Notable Doctors from the First 100 Years

Last updated (partial) on May 25, 2012

By the first 100 years, I mean the years beginning 1841 and ending 1941. This actually covers 101 years, but I thought the inclusion of the year 1941 would make complete the period in question, which will now start from the year when British troops landed in Hong Kong to take possession of the Island and end in the year when Hong Kong fell to the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army during the Pacific War.

I found no record that shows who was the first physician to practice in Hong Kong, that aside, the first record breakers are plentiful:

1855
Dr. Kuan Huang became the first Chinese resided in Hong Kong to study abroad in a university, the first to qualify as a physician with the M.B. qualification and a M.D. in 1857
1879
Dr. Ho Kai became the first Hong Kong-born Chinese to read medicine in an university and qualify as a physician with the M.B., C.M. qualifications
1880s
Dr. Herbert Poate became the first dentist to practice in Hong Kong
1892
Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Dr. Kong Ying-wah became the first licentiates of Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese
1893
Dr. Kwan Sun-yin became the first locally-trained doctor to practice in Hong Kong
1901
Dr. Chaun Moon-Hung became the first university-trained (University of Pennsylvania) Chinese dentist
1904
Dr. Alice Deborah Sibree became the first woman doctor (obstetrician) to practice in Hong Kong
1912
Dr. George H. Thomas became the first non-Chinese student and licentiate of the Hong Kong College of Medicine (1912), he was also the first M.D. graduate of the University of Hong Kong (1920) and the first locally born acting Director of Medical Services (1947)
1927
Dr. Chau Sik-nin became the first Chinese Otolaryngologist to practice in Hong Kong (1927)
Dr. Eva Ho Tung, daughter of Robert Ho Tung, became the first woman graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, HKU
1952
Prof. Sze Tsung-sing became the first Chinese appointed a WHO Medical Officer
1952
Dr. K.C. Yeo became the first Chinese appointed to the top medical post in the government - Director of Medical and Health Services

Scotland and Christendom ruled the first hundred years. This was partly because of the success of medical missionaries from the U.K., and partly due to the lack of government funding for public medical care.

1840s

Henry Holgate
Acting Medical Chief

Holgate was said to be a surgeon on a merchant ship who came to China in the 1830s. He was one of the first surgeons to work at the British Seaman's Hospital in Whampoa (Huangpu) when it opened in 1836. He was appointed by Charles Elliot, Administrator of Hong Kong, to the position of Acting Colonial Surgeon in August 1841 to establish a Colonial Surgeon's Department. The appointment was, however, quickly disallowed after Elliot was sacked by Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I do not know why his appointment remained in a government notice given in the March 31, 1842 issue of Friend of China.

A report on the Canton Register, dated October 12, 1841, cited by the New-York American of February 7, 1842, carried Holgate's comments on health conditions in Hong Kong. Might this be Holgate's only official act as the Acting Colonial Surgeon?

"Macao had suffered much from sickness, many of the inhabitants and Chinese having fallen victims to a kind of influenza which was travelling about.

The accounts of sickness at Hong Kong are contradicted. A Mr. Henry Holgate, writing from Hong Kong, under date of the 4th, states that there is no malaria, and that health of the troops has been gradually improving, not any having been ordered on board of the transports. The crews of vessels are very healthy, and in a population of 12,000 Chinese, there have been but 10 deaths in the last four months.”

After his short tenure as a medical official in Hong Kong, Holgate returned to his old job in Whampoa and became the head of the British Seaman's Hospital on November 28, 1842. He moved to Macau in 1849, and went back to Whampoa in 1851. There was a company existing in Macau in 1842 went by the name of Holgate & Co., which was a ships' agent. Has this to do with Dr. Holgate, I have no idea. Henry Holgate was listed as a member of the Chinese Medico-Chirurgical Society (founded on May 13, 1845) in 1846.

Sources:
- The Chinese Repository, 1836/37, 1842, 1849
- Europe in China; the History of Hong Kong from the beginning to the year 1882, by Ernest John Eitel
- The Friend of China, March 31, 1842
- Janus, Jardine Matheson Archive
- New-York American, February 7, 1842

Dr. Lunn
Pathologist who preformed Hong Kong’s first autopsy

The first autopsy done in Hong Kong was on a woman named Nga Lok Po who died suddenly causing her relatives to suspect she had been poisoned. The inquest was held on August 15, 1842 and Dr Lunn, Hong Kong's first pathologist, identified cause of death as a 'visitation of God'. The second autopsy he performed related to traumatic injury. On August 10, 1842, 40-years-old house painter of Canton Bazzar, Ho Wai, was engaged in an argument-turned- fracas with Ah Nam, his partner who demanded arrears of wages. They went into a house with no one inside to have the matter settled. Ho came out moment later bleeding copiously from the neck and said before he died that he had been struck by Ah Nam. Dr. Lunn identified the neck wound as the cause of death and opined it was done with a knife or chopper. The jury reached a verdict of willful murder. Ah Nam, the murderer, however was no where to be found. Rev. Lewis Shuck, the editor of the Friend of China confirmed that this was Hong Kong's first murder case. In his column, he said, “This is the first case of murder on the island. The people are generally so peaceful and non-contentious that there must be some extenuating circumstances.” It is quite unsatisfactory that I was not even able to find the full name of Dr. Lunn.

Sources:
- Friend of China, August 18, 1842

Cover of the Transactions of the China
Medico-Chirurgical Society (1846)Alfred Green Gayton Tucker

Surgeon of Hong Kong’s first hospital ship, HMS Minden

Alfred G.G. Tucker rose from the medical services of the Royal Navy. He was made Assistant Surgeon on July 12, 1832, and served on HMS Impregnable, and then on HMS Vernon from December 12, 1832 and HMS President from July 16, 1834. Tucker was promoted to Surgeon on November 23, 1841 and was appointed to HMS Minden on the 18th of the following month. He came to Hong Kong on board the Minden on June 7, 1843; the battle ship served as a hospital ship in Hong Kong until1844, whereupon it became the military stationary ship for the China and India Station. Tucker and all the other medical staff were reassigned in June 1844. Tucker suffered from tuberculosis and died on board Minden on October 10, 1845. D.B. Whipple, Assistant Surgeon on HMS Agincourt was promoted to replace Tucker. A majority of Minden's original medical staff was reassigned to HMS Alligator when it arrived in Hong Kong in 1846 to replace Minden as medical ship.

There was a William Guise Tucker who was appointed Chaplain to the Minden in 1836, and was made Chaplain to the Fleet in 1865. He became the Vicar of Ramsay, Essex on April 3, 1881. The Rev. Tucker was born in Hampstead, Devon, the second son of John Tucker and Mary Ann Britton. I wonder if these two were related.

Tucker was one of the founders of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society (CMCS), which was established in Hong Kong in 1845. He was elected President of CMCS at its first general meeting in May 1845. In his inaugural speech, he had put forward the idea of establishing a medical school to train Chinese students. He said, “...one day to see a medical school established at Victoria... It is only by education that we can expect to remove the deep old rooted prejudices of ages, and in what better manner could the pupils educated at the schools instituted for the Chinese be made useful instruments for introducing the Scriptures among their deluded countrymen.” For a non-clergyman, he was quite eager in spreading the good word.

