.  During the winter months very many needy refugees came to our dispensary daily for treatment.  Of course we did not have enough clothes to distribute indiscriminately, but only for those who were the most helpless and miserable.  We received them by hundreds, and not only had we to give out medicine, but rice, as well as clothing.”

“One morning when it was raining outside, an old woman came into our dispensary all exhausted, carrying a child on her back, and another buttoned in front within her clothes.  The older one was a boy three years old and the tiny baby in her bosom was only three months old.  They proved to be her grandchildren, and the old woman said:  ’Never in our lives have we gone out to beg before, and for the last three days we have not had a morsel to eat.  Before the floods we were considered well-to-do people, and my son is forty years old and a literary man; so he is too ashamed to beg, but tries to help the family by gathering sticks for the fire.  His wife is sick in bed with typhoid fever and now the baby has no one to nurse it, and the boy is sick, and I have to take care of them all and beg for a living.’  The woman had on only a lined garment, so we gave her one of those wadded gowns that were sent us, and a tin of milk for the baby, and also sent a little rice to make gruel for the sick woman at home.”

This was only one of many cases of need which the hospital sought to alleviate.  A few days after Christmas of this year Dr. Stone wrote to a friend in America:  “What a busy time we had getting ready to celebrate the joyful event!  We gave a good square meal to the refugees, and let them take home what they could not finish here.  It made me feel happy to see them so pleased, and gave us an opportunity to tell them of the greatest Gift to mankind.  Although we were so rushed that we did not even sit together to eat our regular meals, yet we felt it was the happiest Christmas we have ever had.”

In addition to the refugees larger numbers of regular patients than ever before were coming to the doctors for treatment.  The new hospital had hardly been opened before Miss Howe wrote, “Patients who are able to bear their own expenses are being sent away, because the present accommodations are already overtaxed.”

Just at this time, when the doctors’ growing reputation, and the increased facilities which the new buildings afforded, were greatly enlarging both opportunity and responsibility, the question of Dr. Kahn’s going to Nanchang to open medical work there arose.  It is not surprising that at first Dr. Stone wondered how she could spare her friend and fellow-worker, now that the work was greater than ever before, and every indication pointed to large growth in the future.  But when she became convinced that the opportunity at Nanchang was too great to be neglected, and that only Dr. Kahn could meet it, she bade her God-speed and cheerfully accepted the added burden thus laid upon her.

Left alone with the entire work in Kiukiang, Dr. Stone’s hands were full indeed, as the answer which she gave to a request for a synopsis of her day’s work shows:  “We breakfast at half-past seven and then I go to the chapel in the hospital and conduct prayers for the inmates and patients able to attend.  After prayers I make a general inspection of the hospital, and then I teach my class of nurses.  I take young native girls in their teens and give them a thorough course of training such as they would get in America.  I translate the English books into Chinese for them, and sometimes put the Chinese books into English too.  Then I go to the dispensary and am busy there for hours....  In the afternoons I make calls, generally on women of rank who need my assistance and have been unable to get to the hospital.  I return home only when here seems no further work for me that day.”

So far from decreasing in number after the medical force had been lessened by half, the stream of patients became larger than ever.  A few weeks after Dr. Kahn had gone, Dr. Stone said, in a letter to Dr. Danforth:  “For a long time I have been wanting to write to you, but have been so pressed with work that I had to let my correspondence suffer.  Now I find that I must write to you to let you know how crowded we are already, at this season when we generally have a scarcity of patients, as it is Chinese New Year.  Now that our work is better known we seem to draw a better class of people.  I don’t mean very rich people, but the well-to-do, thrifty class, who earn their way by labour.  Just now I have to accommodate seven private patients who are paying their own way, with only two private rooms at my disposal.  So what do you think I do?  I had to put one in our linen room, one in the sewing room, one in a bathroom, and finally, as a last resort, we had to put one in the nurses’ dining-room....  We generally have to put patients on the floor in summer, but I am afraid we will not have enough room to accommodate more even on the floor.”

Dr. Stone’s dispensary patients soon averaged a thousand a month, and as the people’s confidence grew, her surgical work also became much heavier.  In 1906 she reported:  “In looking over the record for the year we realize that we have advanced decidedly in gaining confidence with the people. Tai-tais (ladies of rank) who formerly refused operations, returned to us for help.”

Often her work kept her busy far into the night and she not infrequently fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as she was carried home, in her sedan chair, from some difficult case in the country.  Yet her work was well done.  The tribute of a fellow-missionary was well deserved:  “Dr. Stone is a tower of strength in herself and with her trained assistants carries the large work here nobly.  She has been eminently successful in surgical cases and is having more and more to do in this line.”  Another, working in a different station, wrote, “It was my happy fortune to be the guest of another ideal Chinese woman, Dr. Mary Stone, at Kiukiang.  I saw her in her model hospital, where every little wheel of the complicated machinery was adjusted to perfect nicety.”

