One of China's great heroes isn't Chinese at all -- he's Canadian! Norman Bethune was born in Gravenhurst, Ontario in 1890, a long way from northwestern China where he died from blood poisoning in 1939. After working as a stretcher bearer in the First World War until he was wounded at Ypres, France, Norman continued his medical studies at the University of Toronto. He then re-enlisted as a surgeon in the British navy, spending the last six months of the war as a medical officer with Canadian airmen in France. This was just the beginning of a long list of contributions that Norman made to helping mankind. He set up a free medical clinic for the poor in Montréal. He invented and refined many surgical instruments, some of which are still in use today.
During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Norman pioneered mobile blood transfusion services to bring donated blood to those wounded in battle. Bethune left for China in 1938, when he learned that there were not enough trained doctors to take care of the people wounded in the war with Japan. Dr. Bethune began to train individuals in first aid, sanitary practices and simple surgical procedures. He established teaching and nursing hospitals and developed mobile medical services and led mobile units through the mountains on horseback. In October 1939, while operating without surgical gloves on a wounded soldier, Dr. Bethune accidentally cut his hand. He developed an infection that, without the needed penicillin, developed into blood poisoning. He died on November 12, 1939.
Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976, wrote a tribute to Norman Bethune, an essay that all Chinese schoolchildren were required to read. There is a statue, pavilion, museum, school and hospital dedicated to him in China.
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附錄: 2009年10月15日,加拿大聯邦政府宣布,為修繕安大略省Gravenhurst小鎮的白求恩紀念館撥款250萬元。國家公園管理局說,諾爾曼.白求恩(Norman Bethune1890—1939) 是加中人民友誼的象征,每年有很多中國遊客和華裔到白求恩紀念館參觀和緬懷這位偉人,撥款修繕這個紀念館很有必要。 目前白求恩紀念館由兩幢房屋組成,一幢為白求恩出生在那裏的二層樓房,邊上另一幢是由二層樓房式住宅改建的陳列室和辦公室。這次主要是解決放映廳問題,因為過去都是在院子裏的帳篷中播放白求恩生平影片的。