Sources:
- "Heal the sick" was their motto: the Protestant medical missionaries in China, by Gerald H. Choa
- The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, by Gerald H. Choa
- The Navy List, 1834, 1840
- Rootsweb
- Straits Times Monthly Summary, for the month of October, 1845

Alexander Anderson
The first Colonial Surgeon
Colonial Surgeon (1843-1844); had an established medical practice in Hong Kong before 1843; appointed by Henry Pottinger, Hong Kong’s first governor, as the first Colonial Surgeon in late 1843, but without London’s authorization; position made redundant in 1844 due to the home government's concerns about the amount of money being spent on the new colony; position reorganized as Hospital Surgeon to the Colony (but there was no civil hospital); resigned the following month because of ill health

Benjamin Hobson 合信
Doctor who introduced smallpox vaccination to Hong Kong
Opened and ran the Medical Missionary Society's Hospital 傳道會醫院 (opened June 6, 1843 – closed c.1853); first Secretary of CMCS; Lecturer in Practical Physiology and Pathology (1909), Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (HKCMC); during his tenure in China and Hong Kong, Hobson produced four texts designed to introduce Western medical knowledge to the Chinese, which were widely used as medical textbooks in missionary schools in China; introduced smallpox vaccination into Hong Kong (1844); left Hong Kong in June 1845. More reading on Dr. Hobson from the post: Hospital in the Nineteenth Century.

James Satchell
James Satchell ran the Victoria Hospital (1843-?) with Dr. Richard Jones. Satchell was also the second editor of the Friend of China who took over from James White, the paper's first editor after White left Hong Kong for Shanghai in 1844. Satchell died from opium deprivation soon after taking over the newspaper.

Samuel Marjoribanks
Medical officer to the British consulate in Canton (April 1, 1843); joined Victoria Dispensary (1843)

Peter F.H. Young
Surgeon in the East India Company's iron steamship Nemesis; head (1843-1846) of the Hong Kong Seamen's Hospital (opened August 1843 - closed March 1873); requested by John Francis Davis, the second governor, after the sudden death o Dr. Dill, to gave up his medical practice and become Colonial Surgeon (1846-1847), the third in a row local recruit; unaware (both Dr. Yong and Davis were) of that the home government had decreed that the Colonial Surgeon's post should be filled by a London appointee, Dr. Young had to step down ten months after he was appointed to make way for Dr. William Morrison who arrived Hong Kong in mid 1847 as London’s appointee to take over his job; related to Dr. James Young

Francis Dill
The first Colonial Surgeon to died in office
d. 1846 Hong Kong; succeeded Dr. Alexander Anderson in 1844, but had position reinstated as Colonial Surgeon, however at a reduced salary of GBP600 p.a.; had experience working in China, also a locally filled positng as in the case of Dr. Anderson; primary responsibility was to look after policemen and prisoners in the goal; salary further cut back to GBP500/year in 1845; succeeded Dr. Tucker as the second president of CMCS in 1845; died suddently from liver complication (October 1846); two months before his death, Dr. Dill proclaimed that Hong Kong was the healthiest British Colony in the Orient.

James Hume Young
Junior partner in the Victoria Dispensary; Treasurer of CMCS; resigned from the Treasurer post and CMCS membership (November 1845); married to Margaret Hutchison

George K. Barton
Succeeded Dr. Hobson as the CMCS Secretary in 1845, partner with Thomas Hunter in the Victoria Dispensary

George Balfour
Balfour was in charge of the Seamen's Hospital in 1846. He was succeeded W.A. Haeland the following year.

William Aurelius Harland
MD and natural scientist, performed Hong Kong's first practice chloroform anaesthesia
b. 1822 Scarborough – d. September 12, 1858 Hong Kong; University of Edinburgh; came to Hong Kong in 1846 to escape from an unwise marriage (to a servant girl); learned the Chinese language, studied Chinese medicine, collected scientific specimens and worked as a surgeon at the Seamen’s Hospital; performed the first surgical operation in Hong Kong with the use of chloroform (March 8, 1848), the news of which was reported with a great novelty; CMS Secretary; Colonial Surgeon (1853), after the passing on of Dr. William Morrison, Dr. Harland himself died within a few months (1854) of taking up the office of Colonial Surgeon (in the colony’s first decade three of its four Colonial Surgeon died in office, it must had been a dangerous profession.); his memorial is in the Hong Kong Cemetery that reads: "Admired for his scientific enquiries, Trusted for his abilities as a physician, and Loved for his qualities as a man"; his brother was Edward Harland, shipbuilder of Belfast, whose company built the Titanic; their father, William, patented a steam road car in 1827, and his work was used in the first steam train, the Rocket, built by his friend George Stephenson; publications: "Records of Washing away of Injuries" (1855), which was an English translation of "The Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified 洗冤集錄 (click to view the full text in Chinese)" also known as "Washing Away of Wrongs", a book on forensic science written by Song Ci 宋慈 in 1247 and is probably the world’s first comprehensive writing about forensic anthropology; a friend of Karl Gutzlaff, a Prussian missionary who aided the proliferation of opium in China.

S. Boone

N.M. Clerjon
Medical Practitioner, Queen's Road. I find it interesting that Mr. Clerjon was not referred to as a doctor.

J. Gilbert
Surgeon, Queen's Road, Antonio da Silva was listed as an employee.

Henry Julius Hirschberg
Henry J Hirschberg (d.1814, Prussian part of Poland - d.1874) served at the London Medical Missionary Society Hospital from July 1847 when he arrived in Hong Kong to 1853, whereupon he went to Amoy (Xiamen) to worked for the LMS mission there. Hirschberg, a Jewish convert, was a LMS doctor. He returned to England due to ill health in 1858.

William Morrison
d.1853 Hong Kong; the first London appointed Colonial Surgeon (1847-1853); said to have a thriving medical practice in the UK before accepting the appointment; salary increased by GBP100 in 1848; died in 1853 from an abscess of the liver and was buried at the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley

1850s

James Carroll Dempster
d. February 25, 1881; M.D., University of Glasgow (1840); Colonial Surgeon, Hong Kong (1854-1857) succeeded Dr. W.A. Harland; a staff surgeon seconded from the army (back to local recruit again); annual salary drastically cut back to GBP200; more keen in punishing than healing with respect to his responsibility in the Goal, so much so that he introduced the tread wheel to the prison in Hong Kong as a punishment (1853-c.1861, the tread wheel had been purchased in England at the cost of GBP188); ordered to India with his regiment (1857) yet again vacating the hard-to-fill position of Colonial Surgeon; took part in the campaigns of Hazara in India (1857), Sebastopol in Crimea, Ferozepore in India (1859), New Zealand (1863-1865), Deputy-Inspector-General, Army; Deputy-Surgeon-General, Army (last held position)

Three Chinese figures by Dr. T.B. Watson
(pen and ink and pencil)Thomas Boswell Watson

How Watson's the Chemist began
b.1815-d.1860; graduate of Edinburgh University; went to Macau to established a private practice (1845); notable amateur painter and a friendship with the famous George Chinnery last from 1845 to Chinnery's death in 1852; sold his practice to Dr. B. Kane and moved to Hong Kong in 1856, acquired interests in the Hong Kong Dispensary in the same year; also involved in the Victoria Dispensary but this closed in 1857 because of lack of business; left Hong Kong for Scotland in 1859, a sick man. He died, a rich man, in 1860 at the age of forty four.
Thomas Boswell’s nephew Alexander Skirving joined the Hong Kong Dispensary as manager in 1858. When the uncle died, A.S. Watson together with Dr John David Humphreys and Dr Arthur Hunt leased the dispensary for their operation, and from 1862 onwards the name A.S. Watson featured prominently at the Hong Kong Dispensary. In 1871, the Watson family leased the company to Drs. Humphreys and Hunt, and thenceforth the company is known as A.S. Watson and Co., where Watsons the Chemist became the trade name for the retail outlets.