As the work grew, it became evident that larger accommodations would soon be imperative, and Dr. Stone succeeded in securing some additional land.  The first addition was a lot which she had long desired to enclose within the hospital grounds.  For some time she was unable to do this because of a road which ran between, but in 1905 the road was moved to the other side of the lot, at her petition, and the land was included within the hospital compound.  “Most of the neighbours have been patients and are friendly,” one of her letters reports.  “When the magistrate came to see about moving the road to the other side of the lot only one man objected.  He was soon pacified by the magistrate’s remark that ’the hospital here is for the public good, and when it is in our power to do it a service, we should gladly do it.’” Another piece of land was purchased during the same year, by money raised entirely from the Chinese.

The next addition greatly delighted Dr. Stone’s heart.  Adjoining the hospital was a temple known as “The White Horse Temple.”  This was so close to the hospital that it made one of the wards on that side damp and dark, and, moreover, the noisy crowds of people who thronged it, and the beating of the temple gongs, made it a most undesirable neighbour for a hospital.  Immediately after the annual meeting at which Dr. Stone had been enabled to report the purchase of the other lots, a cablegram came from America with the good news that $1,000 had been secured for the purchase of the temple and the lot on which it stood.  Purchasing a temple is quite sure not to be an easy task, but in spite of many hindrances Dr. Stone succeeded in securing the lot and in making what she gleefully termed “a real Methodist conversion” of the temple into an isolation ward.

In 1896 Dr. Stone had landed in China and with Dr. Kahn begun medical work in a small, rented Chinese building.  In 1906 she found herself in sole charge of a large, finely equipped hospital for women and children, with a practice which was increasing so rapidly as to make constant additions to the hospital property necessary.

III - WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA

In 1907, after eleven years of almost unceasing labour, during four of which she had carried the growing work at Kiukiang entirely alone, except for the help of the nurses whom she herself had trained, Dr. Stone reluctantly laid down her beloved work for a few months.  During the winter of 1906 she had a severe attack of illness which she herself diagnosed as appendicitis, and for which she directed treatment which brought her relief.  But renewed attacks finally convinced her and her friends that she must submit to an operation if her life was to be saved.  It was decided that she should go to an American hospital, for as a fellow physician located at another station of the mission wrote, “We all have a very high regard for her and her work, and wanted her to get the best that could be had.”  Moreover, it was a good opportunity to get her “away from China for a much-needed change and rest.”

Accordingly Dr. Stone, accompanied by her friend, Miss Hughes of the Kiukiang mission, sailed from Shanghai, February 9.  President Roosevelt, who was acquainted with her work and knew of her serious condition, had a telegram sent to the Commissioner of Immigration at San Francisco, giving instructions that the Chinese physician be admitted with no delay or nerve strain.  She was therefore passed at once, with all consideration and all possible help.

From San Francisco Dr. Stone went straight to the Wesleyan Hospital in Chicago, that she might be under Dr. Danforth’s care.  The operation was entirely successful, and early in April, less than a month after reaching America, she was sufficiently recovered to take the trip to Miss Hughes’ home in New Jersey, where she was to rest for a few weeks.

Complete rest, however, was an impossibility to Dr. Stone, even during her convalescence, so long as there was any service she could render.  Two weeks after her arrival Miss Hughes wrote Dr. Danforth that “our little doctor” was accompanying her to several of the meetings which she was addressing, and was “making friends right and left for her work.”  Boxes of instruments, pillows, and spreads for the hospital beds, a baby organ for the hospital, the support of a nurse, and other useful things were being promised by these new friends.  “Her smiling face, with no word from her even, is a wonderful revelation to people who judge the Chinese by the putty-faced laundrymen, the only specimen of China they have ever seen,” said Miss Hughes.  Dr. Stone spent the month of May in New York, attending lectures and clinics in the hospitals there.  As she was starting for Chicago at the end of May, she wrote Dr. Danforth: 

“Do you think I shall be able to see much clinic in two weeks?  That is the only time allotted me, and my only hope is that you will be the ‘master of the situation,’ and help me to spend every minute to the best advantage....  I have attended as much clinic as I possibly could this month, but it is awfully hard to get around in New York.  Do you suppose I would be able to go directly to Wesley Hospital Monday, and do you think Dr. J ­ would have the time and the interest to show me the inside methods of the hospital?  He wrote me a most kind letter and invited me to do so....  Two weeks will mean a lot if I can be right in the inside track of things.  I want some time on the eye and ear work, besides a few clinics on dermatology.  I know two weeks will not be enough for the much I want to see and know, but since it is the only time I am to have, I know you will help me to make the most of it.”

Thus did the indefatigable little doctor take the “much-needed rest” of which her friends in China had written.  That she did make the most of her two weeks is testified to by Mrs. Danforth, who visited many of the hospitals with her, and who says:  “In visiting the hospitals she never missed a thing.  She saw everything ­nothing escaped her notice, not even the laundries.  She was always keenly alert for every idea that would improve her hospital.”

On her way back to the East, Dr. Stone stopped at Ann Arbor, for she was eager to revisit her “dear old campus,” and the faculty under whom she had taken her medical work.  “We had a lovely time in Ann Arbor,” she said in writing to a friend.  “Dr. Breakey, in whose home we stayed, arranged a meeting, or reception, where I saw most of my old professors.  Then in the parsonage we met all the ladies of our church.  Next day I had a meeting in the church.”

