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Henry Norman BethuneCanadian surgeon, innovator in surgery
Date of Birth: 04.03.1890
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Content:
- Biography of Henry Norman Bethune
- Early Life
- Medical Career in Canada and the United States
- Political Activism and Work in China
- Final Years in China
- Legacy
Biography of Henry Norman Bethune
Canadian Surgeon, Innovator in Surgery and Methods of Organizing Aid for the Wounded
Henry Norman Bethune was a Canadian surgeon and innovator in the field of surgery as well as in methods of organizing aid for the wounded. He was also an anti-fascist and volunteered as a doctor in the Spanish Civil War and in the war between Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders, where he tragically lost his life. Following his death, he became one of the most revered foreigners in China.
Early Life
Norman Bethune was born in the town of Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada, to a Canadian family of Scottish descent with a long history in the country. His great-grandfather, John Bethune, founded the first Presbyterian church in Montreal, and his grandfather, Angus Bethune, worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in what would later become Canada and the northwestern states of the USA. Bethune's father, Malcolm Nicholson Bethune, was a Presbyterian pastor who was not particularly well-known.
In 1909, Norman enrolled in the University of Toronto. In 1911, he took a break from his studies to spend a year among immigrant miners and loggers in northern Ontario, where he taught them to read and write in English. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Norman once again left university and volunteered as a medic on the front lines in France. He was injured by shrapnel and spent three months in a hospital in England before returning to complete his medical degree at the University of Toronto in December 1916. In 1917, he returned to Europe as a military doctor, serving in a British naval hospital until 1919, and then completing his internship at a children's hospital in London before furthering his surgical training in Edinburgh.
Medical Career in Canada and the United States
In 1924, Norman moved to the United States, where he worked as a doctor and taught at a medical college in Detroit. In 1926, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, likely contracted from working with impoverished patients. At that time, before the discovery of antibiotics, tuberculosis was a difficult-to-treat disease. Upon the patient's insistence, he underwent a risky surgical procedure called intentional pneumothorax, which helped him recover. After his recovery, Bethune began to specialize in thoracic surgery. In April 1928, he relocated to Montreal to work at the Royal Victoria Hospital at McGill University with Dr. Edward Archibald, one of the leading experts in the field.
During his time in Montreal from 1929 to 1936, Bethune published 14 scientific papers on thoracic surgery and invented or improved over a dozen surgical instruments, one of which was named in his honor - the Bethune Rib Shears - which are still used today. Bethune often took on hopeless cases and worked quickly, resulting in many of his patients dying. However, many of his surviving patients would not have survived without his operations. His abrupt nature and eccentric behavior, as well as the perceived unnecessary risks he sometimes took with his patients, led him to leave the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1932 and take up the position of Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery and Bronchoscopy at the Sacré-Cœur Hospital in Montreal, recommended by Dr. Archibald himself. However, he continued to criticize his fellow thoracic surgeons for preferring to operate only on patients with higher chances of survival and avoiding difficult or "hopeless" cases to protect their survival statistics.
Political Activism and Work in China
In the early 1930s, Bethune became increasingly aware of the plight of the Canadian working class during the Great Depression and concluded that improving public health required not only medical measures but also social reforms. He advocated for healthcare reform in the Progressive Club of Montreal and established a free clinic where he and his like-minded colleagues provided medical assistance to children, women, and the unemployed.
In November 1935, Bethune joined the Communist Party of Canada but did not publicly declare his affiliation. Soon after the start of the Spanish Civil War, he traveled to Spain in October 1936 as the chief medical officer of the Canadian battalion of the International Brigades. In Spain, he established the world's first mobile hospital for providing aid to the wounded in front-line conditions. This allowed for surgical operations and blood transfusions to be performed more quickly after injuries, saving the lives of many soldiers who would have otherwise died from blood loss before reaching a more permanent hospital. Despite the challenges faced in implementing blood transfusion methods in close proximity to the front lines, Bethune and his team managed to supply blood to all areas of the thousand-kilometer-long front of the civil war.
In May 1936, Bethune delivered a lecture titled "25 Errors I Have Made in Thoracic Surgery." While this self-critical lecture was well-received by young surgeons as a valuable learning tool, it angered influential colleagues who preferred to present doctors as infallible. The text of the lecture was never published.
After his return to North America in June 1937, Bethune embarked on a speaking tour in Canada and the United States, advocating for support of the Republican cause in Spain and criticizing the policy of non-intervention by Western powers in the war. However, with the Japanese invasion of China in July 1937, Bethune lost hope of returning to Spain and believed his place was in China. By the end of October, he was in New York, purchasing equipment and medicine to bring with him to the Chinese Communists. In January 1938, Bethune, along with two Canadian doctors, set sail from Vancouver to Hong Kong aboard the "Empress of Asia" ocean liner. From Hong Kong, they flew to Hankou (Wuhan), a city on the Yangtze River that served as the temporary capital of Republican China on its way from Nanjing to Chongqing.
As a result of the ceasefire between the Nationalist government and the Chinese Communists, reached after the Xi'an Incident in December 1936, both sides agreed to cease hostilities and cooperate in the defense against Japanese invaders. Most foreign aid to China, not only from Western countries but also from the Soviet Union, was directed to the Nationalists. However, Bethune, driven by his political beliefs, wanted to join the Communists who were entrenched in the "Special Region of China" in the north of the country. There, he was invited by a young Lebanese-American doctor named George Hatem. After a brief delay, Bethune, accompanied by Canadian nurse Jean Ewen, who had extensive knowledge of the country, managed to leave Hankou on February 22, 1938, and reached the territory controlled by the Communist forces (known as the Eighth Route Army) in March, providing assistance to wounded soldiers and civilian patients along the way.
Final Years in China
As not just a surgeon but also a specialist with recent experience in organizing front-line medical assistance, Norman Bethune was warmly welcomed in the Communist capital of Yan'an, where he and Jean Ewen arrived at the end of March 1938. Over the course of nearly two years spent in the Special Region, Bethune utilized his expertise to establish a medical support system on the anti-Japanese front and improve the skills of local medics. Bethune frequently met with Mao Zedong, who highly valued his contributions.
Bethune spent the final two years of his life in the Special Region, saving the lives of wounded Communist fighters as well as Japanese prisoners of war, until he succumbed to blood poisoning from a cut he received during surgery. His heroism earned him honor and respect in China that continues to this day. In the English-speaking world, Bethune's story was made known through the book "The Scalpel, the Sword" by Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon, published in 1952.
Legacy
Both China and Canada have produced several documentaries and feature films about the internationally-minded doctor. The most well-known of these is the feature film "Bethune: The Making of a Hero" (1990), a co-production between Canada, France, and China. The screenplay was written by Ted Allan, who was acquainted with Bethune from their time in Spain and co-authored the 1952 book about him.
By the time of its release, this film was the most expensive Canadian production to date.