T.A. Chaldecutt
M.R.C.S.E., I.A.C.; Acting Colonial Surgeon (1859)

John Ivor Murray

John Ivoy Murray
Colonial Surgeon (1859-1872); arrived Hong Kong in February 1859 at the age of thirty four; Justice of the Peace; this is what he wrote, in his 1860 report, " The hospital system has always appeared to me very inadequate to the population. In fact it may be broadly stated that there is no hospital for Chinese, who form such a vast majority of our population."

William Stanley Adams (b.ca.1839, Hamilton, Scotland – d. January 10, 1898, Brentford, Middlesex, England)
The Forefather of Anderson & Partners, the Medical Practice
Qualifications: M.D., C.M., University of Glasgow (1862)

The first record of Adams in Hong Kong appeared in 1864, which showed that he was appointed Honorary Assistant Surgeon of the Hong Kong Volunteers. When he married in Hong Kong in 1867, he was a surgeon (and possibly was overall in charge) of the Seasmen's Hospital; he probably worked there until it closed in 1873. He was Port Health Officer of Hong Kong between 1877 (or earlier) and 1889; he was succeeded by Gregory Paul Jordan. He started a private practice in around 1880, in which he invited G.P. Jordan to join soon after the latter arrived in Hong Kong in 1884. The firm of Drs. Gregory Paul Jordan and W.S. Adams would evolve into Drs. Anderson & Partners. Adams was also said to have held the position of Colonial Surgeon, but I found no other references to confirm this. The only thing I could find that linked him to the top medical office in Hong Kong was that he lived next door to Philip Bernard Chenery Ayres, Hong Kong's last Colonial Surgeon (1873-1897); the position was renamed Principal Civil Medical Officer following his retirement. Ayres lived in a house called Dinder at 13 Caine Road. There is no record that showed when Adams left Hong Kong, except that he eventually retired to Edmonton, Middlesex in 1891, probably after having practiced for a while in London.

He married Susan Blanche Mary Hugo (b. April 11, 1848, Jersey, Channel Islands - d. Jan 28, 1940, Heston, Middlesex) at St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong in 1867. Hugo was the daughter of Harper Richard Hugo and Blanche Leggatt. Adams and Hugo had eight children: Hilda Agneta Bertha Stanley-Adams, Blanche J. Adams, Maude Beatrice Stanley-Adams, Stanley Hugo Stanley-Adams, Mabel Gertrude Adams, Percy Hugo Adams, Ethel Constance Adams, and Herbert Hugo St. Leger Stanley-Adams. They were all born in Hong Kong where the family lived in a house named Forest Lodge at 11 Caine Road. Julia Hugo, Susan's sister, lived with the family in 1885; she married William Kaye, who worked for the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in London. Son of John Adams, William Stanley Adams, while sojourning in Hong Kong, had his name changed to William Stanley Stanley-Adams, for unknown reasons.

References:
- Chronicle & Directory for China, Japan, & The Philippines (1872) Hong Kong: Daily Press.
- Private Residences of the Principal Government Officials, the Leading Merchants, the Consuls, Professional Men, and Justices of the Peace (1884) Chronicle & Directory for China, Japan, & The Philippines, pp398-399, Hong Kong: Daily Press.
- F.H.M. Hugo, A Pedigree of the Family of Hugo of St. Feock, Co. Cornwell [internet].
- Family Tree of Edna Killick and Terry Smith [internet].
- Nicholas Belfield Dennys (ed.)(1867) The Treaty Ports of China and Japan, a Complete Guide to the Open Ports of those Countries, together with Peking, Yedo, Hongkong and Macao, New York: Cambriege University Press.
- University of Glasgow / Biography of William Stanley Adams [internet].

James Cantlie

Patrick Manson

Ho Kai 何啟
b.1859-d.1914

1870s

Robert McCoy
Colonial Surgeon (1872-1873); died in office due to illness contracted in Hong Kong

G. Dods
Acting Colonial Surgeon (April 10, 1873 – November 4, 1873)

Philip Bernard Chenery Ayres
The last Colonial Surgeon (1873-1897)
b.July 13, 1840 Oxfordshire – d. October 12, 1899 Kent; son of Dr. Philip Burnard Ayres (M.D., London; Chief Medical Officer of the Civil Hospital, Mauritius; lecturer in chemistry at Charing Cross Hospital); M.R.C.S.Eng; M.L.R.C.P.Edin; government medical officer posted in Mauritius and India; arrived in Hong Kong (November 1873) to take up the position of Colonial Surgeon and Inspector of Hospitals (and would become the longest serving Colonial Surgeon – twenty four years); the following establishment were under the purview of the Colonial Surgeon: Police, Troops, Government Civil Hospital, Tung Wah Hospital, Victoria Gaol, Lock Hospital, Health of the Colony, and Sanitation, the Lunatic Asylum was added in 1884 when it as established; annual salary GBP600, allowed to carry on private practice whilst holding the public office aiming to make up the difference of GBP200 (Dr. Ayres had asked for GBP800 per year); oversight the opening of the Government Civil Hospital; instituted the nursing staff of trained nurses from the London Hospital (1889); played a pivotal role in fostering a higher standard in sanitation including institutionalized the Sanitary Board (1883); handled the epidemic of Plague (1894); Worshipful Master of the Hong Kong Masonic Order, Officer of the District Grand Lodge of China; health began to fail in 1895; home leave (1896, this is the first and only home leave Dr. Ayres had ever took since arriving in 1873); retired (1897); died two years later at the age of 59; wrote in his last report before retiring, "What all my reports could not do the epidemic has done.", referring to the drastic improvement in sanitation standard following the epidemic; after his retirement, the position of Colonial Surgeon was changed to Principal Civil Medical Officer.

Annual Salary of some government officials in 1875 (in GBP)

Chief Judge	2,500
Puisne Judge	1,700
Attorney General	1,000
Postmaster General	900
Registrar General	800
Captain Superintendent of Police	800
Superintendent of the Gaol	700
Colonial Surgeon	600

(It will be interesting to find out why the Postmaster General was so generously paid...)

John Pope-Hennessy 軒尼詩
b.1831 Cork, Ireland - d.1891; M.D., D.Ch., Queen’s University, Belfast; came to Hong Kong in 1877 not to practice medicine, but to govern; he was the eighth governor (1877-1882) of Hong Kong; Pope-Hennessy also had a law degree and was a licensed barrister; proposed a medical school for Hong Kong (1878)

1908 photo (probably the graduation photo) of the staff and students of the Hong Kong College of Medicine. In 1907, the college began to admit non-Chinese students and the words “for Chinese” was dropped from its name.

1. Ho Kai; Rector's Assessor
2. Francis H. May; Rector (Colonial Secretary; 15th Hong Kong Governor from 1912 to 1919)
3. John C. Thomson; Lecturer in Diseases of Tropical Climates, Fever
4. Ernest Hamilton Sharp; Standing Counsel (d.1922; Barrister of the Inner Temple; KC; B.L.C.; M.A.)
5. Robert McLean Gibson; Treasurer and Secretary, Director of Studies, Lecturer in Systematic Anatomy
6. R.A. Belilios; Lecturer in Physiology
7. Li Shu-fan
8. Wang Chungyi

Francis William Clark; Dean (on leave, not in photo)

Untagged HKCMC staff
C.M. Heanley; Lecturer in Practical Anatomy
A.H. Crook; Lecturer in Biology
H. MacFarlane; Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics
Joseph W. Noble; Lecturer in Dental Surgery
Gregory Paul Jordan; Lecturer in Eye Diseases
W.W. Pearse; Lecturer in Public Health
G.H.L. Fitzwilliams; Lecturer in Practical Physiology and Pathology (London School of Tropical Medicine)
F.T. Keyt; Lecturer in Practice of Medicine
W.V.M. Koch; Lecturer in Surgery (Acting Medical Superintendent, Leper Asylum, Trinidad in 1891; Vice President of the British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch in 1907; member of the Legislative Council in 1926)
.