The next few months were filled with almost incessant labour, chiefly speaking and making friends for her work.  The cordial responses which she met everywhere never became an old story to Dr. Stone and her letters are full of enthusiastic accounts of them.  “Here at Silver Bay, a society wants to support a missionary and we hope to find the missionary to-night.  The first was yesterday’s work and the second we hope to gain to-day.”  Again, “Last night on the car we met a gentleman whom I know through my sister Anna, and after a few minutes’ talk he wants to give me his camera, 5x7, for hospital work.  Isn’t that splendid?” Or, “This morning we went into a flower-seed store and what do you suppose the proprietor did but to give us the seeds, a big list of all kinds we wanted, and then offered to add a few more varieties.  We are having lots of fun here.”

Dr. Stone met with no less enthusiasm in public meetings than in her contact with individuals.  One of her hostesses tells of her remarkable success in arousing genuine interest in her work:  “She spoke at churches very often while she was with us, and not once did she fail to get what she asked for.  She did not ask for things in general but for definite things, ­pillows for the beds, lamps for the gateway, etc.  She is irresistible.”

The same friend tells of the glee with which Dr. Stone, whose English is perfect, delighted to learn modern slang phrases.  After practising them in the bosom of the family she would sometimes innocently introduce them into her addresses, invariably bringing down the house thereby.  At one meeting, after telling a most remarkable story, she remarked, “You may think this is a whopper, but it is true!”

Reports of the meetings at which she spoke contain such items as this:  “The pastor of St. James Church offered to duplicate all money given in the collection when Miss Hughes and Dr. Stone spoke.  Six hundred and eighty-two dollars was the result.  A gentleman present offered one hundred dollars for a speech from Dr. Stone in his church.  The speech was made and one hundred and eighty-two dollars put in the treasury.”  Other items read:  “At the district meeting a new auxiliary came into being in ­ Church.  No one could resist Dr. Mary Stone’s persuasive tones as she went up and down the aisles asking, ‘Won’t you join?’ She told the people how much she needed a pump in Kiukiang and forthwith the pump materialized.”  The New York Herald gave a long and enthusiastic report of her work, ending with the words:  “’Am I not fortunate?  And I am so grateful to be able to help a little!’ is the modest way she sums up a work of magnitude sufficient to keep a corps of medical men busily employed.”

Everywhere this little Chinese woman made friends.  The words of one of her hostesses are emphatic:  “She was in our home for a month, and she is one of the most attractive women of any race I have ever met.  She is so charming that she wins her way everywhere.”  “She is so gracious and cordial,” said another.  “She came into our family just as a member of it.  I was not very well at the time and she gave me massage every night.  Her whole life and her whole interest is in doing for others.  And the wonderful thing about her is her ability to do so much.”  “No missionary that we have is more greatly loved,” is the verdict of another.

Dr. Stone greatly enjoyed her stay in America.  “Dr. Danforth called my appendix ‘that blamed thing,’” she said.  “I call it that blessed thing, because it brought me to this country and people have been so kind to me.”  But she was eager to return to Kiukiang, and early in September was on her way back to China, rejoicing in renewed health and new friends for her work, and in the many gifts which were going to make that work more efficient.

IV - A VERSATILE WOMAN

Chief among the gifts which Dr. Stone received for her work while in America, was the entire sum of money needed to build another wing to the hospital.  The need of this wing had been felt for years, for the hospital had become crowded as soon as it was opened.  Dr. Stone’s ingenuity had been taxed to the utmost to enlarge the capacity of the original buildings, by putting patients into rooms designed for far different purposes, and even partitioning off sections of the halls for them.  Still many whom she longed to take in had to be turned away.  Many times it had seemed as if the much-needed addition were almost a reality.  But the money would not be quite sufficient; or the contractors could not be secured; or prices of building material would rise and the cost would prove to be double that originally estimated; it seemed as if the wing were too elusive ever to materialize.  On her return to Kiukiang work on the new wing was commenced, and it was finished the following autumn.  This addition practically doubled the hospital work, and Miss Hughes wrote that Dr. Stone was in “the seventh or seventeenth heaven over it all.”

At the same time that the new wing was being built, a little bungalow was erected in the hills behind the city, where children with fevers could be sent to escape the intense heat of the summer months in Kiukiang.  “The Rawling Bungalow is finished and the children are all up there for the summer,” Dr. Stone wrote in 1908.  “I know you will be delighted at this annex to the hospital.  Of course it is only a bungalow ... but it is a blessed relief to have this place to which to send the sick little ones and those who otherwise would be left to suffer here all summer.”

As soon as the masons had finished their work on the new wing of the hospital they began on another new building just beside it; a home for the doctor and Miss Hughes, also a gift from friends in America.  That, too, was completed by the end of 1908, and during Chinese New Year, a time when the hospital work was less pressing, Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes took a trip to Shanghai to buy furniture for it.  It is easy for one who saw the doctor then to imagine the keenness with which she noticed every detail in the American hospitals, for while visiting in the homes of friends in Shanghai nothing escaped her quick eye.  Miss Hughes’ attention was constantly called to things that pleased the doctor’s taste by her often reiterated, “Look here!  We must have this in our home.”  “Miss Hughes and I shall try to make our home so homey,” she wrote to a friend, “and we shall open it for everybody, the everyday, common folks as well as the Tai-tais.”