R. Young
Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital (- September 1872)
Young resided at 7 Arbuthnot Road 亞畢諾道 in a house, or apartment building, named Woodville.

Dr. Scanlan
Acting Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital (after 1872 and before 1878)

Dr. Drew
Acting Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital (after 1872 and before 1878)

Charles John Wharry (b. February 9, 1848, Woolwich – d. unknown)

Qualifications: M.B., C.M., 1871; M.D. 1873, University of Aberdeen; F.R.M.C.S., London 1882

Wharry was Superintendent of Government Civil Hospital from  February 22, 1878 to at least 1884. He had taken ill in 1883 and while on leave of absence, was stood in by Arthur Wharry. There was a record in the minutes of the Legislative Council for the approval of government expenses including a line item of payment of remuneration to Arthur Wharry of $78 ($6 per day x 13 days). The two Wharry(s) might be related, but unfortunately, I found no references to confirm that. A. Wharry was listed in 1884 as a resident of Seymour Terrace on Seymour Road.

Charles John Wharry was son of C.W. Wharry. Wharry gave his address as 14 Ewell Road, Surbiton, Surrey in 1882.

References:
- Ernest John Eitel (1895) Europe in China, the History of HongKong from the Begining to the Year 1882, Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh.
- Medico-Chirurgical Transactions (Volume 49) 1884, London: The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society.
- Minutes of the Legislative Council No.3, Wednesday, March 5, 1884.
- Peter John Anderson (ed.)(1900) Roll of Graduates 1860-1900, University of Aberdeen
- W.S. Church, Alfred Willett (ed.)(1877) Saint Bartholomew's Hospital Reports (Volume 13), London: Smith, Elder, & Co.

1880s

John Christopher Thomson 譚臣
A devoted teacher
Medcial missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS), later government medical officer; b.June 5, 1863 Lockerbie, Scotland; M.A. (1884), M.B. and C.M. (1888), M.D. (1892),University of Edinburgh; University of Edinburgh Certificate in Diseases of Tropical Climates (1904); D.P.H., Edinburgh and Glasgow (1904); together with Dr. William Young 楊威廉, provided free medical services to Chinese populace at the clinic established by LMS in 1881 (the clinic was located in Po Yee Street, Sai Ying Pun 西營盤普義街); Superintendent of Alice Memorial Hospital (1889) and Nethersole Hospital; resigned from LMS in 1896 and entered Hong Kong civil service in January 1897 as Assistant Colonial Surgeon; Government Medical Officer and Medical Officer of Health to the Kowloon extension (1898); Justice of the Peace (1898); President of Hong Kong and China Branch of British Medical Association (1899); author of Reports on Malaria and on Hong Kong Mosquitoes (in Government Gazette); member of Hong Kong Club
The following are Thomson’s offices at the Hong Kong College of Medicine - Secretary (1891-1894); Treasury and Secretary (1895-1909); Director of Studies (1895-1902); Lecturer -- Chemistry (1896-1897), Chemistry and Physics (1898-1901), Clinical Medicine (1909), Clinical Surgery (1892), Diseases of Tropical Climates (1901-1909), Fever (1908), Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1892-1896), Physiology (1895-1896), Surgery (1896-1897)

Charles Robert Hager 喜嘉理
Dr. Sun Yat-sen's baptizer
Clergyman and physician; b.October 27, 1851 – d.1917 Claremont, California; M.D., D.D.; a German born in Switzerland who moved to the United States and was naturalized as a US citizen; Congregationalist 美國公理會 minister sent to Hong Kong as medical missionary in 1883, Dr. Hager was chosen because he had some experienced with the Chinese while working in San Francisco; established China Congregational Church 公理會佈道所綱紀慎會堂 soon after arriving Hong Kong at No. 2, Bridges Street; together with devoted Christian 溫清溪 established day and evening (English) schools within the church premises; at one time worked for the Hong Kong Missionary Association; baptized Dr. Sun either at the close of 1883 or early in 1884, also baptized at that time was Dr. Sun’s good friend and later a dear revolution comrade Lu Hao-tung 陸皓東 (b.1868-d.1895), following the baptizium, Dr. Sun resided at the living quarters provided by Dr. Hager in the church for about two years; Dr. Hager was said to have encouraged and recommended Dr. Sun to pursue medical studies as a matter of course, including an introduction for Dr. Sun to enroll at the medical school in Canton that was attached to the Pok Tsai Hospital 博濟醫學堂 run by Dr. John G. Kerr; after resided in Hong Kong and China for twenty seven years, returned to the United States due to ill health (1910); first wife, Lizze, nee Blackman, who came to Hong Kong and China with Dr. Hager, but died in the California; second wife, Marie, nee Von Rausch, A.B.C.F.M., who came to China as missionary of the Basel Mission, married Dr. Hager on December 13, 1986, opened first kindergarten in South China, died November 22, 1918, in Claremont, California; children of Marie and C.R. Hager: Robert, Elsie and Morrison Hager

Johann Gerhard Heinrich Karl Gerlach
Prussian State License; one of the first nine doctors who registered as medical practitioners in Hong Kong immediately following the enactment of the “Medical Registration Ordinance, 1884” that required all doctors to be licensed before they could treat patients (for monetary reward); Member of the Committee for the Foundation of HKCMC 1887; Lecturer in Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1887-1891)

Gregory Paul Jordan
b. February 6, 1858 Calcutta – d. December 4, 1921 London; M.B., C.M., University of Edinburgh (1880); studied in Vienna and Paris, and at St. Thomas’s Hospital; M.R.C.S.Eng. (1884); came to Hong Kong in 1880s; entered partnership with Dr. W.S. Adams, a partnership which was to evolve eventually into Anderson & Partners; Port Health Officer of the Port and Inspector of Immigrants (May 1, 1888); Consulting Surgeon to the Alice Memorial Hospital; Surgeon-Superintendent of Police (c.1914-c.1918); Co-Founder (with Drs. Manson (inaugural President) and William Hartigan) and inaugural Secretary of the British Medical Society Hong Kong Branch (September 1886); member of the Committee for the Foundation (1887); Lecturer in Eye Diseases (1903-1912), head of Surgical Department (1889-1896), HKCMC; Professor of Tropical Medicine (1915-1921), Pro-Vice-Chancellor (1913-1921), Acting Chancellor (1918-1912), Faculty of Medicine, HKU; Life Member of the University Court (since 1911), member of the University Senate (1912), Hon LL.D. (1921), HKU; nephew of Paul Chater, Hong Kong’s first property tycoon; inaugural Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge of Scottish Freemasonry, Hong Kong and South China (November 3, 1904 – his death in 1921); member of Hong Kong Club; naming honor: Jordan Road

Herbert Poate
Hong Kong's first dentist
American; graduate of the University of Pennsylvania; opened the first dental practice in Hong Kong in the early 1880s.

Joseph W. Noble
Dentist-turned-Newspaper-Publisher
American; graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (1883); joined Dr. Poate in 1887, their dental practice renamed Poate and Noble, which provided free dental service at the Alice Memorial Hospital; member of the Court (Board) of HKCMC and was involved in realizing the plan to incorporate the college into HKU; Lecturer in Dental Surgery (1896-1912), HKCMC; bought controlling interest of the Hong Kong Telegraph from Robert Ho-tung in 1916 and became its publisher.

Robert McLean Gibson
b.1870 Scotland – d.June 30, 1936 Port Said, Egypt; M.D. (1896), M.D. (1900), University of Edinburgh; F.R.C.S.E. (1912), sent to Alice Memorial Hospital by the London Missionary Society and served as Medical Superintendent (1887-1918); Medical Superintendent (1926-1935), Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital; Treasurer and Secretary (1909-1915), Director of Studies (1902-1909), Lecturer in Anatomy (1902-1912), Clinical Surgery (1909-1912), Physiology (1899-1901), Practice of Medicine (1903-1905), HKCMC; Life Member of the University Court (since 1911), HKU; life-long member, British Medical Association; retired from London Missionary Society (1935); honor: M.B.E. (1936); in 1965, in honor of Dr. Gibson's long and dedicated service, Dr. T.Y. Li (of HKU) presented the R.M. Gibson Gold Medal for award to the student gaining the best result in Paediatrics

W.E. Crow
Member of the Committee for the Foundation of HKCMC 1887; Lecturer in Chemistry (1887-1890), HKCMC

John Mitford Atkinson
b. December 3, 1856 – d. d. May 23, 1917 London; son of Rev. S. Atkinson; M.B., University of London (1881); M.B.C.S. Eng; L.S.A., London (1878); D.P.H., University of Cambridge (1894); Resident Medical Officer, St. Mary Abbott's Infirmary, Kensington (1878-1885); Medical Officer, No. 3 District St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington (1885-1887); Superintendent, Government Civil Hospital and Medical Officer to Small-pox Hospital and Government Lunatic Asylums (1887); acting Colonial Surgeon (1895); Principal Civil Medical Officer and President of the Sanitary Board (1897-1912); associated with the establishment of the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children on Barker Road (1897-1947); Lecturer in Physiology (?-1891), HKCMC; received thanks of Secretary of State for services during plague 1898; Fellow, Royal Colonial Institute (1887); President, Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine (1912); Member of Legislative and Executive Councils (1903-1912); Member of Hong Kong Club; retired in 1912 after twenty five years in Hong Kong and moved to London; Major, Royal Army Medical Corps. (July 26, 1915); head of the Richmond Military Hospital (1915); resigned commission in spring 1916; publication: "Plague Procedure in Hong Kong", British Medical Journal (December 15, 1906)

John Bell
b. November 10, 1859; M.R.C.S., Eng.; L.R.C.P. (1903), D.P.H., London; came to Hong Kong and in practice with Dr. Gregory Paul Jordan (1888) and gave his service to the Alice Memorial Hospital (1888-1896); Lecturer in Clinical Surgery (1888-1892), Pathology (1892-1896), Pathology and Bacteriology (1896-1898), HKCMC; acting Superintendent, Government Civil Hospital (1896); acting Principal Civil Medical Officer and President of Sanitary Board (1900); Superintendent Government Civil Hospital (1903); member of Hong Kong Club

Charles Forsyth
b. 1875 Neston, Cheshire - d. December 29, 1955; M.B., B.S., D.T.M., University of Edinburgh; F.R.C.S., Edinburgh; M.D.; came to Hong Kong and joined the medical practice of Dr. Gregory Paul Jordan (late 1880s); Lecturer in Pathology (from 1902, Pathology and Bacteriology), midwifery and gynaecology, HKCMC; one of the nine lecturers transferred from HKCMC to the Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912); member of the University Senate, HKU; President (1910-1923), Kowloon Cricket Club

1887 photo of some of the first students of HKCMC: front row from left:

Kong Ying-wah 江英華 (graduated in 1892); b.1871 South America; son of a Chinese immigrant worked as a coalminer; came to Hong Kong in 1880 at the age of nine; passed entry examination of the medical college in 1887 but financially unable to paid the required deposit of HK$500 which eventually was paid by Dr. James Cantile so that Kong could enroll in the college; went to Sandakan in North Borneo to practice after graduating from HKCMC and never left there.

Kwan Sum-yin 關心焉 (1893); featured in this post

Sun Yat-sen 孫中山 (1892);

Lau Sei-fuk 劉四福 (1895);

back row from left:

Wong Gau-gou 王九皋;

Wong Yi-nok 王以諾;

Wong I-ek 黃怡益 (1895);

Wong Sai-yan 王世恩 (1895); featured in this post
Chan Siu-baak 陳少白 b.1869 Jiangmen, Guangdong - d.1934 Beijing; Christian; enrolled in HKCMC in January 1890 at the introduction of Dr. Sun Yat-sen who was a close friend; left school in 1892 when Sun graduated from HKCMC; became Sun’s most trusted lieutenant in the republic movement; established China Daily 中國日報 in October 1900 in Hong Kong, a Chinese language newspaper used as a mouthpiece for the revolutionaries; joined the secret society of “Triad” 三合會 in 1899 and soon became its “consigliere”; joined another secret society “Gelaohui” 哥老會 in the same year and became its “Don” for the Hong Kong branch almost immediately; appointed Chief of Staff for Dr. Sun’s presidency when the latter assumed the post of Extraordinary President of ROC

1890s

Chung Boon-chor 鐘本初
The first Chinese house surgeon at the Alice Memorial Hospital and the first Western medicine doctor at the Tung Wah Hospital
Alias Chung King-ue; b. unknown – d. 1908 Hong Kong; graduate of Tientsin Chinese Government College 天津西醫學堂 run by Dr. John Kenneth Mackenzie; the first Chinese house surgeon at the Alice Memorial Hospital (1890-1895); the first medical superintendent 掌院, Tung Wah Hospital (1896-1903), with a monthly salary of HK$150, and meanwhile private practice was not permitted.

The chief purpose of appointing Dr. Chung, a Chinese doctor trained for Western medicine is to offer Western medicine as an option to patients in the Tung Wah Hospital, which until then only offer Chinese medicine. It wasn’t until three years after Dr. Chung’s appointment that Western medicine / surgery began to be accepted.

James Alfred Lowson
Medical Officer who diagnosed Hong Kong’s first plague case, A. Hung
b.1866; graduated from University of Edinburgh (1888); came to Hong Kong (c.1891); represented Hong Kong at the interport cricket in Shanghai (October 1892), his ship on return trip, the S.S. Bokhara, was sunk off the Pescadores (Penghu Islands) in a typhoon, he was among only twenty-five survivors out of about 150 passengers and crew on board; Medical Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital at the age of 28 (1894)

Kwan Sum-yin 關心焉
The first L.M.S.H of HKCMC to practice in Hong Kong
Alias Kwan King-leung 關景良; b.1869 Hong Kong – d.1945 Hong Kong; Christian; son of Kwan Yuen-cheong 關元昌, who was often referred to as China’s first dentist --- although he was trained by an American as a pupil-assistant (Dr. Kwan’s mother, nee Lai, was a translator at the Alice Memorial Hospital); grandson of Kwan Yat 關日, one of the first batch of ten converts baptized by the London Missionary Society in Canton; attended Diocesan School; enrolled in HKCMC in 1887 together with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and was Sun’s roommate while studying at the college; L.M.S.H., HKCMC (November 28, 1893), house surgeon, Nethersole Hospital (1893-1896), appointed by LMS; the first medical college graduate to practice in Hong Kong and became the Chinese medical practitioner of the longest standing in Hong Kong (Kwan’s two senior in college, Sun Yat-sen and Kong Ying-wah never practiced in Hong Kong. Sun briefly practiced in Macau and Canton. Kong, who graduated in 1892 with Sun, went to practice in what was Sandakan in North Borneo where he remained for the rest of his life); army surgeon, ROC; surgeon serving the Qing government; returned to Hong Kong and started a private practice (1898); member of the inaugural board of directors, Yeung Wo Nursing Home (1922); President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1922-1923); married Lee Kam Amoe 李月娥 (January 6, 1892) at the China Congregational Church where Dr. Sun was baptized. Sun was the matchmaker as well as a witness to the wedding. The bride used to live next door to Sun’s brother in Hawaii.