The next addition to the hospital property was a home for the nurses, money for which had been pledged during Dr. Stone’s stay in America.  As soon as the funds were sent out building was commenced, and in March, 1909, the nurses moved into their new home.  The accommodations of the hospital were thus enlarged still further, and moreover the nurses had a far more restful environment in which to spend the hours when they were off duty.

One who met Dr. Stone in America spoke of the great impression made upon her by the doctor’s ability to do many things.  The demands upon the physician in entire charge of the large Danforth Memorial Hospital are indeed many and varied, but Dr. Stone has proved equal to them all.

She is a good general practitioner.  Probably the best proof of this is the number of patients who throng the hospital gates.  In 1908 she reported, “Last month we saw over 1,700 people in the hospital and dispensary, and in April we saw over 1,800.”  A year later she wrote, “Taking the statistics for last month I found we treated 2,743 in the month of April.”  Her successful treatment of the most difficult diseases is all the more remarkable to one who knows the tendency of many Chinese not to consult a physician until the patient is at the point of death.  Their utter lack of knowledge of the simplest rules for the care of the sick, and the dreadful surroundings in which so many of them live, produce, in those who are brought to the doctor after long weeks of suffering, conditions which are almost too terrible to describe.

The words of a fellow-missionary throw light on the difficult character of Dr. Stone’s work: 

“Talk of missionary work!  People at home don’t know the meaning of the word!  Here is this plucky little woman in the midst of this awful heat ­I dare not go outside of a shaded room until after the sun is down at night ­treating anywhere from twenty to fifty patients in the dispensary every day, and her charity ward filled with the most trying, difficult, repulsive cases of suffering humanity.  Missionary work?  Why you don’t even find such cases as she has every day, in the hospitals of America.  How the people live as long as they do ­how these poor little suffering children survive until they get to the state they are in when brought to the hospital, is more than I can understand.”

Dr. Edward C. Perkins, who visited Dr. Stone for several days, lays similar emphasis on the serious condition in which the doctor finds those who apply to her for treatment.  “The cases which came to the dispensary were sorely in need of help.  This was, I think, the invariable rule.  Such cases they were as do not often come to the observance of physicians in this country, and some familiarity with the dispensaries of four of the large hospitals in New York City, has almost failed to show such need as the little doctor sees continually.”

No physician in China can be a specialist.  One of Dr. Stone’s letters shows the variety of diseases which she is called upon to treat.  “Women come to us almost dead; paralyzed, blind, and helpless....  We have in the isolation wards, measles; and in the contagious rooms, locked up, leprosy; an insane woman locked up in her room; typhoid, tuberculosis, paralyzed women and children, ulcer cases such as you would never dream of, surgical cases of all kinds, and internal cases too numerous to mention.”

A letter from a Kiukiang missionary tells of one woman who came to the hospital with “not a square inch of good flesh on her entire body.”  Fingers and toes were so diseased as to be dropping off, and the poor woman’s suffering was unspeakable.  Dr. Stone put her in isolation, and taking every precaution with gloves and antiseptics, herself washed and dressed the repulsive sores, in spite of the sufferer’s protests, “Oh, doctor, don’t touch me.  I am too filthy for your pure hands to touch.”  This she did every day, until, her sores completely healed, the woman was discharged from the hospital a few weeks later.

Hon. Charles M. Dow of Jamestown, N.Y., who was taking a trip around the world, met Bishop Lewis on a Yangtse-kiang steamer, and was invited by him to stop off at Kiukiang to make the acquaintance of a remarkable surgeon of that city.  Great was Mr. Dow’s astonishment when the surgeon appeared and proved to be “a small and very attractive native Chinese woman.”

Dr. Stone is so small that she has to stand on a stool to reach her operating table; but Dr. Danforth’s testimony is that she is performing the largest operations known to surgery, and that no Chicago surgeon is doing work superior to hers.  Moreover she has no fellow physicians to assist her in her surgical work.  The most delicate operations, for which an American surgeon would call in the assistance of brother physicians, internes, and the most expert of graduate nurses, are performed by Dr. Stone entirely unaided except for the faithful nurses whom she has herself trained.  Only at rare intervals does she receive a visit from a fellow physician such as Dr. Perkins of New York, who, in an interesting account of his stay at Kiukiang, tells of performing his first major operation “in her operating room and under her direction.”

At first the people were afraid to submit to operations, but the doctor’s marked success with those who permitted her to operate soon overcame their fear.  The results of her skilful use of the knife have been most marvellous to them.  That a young woman of over twenty, who could not be betrothed because of a hare lip reaching into the nose, with a projection of the maxillary bone between the clefts, could be successfully operated on and transformed into a marriageable maiden, seemed nothing short of miraculous.  Nor was it less wonderful to them that an old woman could, by an operation, be relieved of an abdominal tumor from which she had suffered for sixteen years, and which, when removed, weighed fifty-two pounds.  “The people appreciate surgery more and more,” reads one of Dr. Stone’s recent letters.  “A lot of the tuberculosis patients who have seen the quick results from operations want me to operate on their lungs.”

Another large department of Dr. Stone’s work has been the training of her nurses.  This has been an absolute necessity, for, as Dr. Stone said:  “When I found I had to run a hospital with accommodations for 100 beds, and an out-patient department with sometimes 120 patients a day, I at once found I had to multiply myself by training workers.  These workers I selected from various Christian schools with good recommendations as to qualifications.  I do not dare to take into training any one who has failed as a teacher or in any line of work, because nursing is an art still in its embryo.  To succeed in this profession one must not only know how to read and write, but also know arithmetic and some English.”

The course of study which Dr. Stone gives her nurses is about the same as that prescribed by the regular training schools, or hospitals, in America.  To do this she has had to translate several English text-books into Chinese for the use of her students.  The reliable and efficient nurses who have completed the course and are now her trusted assistants in all her work, have amply repaid her for all the time and labour she has expended upon this part of her work.

In an article on “Hospital Economics” she speaks of the efficient service of these nurses: 

“I am blessed with five consecrated young women,” she says, “who have completed a course of nursing and studies with me, and I have divided the work into different departments, holding them responsible for the work and for the younger nurses under them.  For instance, one of the graduates is the matron, who looks after all the housekeeping and the accounts, watching for the best market time for buying each article in connection with the diet, the best foodstuff for the money expended, and looks after each and all of the servants so that they do their work properly.  Another graduate nurse looks after the dispensary, the filling of prescriptions, the weighing and compounding of medicines, and superintends the sale of drugs in that department.  Another one has charge of all in-patients upstairs, and another downstairs, including private cases, with junior nurses under her.  These look after the special diet, and the carrying out of orders in all the wards and the charting of records. (This is done in English.) Still another nurse has charge of the operating room, with all of the sterilization necessary for all major and minor operations, the distillation of water, and the responsibility of going out to cases with the doctor.  In this way it is arranged that in case of all operations the one doctor has her assistants in the operating room, and yet does not interfere with the regular working of the hospital.”

“Dr. Stone is multiplying herself many-fold by her splendid training of nurses in the Kiukiang hospital,” is the verdict of Mrs. Bashford, wife of the Methodist Missionary Bishop of China.  She has watched Dr. Stone’s work with keen and intelligent interest, and her opinion seems to be justified by the results.  When after weeks of unusual strain Dr. Stone was persuaded to take a short vacation in the mountains back of Kiukiang, her corps of fourteen nurses, five of them graduates, kept up the work of the hospital, and treated about eighty patients a day in the dispensary.  Twice, in answer to telegrams, Dr. Stone returned to Kiukiang, only to find each time that everything had been done to her entire satisfaction.  “Were it not for the efficient help I have from my nurses, I should not be able to manage this work at all,” she says.

Doubtless one great reason for Dr. Stone’s success in raising up efficient workers is her confidence in them, and her sympathetic attitude toward them.  “I believe many a valued worker is lost to her profession through lack of sympathy and encouragement when needed,” she once said.  “Surely the Lord values the workers as well as His work, and we who want our work to prosper cannot afford to ignore the interests of those upon whom we depend so largely for success.”

The nurses in turn have a pride in the hospital as great as the doctor’s own, and are as devoted to it.  “The nurses are fine in standing up for our standard of cleanliness,” Dr. Stone wrote to a fellow-physician.  “For instance, when this patient came (a very poor woman) the nurses got hold of her, bathed her, and put her in our clean, white clothes and tucked her away in one of these clean white beds in no time....  She begged to keep the bandages on her bound feet.  ‘No,’ the nurses said, ’such dirty bandages in our clean bed!  No!’”

Writing to Dr. Danforth of her first graduating class, Dr. Stone said:  “You may ask if they are going to run away and earn large sums for themselves.  No, they are going to stay and help me in the hospital work, or earn money for the hospital.  You see, I assign each one to a department of work, and she is the head-nurse of that department.  Then by turn I send them out to do private nursing, and the sums they earn are turned into the hospital for caring for the poor who cannot help themselves.  Mrs. Wong is nursing Mrs. B ­ of our own mission at Nanking, and when she comes back Miss Chang will be sent to Wuhu to nurse a lady of another mission.  Dr. Barrie, of Kuling, has written to me to engage several for the new hospital at Kuling for foreigners during this summer season.  I told him I could accommodate him because I have three other classes in training....  The spirit has been most beautiful among the nurses.  Many of them take their afternoon ’off duty’ to do evangelistic work in the homes of patients.”

The well-trained corps of nurses is one of the most convincing testimonies to that of which the whole hospital is a proof ­the administrative ability of the physician in charge.  No detail of a well-managed hospital, from the record files and wheel stretchers to the hand-power washing machine, is neglected.  Nevertheless the hospital is conducted with true economy.  Dr. Stone defines economy as “the art which avoids all waste and extravagance and applies money to the best advantage.  It is not economy to buy cheap furniture that has to be replaced all the time.  It is poor economy to buy cheap food and let patients suffer for lack of nourishment....  It is poor economy to use cheap drugs and drug your patient’s life out.  It is poor economy to use wooden beds and have to patronize Standard Oil to keep them clean.  It is also poor economy not to use sheets and thin quilts, instead of the heavy comfortables the Chinese have, just in order to save the heavy washing and disinfection.  It is poor economy to have cheap servants who can do nothing.  With trained workers to look after instruments, instead of having to depend on servants, I find instruments last longer.”  As a result, the universal testimony of those who visit the hospital is, “Dr. Stone has one of the finest hospitals we have ever seen.”