Top: 1890 photo of Kwan (standing) and the "Four Bandits 四大寇" comprising Sun Yat-sen and his three young manic-revolutionary friends. From left: Yeung Hok-ling 楊鶴齡 (b.1868 –d.1934); Sun; Chan Siu-baak 陳少白 (b.1869-d.1934), who was also a student of HKCMC; and Yau Lit 尢列 (b.1865-d.1936). The photo was taken at the Alice Memorial Hospital.
Middle: Kwan started his private practice five years after he graduated from HKCMC, at the age of 29, and continued for almost forty years.
Bottom: An advertisement posted by Dr. Kwan in the Chinese Mail 華字日報 of March 27, 1901

A poster showing a Chinese man posing in the new attire
promoted by the societyNo introduction of Dr. Kwan Sun-Yin can be complete without the “Cut Queue Keep Attire Society” episode; the Chinese name being 剪辮不易服會 and I must apologize for the poor English name translation since I was unable to find the proper name of the society in English given by historians. Established by Dr. Kwan, the society advocated a new attire for Chinese men (I think its main concern was ethnic Han men) whereby the wearing of Manchurian robe, also known as mandarin gown, was acceptable but the wearing of the compulsory queue was not. The movement had a significant symbolic meaning: first, to rid of the single most iconic image of submission to the Manchu reign; second, to uphold patriotism for not dressing in the Western manner. Kwan went to the extent of having the society incorporated with the Hong Kong Government and on November 4, 1910 hosted a general assembly of the society. The meet was held at the grand hall of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and was attended by more than 600 personages including six reputable founding members. They were Dr. Kwan’s father, Kwan Yuen-cheong 關元昌; the grandfather of Prof. C.Y. Wang, Wang Yuan-shen 王元琛; the Rev. Au Fung-chi 區風墀; businessman, political theorist and Ho Kai's best friend Wu Lai-woon, alias Hu Liyuan, 胡禮垣; Ng Chau-wu 吳秋湖; and church elder Wan Ching-kai 溫清溪. The most important message delivered in the assembly was that it was absolutely legal in Hong Kong for Chinese not to wear a queue.

T.J. Burton
Secretary (1894-1895), Lecturer in Chemistry (1893), HKCMC

Francis William Clark
The first Medical Officer of Health
b.June 23, 1864; M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., London University (1886); D.P.H. (1891), M.B. (1892), Cambridge University; M.D., Durham University (1900); trained at St. Bartholomew and Middlesex Hospitals; Superintendent of the Fever Hospital at Lowestaff; Medical Officer of Health at Lowestaff; came to Hong Kong in 1895, at the age of 31, to take up the post of the inaugural Medical Officer of Health; Dean (1907-1915), Lecturer in Diseases of Tropical Climates (1909-1912), Hygiene (1897-1906), Physiology (1896-1899), HKCMC; Dean (1912-1915), Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, Faculty of Medicine, HKU; Life Member of the University Court (since 1911), member of the University Senate (1912),HKU; member of the Sanitary Board; Justice of the Peace (1896); Secretary-Treasurer General, Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine (1912); member of the Legislative Council (1902); Principal Medical Officer of Health (1905-1906); Commodore of the Corinthian Yacht Club; member of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club; member of Hong Kong Club; left Hong Kong (1922) to become Consular Medical Officer in Mukden and later in Weihaiwei

U I-kai 胡爾楷
Christian; father of Dr. Wu Wai-tak, the most notable Chinese gynecologist in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century; father of Dr. Katie Wu, the late headmaster of St. Paul’s Girls’ School; L.S.M.H., HKCMC (1895); staff surgeon, Nethersole Hospital (1895), Alice Memorial Hospital; d. 1898 (if this is correct, then Dr. U (Wu) died three years after he graduated from the medical college and probably in late twenties)

Wong Sai-yan 王世恩
The Wong (Wang) Brothers and the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese
Alias Wong Chak-man 王澤民; b.1870-d.1928; Christian; grandson of Wang Yuan-shen 王元深, the first preacher of the Rhenish Mission; son of Wong Him-yue 王謙如, a pastor of the Rhenish Mission; first cousin of Professor C.Y. Wang 王寵益; enrolled in HKCMC in the same year as Dr. Sun Yet-san (1887), but graduated three years later than Dr. Sun with L.M.S. (1895); a very brief stint at the Alice Memorial Hospital (1895) before going to Selangor to practice; a founder of Guonghua Medical Society 光華醫社 in Canton (1907) which evolved into Guonghua Charity Hospital 光華贈醫院 and GuangzhouGuonghua Medical College 廣東光華醫學院; close to Dr. Kwan Sun-yin, he and Dr. Sun were the two witnesses at Dr. Kwan’s wedding

There were three other students who graduated with Wong on April 9, 1895: Wong I-ek 黃怡益 (passed with distinction, appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy and subsequently returned to his native Fuzhou), Dr. U I-kai 胡爾楷 (employed by the Nethersole Hospital) and Law Go Fuk who also went to Selangor, whether together with Dr. Wong is unknown.

Dr. Wong Sai-yan was the first of the several in the Wong/Wang family to have studied at HKCMC: Wong Gat-man 王吉民, younger brother, enrolled in 1905; Professor C.Y. Wang 王寵益, first cousin, graduated in 1908; Wang Chung-hing 王寵慶, first cousin, elder brother of Professor C.Y. Wang, enrolled in 1901, went to University of Edinburgh to study medicine in 1902; Wan Ho-lok 溫可樂, second cousin, enrolled in 1905.

Guonghua Medical College was established in 1908 as China’s first medical college run by Chinese nationals with the objective of promoting the esteem of Chinese medical practitioners. It was officially opened on November 15, 1908 and discontinued in 1953 after merging into the Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences. The faculty and students moved to Hong Kong when Japan began to invade southern China; class was suspended with the fall of Hong Kong and restarted in 1945 in Canton. There were about 670 graduates throughout the forty seven years history of the college. The founders of the Guonghua Medical Society were: Laing Peiji 梁培基 (1875-1947), Zheng Hao 鄭豪 (1877-1942, the first principal of the Guonghua Medical College), Chen Ziguong 陳子光, Zuo Jifan 左吉帆, Su Daoming 蘇道明 later known as Du Daoming (1846 Guongdong - 1919 Hong Kong), Chi Yaoting 池耀庭, Wu Hanchi 伍漢持, Chen Zecan 陳則參, Gao Yuehan 高約翰, Wong Sai-yan 王世恩, Liu Luheng 劉祿衡, Huang Eting 黃萼庭, Wang Kentang 王肯堂 and Tan Binyi 譚彬宜.