From the outset the doctor’s ideal has been to make the medical work as largely self-supporting as possible.  Of course many of those most in need of medical aid could pay nothing for it, nor for their medicines, nor even, if they were in-patients, for their food.  Others, however, could pay something, and still others were able to pay in full.  Soon after work in the Danforth Hospital was begun, Dr. Stone wrote:  “Our ordinary charge for food is sixty cash a day or two dollars per month.  For private rooms they pay ten to twenty dollars, according to the kind of room they have.  Occasionally we meet some generous Chinese who give freely and thus help a great deal our poor patients, some of whom cannot even pay for their rice.  For instance, one man has paid three hundred dollars this year for his wife, who is still here for treatment, and will probably give more when she is through.  Another man has given one hundred and forty dollars for his wife’s treatment.  Last quarter we received over four hundred dollars, and this quarter over five hundred dollars here.  We are getting to have more of the well-to-do patients.”

A letter written in 1905 tells of ways in which the Chinese assist the hospital financially:  “It has been my privilege to minister unto many of this poor class of people with the fees I receive from the rich.  So often I find in the morning I earn a good fee, and in the evening I spend it on a very poor case.  Lately I have been sending a subscription book around.  I first sent it to the highest official here, and it was immediately returned with fifty dollars.  It encouraged me very much, for I know the work is approved of by the officials and the common people, and they are both helping all they can.”  Once she reported that at a time when the financial outlook was unusually discouraging, an unknown non-Christian Chinese sent a messenger several hundred li with a gift of money to relieve the situation.

Patients who cannot afford to pay anything, but who can use their hands, are given sewing to do, and in this way make some contribution toward the expenses of the work.  The nurses, too, who have received training from the hospital, either give their services or the money which they receive from private cases.  Thus, in various ways, many of the running expenses are met on the field, but as so much work is done for the poor, the physician’s salary and the larger part of the equipment have come from friends in America.

Even in the interior of China, and in the midst of the most active of lives, Dr. Stone has never ceased to be a student.  Early in her work she wrote to a friend in America who was also a physician, “We feel that in order to keep up in our profession we need occasionally some of the latest works, especially since medical science is one of the most progressive of all.”  Subsequent letters are full of commissions such as, “I need an English and Latin dictionary very much in the work.  Will you buy one ­a good one ­for me?” “Will you kindly buy Hyde’s work on ‘Venereal Diseases,’ not on Skin, for I have that.”  Or “I should like very much to have a work on Hygiene.  You know the Chinese have such primitive ideas on that subject, and if I can get a good standard book I can pick out and translate for the benefit of the people.  Then if there is still anything left, I would like a small book on bandaging and massage, for I want to train new nurses.  Occasionally, when you see something new and well-tested, such as articles you think will help my work, especially anything on tuberculosis, cholera, hydrophobia, etc., etc., just remember the back number in China, won’t you?”

With keen recognition of the inestimable value which her scientific study and training have been to her in her work, Dr. Stone has never failed to remember the great Source of motive and power, and has ever been eager to share with her patients the joy and peace of the Christian religion.  Every morning she conducts a service in the hospital chapel for the employees of the hospital, and such of the patients as are able to attend.  At the same time the nurses are holding a similar service in the ward upstairs.  While the dispensary patients are waiting their turn in the examining room, one or more Bible women utilize the time by telling them the truths of Christianity.  Dr. Stone’s own mother has done such work for years, morning after morning, among her daughter’s dispensary patients.

One of the other missionaries at Kiukiang tells of going through the hospital one evening, as the nurses were getting the patients settled for the night.  She noticed a low murmur which she did not at first understand, until she saw that at every bed someone was in prayer.  Here a mother was kneeling by the side of her little suffering son; there another mother of high rank was praying that the life of the baby by whose crib she knelt might be spared to her.  In one corner a woman had crept out of bed and was kneeling with her face to the floor; in other places those who were too sick to leave their beds were softly praying in them.

The nurses are all Christian women, able to minister to the spiritual as well as the physical.  Dr. Perkins says of them:  “The nurses, too, are strongly evangelistic in their thought and effort, and even to one who could not understand the language, the atmosphere of Christian harmony and the remarkable lack of friction in a place so busy and so constantly full of problems, was very noticeable.”

One night Dr. Stone went into the room of a patient who had been greatly dreading a serious operation which she was to undergo the next day, to be greeted with a radiant face and the words, “Oh, doctor, I’m not afraid now of the operation.  I’ve been talking to your God.”  Earlier in the evening one of the youngest of the nurses had found her crying bitterly and the old woman had told her:  “I’m so afraid of the operation.  You see the other woman you told me of was a Christian and of course your God helped her.  I’ve never worshipped your God.  I never knew of Him before and He may not help me.”  “Why, you needn’t cry over that!” the little nurse assured her.  “Our God doesn’t blame you when no one had told you about Him.  Now that you know, if you love Him and pray to Him, He will help you.”  Then she knelt down beside her and taught her how to pray to Him.  After the operation was over and the patient, fully recovered, was going back to her village, she said to the doctor, “I am the first one in our village to hear of Jesus.  Won’t you come soon to my people and tell them.”

Dr. Stone’s letters and reports are full of accounts of the way in which, from the beginning, the work of the hospital has brought the knowledge of the Great Physician to those whose bodies had been so tenderly cared for by His followers that their hearts were very open.  Whole families, sometimes almost entire communities, have become Christian as a result of the medical work.  An interesting instance of the way in which the hospital’s influence is spread by its patients is the case of a little girl, eight years old, who unbound her feet while in the hospital, and became so ardent an advocate of natural feet that after she had returned to the village in which she lived, she and her father succeeded in persuading three hundred families to pledge that their daughters should have natural feet.

It is quite impossible to separate Dr. Stone’s definitely religious work from her medical work; for while Sunday afternoons and the chapel hour in the morning are set aside by her for purely evangelistic work, her Christian faith permeates all that she does.  In the first years of her practice she did some itinerating work, but now that the work is so large and she is the only physician in charge, she has had to give that up.  The nurses, however, still carry it on.  “You see, while I am practically tied to the place,” writes the doctor, “it gives so much happiness to be able to send out workers like these and to spread our influence.  As the nurses say, they will be able to send a lot of patients back to the hospital.  You see the more work we have the merrier we are.”

Every time an evangelistic worker goes out on the district, one of the nurses accompanies her, and with ointments, simple medicines, bandages, vaccine, etc., treats several hundred patients in the country beyond the reach of physicians.  At one time in the bitter cold weather of winter a message came from a distant village where smallpox was raging, asking that a nurse be sent to treat the sick people and vaccinate those who had not yet taken the disease.  One woman in that village had once been at the hospital, and it was through her that the call came.  One of the nurses at once volunteered to go, and with a Bible woman and a reliable man-servant she took the trip down the river, in a little sampan, to the smitten village.  During four days she treated over one hundred patients not only in the village, but also in the region round about; for she and the Bible woman walked thirty li every day to sufferers in the country.  While the nurse worked, the Bible woman preached, and in this way hundreds of people heard of Christianity for the first time.  As Dr. Stone says, “The cry now is not for open doors, for we have free entrance into the homes of the rich and poor.  What we need now is an efficient force of trained evangelistic workers to ... follow up the seed thus sown broadcast on such receptive soil.”  This need the Training School for Bible Women is helping to meet.

Mrs. Stephen Baldwin writing to Dr. Danforth said, “The Lord honoured your investment by placing in it one of the most wonderful doctors in all this world.”  But Dr. Stone is not only a physician, but an all-round woman.  “She is equal to any sudden call to speak,” said one who heard her often when she was in America.  A report of the Missionary Conference at Kuling, China, states that “Dr. Stone’s paper on ‘Hospital Economics’ was the finest feature of an attractive conference.”  At the request of this conference she prepared a leaflet on the diet suited to Chinese schoolgirls, and a few years ago wrote a very useful book on the subject:  “Until the Doctor Comes.”

“I observed her in her home,” writes a missionary who stopped at Kiukiang for a few days en route to Peking, “a housewifely woman, thoughtful of every detail that might ensure a guest’s comfort.  In a single month recently she treated 1,995 women and children, yet she is not too busy to be a gracious hostess.  Chinese ladies delight to visit her, and such is the influence of this modest woman that the Hsien’s wife has unbound her feet.”

It may well be questioned, great as are Dr. Stone’s achievements, which is of more value, the actual work she is doing, or the inspiration which her efficient, self-sacrificing Christian life is bringing to the awakened womanhood of the new China.  The words of Miss Howe regarding Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn indicate their influence:  “They seem to be an inspiration to the girls and women of all classes.  When our schoolgirls learn of anything ’the doctors’ did when they were pupils, they seem to think they have found solid ground on which to set their feet.”  A letter from another fellow-worker stated that Dr. Stone was to give the address at the graduation exercises of the class of 1909 of the Nanking Normal School for Women at which the viceroy and “other notables of China” were to be present.  Dr. Stone was greatly touched when the daughter-in-law of a viceroy once said to her that she would gladly give up all her servants, her beautiful clothes, her jewels, even her position, if she could lead a useful life like hers, instead of making one of the many puppets in the long court ceremonies, with nothing to think of except her appearance, and nothing to do but kill time.

It is a great joy to the doctor to have a part in bringing about a realization of the achievements of which Chinese women are capable, and she has been willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do this.  Soon after Dr. Kahn’s transfer to Nanchang had left her with almost double work, Dr. Danforth wrote that he had found a nurse in one of the Chicago hospitals who was willing to go to China, and asked Dr. Stone what she would think of having her come to the Danforth Hospital.  Dr. Stone replied that while she would take her if Dr. Danforth wished, she would really rather not, on the whole.  Personally, she said, she would have been very glad to have her come, but she was eager that her work should accomplish two things which it could accomplish only if it were purely Chinese:  first, that it should convince the Chinese women themselves that they are able to do things of which they have never dreamed; and, second, that it should show the people of other nations that the only reason why Chinese women have for centuries lived such narrow lives is that they have not had opportunity to develop their native powers.  She feared that if an American nurse came to the hospital it would look as if the purely Chinese work had failed, and that it had been necessary to call in help from America.