Frederic Osmund Stedman
b. December 31, 1862 Tiverton, Devonshire, England – d. February 2, 1927 Weybridge, Surrey; son of Arthur Stedman (surgeon, M.R.C.S.E.); elder brother of Savignac Bell Stedman, also a doctor, who went to Ceylon to practice and died there at the age of 64; married Lillian Mabel Lemesurier (1899); M.D., B.S., University London; M.R.C.S., Eng.; House Surgeon, House Physician, and Surgeon Registrar, Charing Cross Hospital ; House Physician, National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, London ; clinical assistant, Moorefield's Eye Hospital; came to Hong Kong and started the private practice of Stedman, Reinnie and Harston located at the Alexandria Building in Central; Supernumerary Surgeon-Lieutenant, Hong Kong Volunteer Corps (December 2, 1896); Council, British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch (1907-1908); Justice of the Peace; member of Hong Kong Club; publication: "Three Cases Treated by the "X" Rays", British Medical Journal December 19, 1903; was related to Elizabeth Stedman who was wife of Dr. Thomas Boswell Watson who went to Macau in c.1845 to start up a private practice, and whose family would later founded Watson’s, The Chemist

Wan Man-kai 尹文楷
The inaugural Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association
Alias Wan Tun-mo 尹端模; b. Hong Kong; Christian; son of Wan Wei-tsing 尹維清, an ordained minister, London Missionary Society; graduate of Queen's College; attended the Tientsin Chinese Government College 天津西醫學堂, a medical school opened in 1881 in Tianjin with the patronage of Li Hongzhang; surgeon, Imperial Chinese Navy; assistant professor, Tientsin Chinese Government College; went to Canton and associated with Dr. John Kerr and taught at the medical school attached to the Pok Tsai Hospital 博濟醫學堂 (Dr. Sun Yat-sen studied here in 1886), staff surgeon, Nethersole Hospital (1897); staff surgeon, Alice Memorial Hospital (1898, replacing the deceased Dr. U I-kai 胡爾楷; went into private practice (1900); member, inaugural President (1920-1922), Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association; the inaugural board of directors, Yeung Wo Nursing Home (1922); married the daughter of Au Fung-chi 區鳳墀, several of his brothers-in-law were graduates of HKCMC and practiced with him in Hong Kong

Ho Nai-hop 何乃合
The first Government Medical Officer for the New Territory
Alias Ho Lok-kum; graduate of Queen’s College (1894); L.M.S.H., HKCMC (1898); Government Medical Officer in charge of the New Territory (1898), based in Taipo, assisting Dr. John Christopher Thomson, the Government Medical Officer and his tutor at the medical college; went into private practice (1903); surgeon, Hongkong Milling Co., Ltd.

To Coxion 杜國臣
Alias To Ying-fan; L.M.S.H., HKCMC (1899); house surgeon, Nethersole Hospital (1899-1908); house surgeon, Alice Memorial Hospital (1908-1931); while serving at the Alice Memorial, also owned a private practice and a pharmacy in Queen’s Road; wife and son also employed by Alice Memorial

1900s

Photo of the first Degree Congregation of the University of Hong Kong on December 14, 1916, for twenty three students; eight in Medicine:

1. Chau Wai Cheung 周懷璋 – practiced in Hong Kong and later became the Chairman (1923-1926) of Yeung Wo Nursing Home 香江養和園, the forerunner of Hong Kong Sanitarium

2. C.E. Lim 林宗揚 – from Penang; went to Peking after graduaation and later became China’s first microbiologist

3. Edward Cheah Tiang-eam* – possibly 謝天炎; practiced in Foochow and Penang, moved to Johor Bahru in the mid 1920s; married to Emily Brockett, third daughter of Thomas Brockett, a successful English tea merchant based in Foochow and his Chinese wife - Mary Lo Dai, nee Nuang; close friend of Abdul Rahman bin Yassin whose son, Ismail Abdul Rahman, became the second Prime Minister of Malaysia (1970-1973); the two youngest Cheah daughters - Eileen and Joyce - married two of the Kuok brothers, Philip and Robert, respectively; keen golfer, played quite often with Sultan ibrahim, helped found the Singapore Golf Club as well as the International Club in Johore Bahru

4. Cheong Chee-hai* - 鍾志海

5. Wong Hing-chuen – the name sound Hong Kong

6. Teoh Cheng-toe* - attended the Straits & F.M.S. (Federated Malay States) Medical School before enrolling into UKU; founding member of Penang Medical Practitioners' Society (1932);

7. Teh Lean-swee* - possibly 鄭年瑞 or 鄭聯瑞; attended the Straits & F.M.S. (Federated Malay States) Medical School before enrolling into UKU; there was a Jalan (Road) Teh Lean Swee in Ipoh, which is now known as Persiaran Medan Ipoh and is located next to Jalan Wu Lean Teh – named after the famous Dr. Wu Lean Teh; wouldn’t be very far off to assume that Teh Lean-swee might have come from Ipoh or Penang and had become a famous doctor)

8. Lim Soon-kian* - possibly 林順建

* possibly Malayan of Chinese descent

Chaun Moon-Hung
The first Chinese Dentist, University trained
D.D.S., University of Pennsylvania (1899); the first Chinese student and the first Chinese graduate of Penn; admitted as the first Chinese dentist in Hong Kong (1901) by his Westerner peers --- most of them were alumni from Penn (There were no formal qualification requirements for dentist before 1914. The first Dentistry Ordinance was enacted on June 5, 1914.)

William Hunter
The first Government Bacteriologist
b. May 25, 1875 Banffshire, Scotland – d.1909 Hong Kong; son of Rev. William H. Hunter; M.B., C.M., University of Aberdeen (1897, most distinguished Medical Graduate); F.R.I.P.H., London University; member of the British Medical Association; member of the Neurological and Physiological Societies of Great Britain; University of Leipzig, University of Berlin, Germany; Laboratory Assistant, Pathological Department, Aberdeen University (1897) ; Clinical Assistant National Hospital for Paralyzed and Epileptic, London (1899-1901); Laboratory Assistant, Neuropathslogical Laboratory, King's College, London, (1900); Assistant Bacteriologist, London Hospital, (1900-1901) ; Director of Pathological Institute, London Hospital, (1901); Government Bacteriologist, Director of Bacteriological Institute, and Medical Officer in charge of the Government Public Mortuary (1901-1909); Lecturer in Pathology and Bacteriology, School of Medicine for Chinese; member of Hong Kong Club; died suddenly on June 9, 1909 at the age of 34, he was buried at the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley

Ho Ko-tsun 何高俊
b.1878; Christian; graduate of queen's college; L.M.S.C.C., HKCMC (1901), receipent of Belilios award; acting house surgeon, Tung Wah Hospital (1901-1902); the first laboratory assistant to the Government Bacteriologist (1902-1903), working under Hong Kong’s first Government Bacteriologist, Dr. William Hunter; resident surgeon, Nethersole and Ho Miu Ling Hospitals (1903-1906); Medical Officer, Chinese Public Dispensary, East Distrcit (located in Wanchai); went to private practice; lecturer, osteology and surgery, HKCMC; inaugural Chairman, Yeung Wo Nursing Home, the forerunner of Hong Kong Sanitarium (1922); active member (1910), Guangdong Medical Gongjinhui 廣東醫學共進會, the medical branch of a republican movement group founded in Tokyo in 1905; Deputy Director of Public Health, Guangzhou (1911); president, Tai Yuk School; founding member, Hong Kong Chinese Swimming Association 香港華人游泳會 (1910); publications: "A Treatise on First Aid to the Wounded", "Simple Remedies in varous Emergencies", "Reasons why Guangdong Government Banned Medical Services", China Medical Journal (March 1913), all three in Chinese; father of Dr. Ho Chung Chung, Ph.D. 何中中, founder and principal of True Light Middle School of Hong Kong 香港真光中學 (1946)