Accordingly, although Dr. Stone has sometimes been forced to admit that her work has been so heavy as to tax both heart and strength to the utmost, she has carried it all these years with no help, except from the nurses she has trained.  She has counted no task too hard, no labour too constant, if she may thereby benefit her countrywomen physically, intellectually, or spiritually.  “She does not spare herself,” one of her friends writes, “she seems unable to do so, and is too tender-hearted to turn the suffering away for her own need.”

The past year has brought peculiar burdens to the doctor.  She carried on her regular hospital work as usual, until the disturbances caused by the Revolution came so near that all the women and children in the schools and hospital were ordered into the foreign concession.  This order came at night, and by two o’clock the next morning not a patient was left in the hospital.

Dr. Stone turned over the hospital to the revolutionary leaders, and each day she and her trained nurses cared for the injured soldiers sheltered in it.  The leaders of the Revolution urged her to wear the white badge which was their emblem, but she told them that while her sympathies were with them, as a Red Cross physician she must remain neutral, that she might be able to render assistance to the wounded on both sides.  Her explanation was courteously accepted, and an armed guard was furnished to escort her to and from the hospital each morning and evening.

When the Manchu governor of Nanchang was captured he was taken to Kiukiang, where, in chagrin at his imprisonment, he attempted suicide.  Deserted by his servants and soldiers, he would have died alone and uncared for had it not been for Dr. Stone, for no one else dared to go near him.  Dr. Stone and two of her nurses cared for him until the death which they could not prevent, but which they made far easier than it would otherwise have been.  It was this same governor who, but a few months before, had refused Dr. Stone the rights of Chinese citizenship because, in purchasing land for a men’s hospital at Kiukiang, she was buying property for foreigners.

When the leaders of the revolutionary party learned that their prisoner had committed suicide they were greatly disturbed.  None of them dared to carry the news to General Ma, lest, in accordance with an old Oriental custom, he should punish the bearer of ill tidings.  In their perplexity they went to Dr. Stone and asked her to take the news to the general.  Accordingly the little doctor, accompanied only by one of her nurses, went to the general’s headquarters to break the news to him.  It is significant, not only of the universal respect accorded the doctor, but also of the new position accorded woman in China, that these women, who ventured unattended into a soldiers’ camp, were received with every courtesy.  General Ma asked the doctor many questions about her work, and at the close of their interview exclaimed, “When things are settled once more, I intend to find support for such a work; the Chinese ought to help it.”

Because of the disturbances caused by the Revolution, many students in the Kiukiang schools returned to their homes.  The family of one young woman insisted that she make use of this enforced vacation to become married to the young Chinese to whom she had long been engaged.  The marriage was unwelcome to her, for she was a Christian and the man was not, but as she was the only Christian in her family she received no sympathy from them, and the wedding was set for Christmas day.  The parents, however, yielded to their daughter’s earnest desire for a Christian ceremony, and her brother was dispatched to Kiukiang to seek Dr. Stone, who had been eminently successful in all kinds of operations and might surely be relied upon to tie a satisfactory marriage knot.  Dr. Stone accordingly left all her Christmas engagements, and accompanied by a Chinese pastor and one of her nurses, set out, through a heavy snow storm, for the girl’s home.  When the wedding guests were all assembled, Dr. Stone said that she would like to say a few words before the ceremony took place, and for an hour and a half she told her hearers of the Christian good tidings.  The result was that when the wedding was over the mother and father of the bride brought their idols to her, and allowed their daughter to apply the match to them, for both had determined to become Christians.  The father said that he wished other people to hear the good things Dr. Stone had told them, and would give the land for a Christian school.  The bridegroom volunteered to do the carpenter work which would be necessary before a school could be opened, and now the young wife is teaching a group of children who have entered this new Christian school, and in the new home husband and wife daily unite in morning prayers.

After the Revolution was practically over, but conditions were still so unsettled as to make it unwise to reopen the hospital, Dr. Stone and several of her nurses made a trip to a number of towns in the region around Kiukiang.  In a recent letter Dr. Stone tells of being given a piece of land by the influential people in one of these towns, with the earnest entreaty that she leave a nurse there to carry on a permanent medical work.  She could make them no definite promise, but is hoping that friends in America will make it financially possible to support a nurse and dispensary where they are so greatly needed.

Truly the Chinese women are blessed in having so perfect an embodiment of the ideal woman of the great new China in this unassuming physician, whom a friend who has known her from babyhood declares to have the most perfect Christian character of any one she knows.  After his visit in Kiukiang, Dr. Perkins exclaimed:  “Such a wonderful woman as Dr. Mary Stone is!  I do not know of any good quality she does not possess”; and one who has had an intimate acquaintance with the college women of America says:  “What a marvel Dr. Stone is!  To me she is unexcelled in charm, in singleness of purpose, and all-round efficiency, by any other woman I have ever known.”