Members of the inaugural directors of the board (1922) of Yeung Wo Nursing Home had included:
Dr. Ho Ko-tsun 何高俊 (Chairman), Dr. Wan Man-kai 尹文楷, Dr. Kwan Sum-yin 關心焉, Dr. B.C. Wong 黃菖霖, Dr. Jeu Hawk 趙學, Dr. Ma Luk 馬祿臣 and Dr. Wu Tin-pao 吳天保

Oswald Marriott
b. December 30, 1874 London; M.B., B.S., M.D., University of London; L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. (1900), London; Assistant, and later House Surgeon, Guy’s Hospital, London; House Physician, Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital, Greenwich (1900); came to Hong Kong and started a private practice (1902); Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence (1887-1906), Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1904-1912), HKCMC; one of the nine lecturers transferred from HKCMC to the Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912); member of the University Senate, HKU (1912); member of Hong Kong Club

Frederick Theobald Keyt
b. February 25, 1866 Jaffna, Ceylon; son of Frederick Theobald Keyt (Sr.) (b. January 20, 1842, Colombo – d. December 19, 1903; L.M.S., Calcutta (1863); M.D., C.M. (1881) University of Aberdeen; Colonial Surgeon, Civil Medical Department, Ceylon) and Henrietta Elizabeth Kriekenbeek; M.B., C.M. (1888), M.D. (Honors), D.P.H. (1902), University of Aberdeen; Assistant Colonial Surgeon and District Commissioner, British Honduras (1892-1902); came to Hong Kong (1902); second Port Health Officer of the Port; Lecturer in Practice of Medicine (1905-1912), HKCMC, one of the nine lecturers transferred from HKCMC to the Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912); member of Hong Kong Club, Cricket Club and Corinthian Yacht Club.

The 3/15/2012 revision included information provided by Lindy Moore of North Wales, UK. Thank you, Lindy.

Jeu Hawk 趙學
b. 1866 Sunwui (Xinhui), Guangdong - d. October 27, 1931 Hong Kong; went to San Francisco with uncle (October 1882) at the age of sixteen decades after the Gold Rush prospecting; went to St. Louis after a few non-productive months in SFO and was sent to Sunday School to learn the English language, for free; converted to Christianity; entered Drake University at Des Moines, Iowa (1888), education probably paid by the congregation; graduated with a degree in Theology from DU (1892); led a mission established among the Chinese immigrants in Portland, Oregon initiated by Pastor David Wetzell and opened by the Christian Woman's Board of Missions (1892); entered Portland Medical College (1896) (college no longer exists); M.D., Portland Medical College (1900); entered the United Christian Missionary Society (Dr. Jeu was referred in several sources as a pastor, but I was unable to find any information that shows he was ever ordained); said to have returned to China in October 1900 (but uncertain when he arrived Hong Kong) with wife (name unknown, married in 1893) and Pastor Louie Hugh and his wife Grace of the United Christian Missionary Society; Resident Surgeon, and later succeeded Dr. Chung Boon-chor as the second Medical Superintendent, Tung Wah Hospital (1902-1910); started a private practice (1910); together with an Australian missionary, established Shamshuipo Church of Christ 深水埗基督會 (April 1926), the church still exists today under the name of Hong Kong Chinese Church of Christ 香港華人基督會; Member of the inaugural directors of the board of Yeung Wo Nursing Home (1922); President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1923/24)

Western medicine was introduced to the Tung Wah Hospital in the late 1890s and patients had a choice between Chinese medicine and Western medicine. At the time when Dr. Jeu managed the hospital as its medical superintendent, Western medicine had become quite acceptable amongst the Chinese patients. The record in 1907 shows that out of 3,200 in-patients, 1,815 opted for Western medicine and 1,385 for Chinese.

Wilfred William Pearse
M.B., C.M., D.P.H., Dm.; M.D. (1906), University of Aberdeen, thesis: “A Contribution to the Study of Plague”; arriving in Hong Kong (1901); acting Medical Officer of Health, Sanitary Superintendent and Superintendent of Statistics (1903); Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics (1903-1905), Public Health (1906-1912), Physiology (1901-1903), HKCMC; transferred from HKCMC to Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912), Lecturer in Public Health (1912-1921); member of the Hong Kong Club

Harold Macfarlane
b.July 15, 1876 – d.1919 Hong Kong; M.B.C.M., University of Edinburgh (1893), L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S., Edinburgh; arrived in Hong Kong (September 1903); Second Assistant Officer of Health (1903), Sanitary Department; Government Bacteriologist (April 1910 – 1918); placed in charge of a government investigation of Stegomyia mosquitoes, the findings was later published, entitled “The Stegomyia Survey in Hong Kong”; Dr. Macfarlane, collaborating with Adam Gibson, M.R.C.V.S., the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon, also made a study on flies in Hong Kong; member of the University Senate, HKU (1912); member of Hong Kong Club; died suddenly in February 1919; Dr. Macfarlane was succeeded by Dr. H.B. Parker, medical officer, Royal Navy

Wilfred Vincent Miller Koch
b. October 29, 1862 Jaffna, Ceylon - d. August 28, 1939; son of Dr. Edwin Lawson Koch (b.1838 Jaffna, Ceylon – d. 1877, age 39); educated at St. Thomas' College, Celon before moving to the U.K. for education; M.B., C.M. (1884), M.D. (1895, with highest honors and gold medical); University of Edinburgh; medical officers in various hospitals in London and Sheffield (1884-1888); entered Colonial Medical Services (1889), held various appointments in Trinidad (1889-1903); Army Major in command of the Trinidad Artillery; Medical Officer, Medical Department (1903-1917); Superintendent, Government Civil Hospital (1914-1917); Member of the Legislative Council (1926) and the Sanitary Board; Justice of the Peace; Vice President (1907-1908), British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch; district surgeon, St. John Ambulance Overseas Brigade; Lecturer in Surgery (1905-1912), HKCMC; Lecturer in Surgery (1912-1917), HKU; member of the University Senate, HKU (1912); member of Hong Kong Club; publication: “A research into the etiology of beri-beri, together with a report on an outbreak in the Po-Leung-Kuku”, by William Hunter and Wilfred V. M. Koch (1906); Three different names came up in various sources as the wife of Dr. Koch: Ida Nathan, Ellen Elliott Drake Briscoe and Elsie M. Thompson, but without the years of marriage. Dr. Koch was also referred as Prof. Koch in several sources without specifying the university and faculty

A descendent of Godfried Koch of Brandenburg, Prussia who went to India in the ship "Rosenberg" in 1755 and later moved to Jaffna, Dr. Koch Sr. was a much loved and respected doctor in Ceylon as well as the second principle of the Colombo Medical School. So much so that when he suddenly died at the age of 39, the grateful public of Ceylon offered subscriptions to pay for Dr. W.V.M. Koch’s medical education in Britain. What I fail to find is any information that mentions Dr. Koch, the son, had worked in Ceylon to repay the society that he owed his medcial career

Wedding portrait of Alice Sibree and
C.C. Hicking, Manager of Taikoo Sugar,
c.1910 Hong KongAlice Deborah Sibree

The first woman doctor
b.1876 Antananrivo, Madagascar – d.1928 Hong Kong; graduate of the London School of Medicine for Women; worked for the London Missionary Society; in 1904 engaged by the Alice Memorial Maternity Hospital 雅麗氏紀念產科醫院 (AMMH), Hong Kong’s first maternity hospital (opened on June 7, 1904) and became the first woman medical doctor in Hong Kong. More reading on Dr. Sibree from the post: The First Ladies.

William Brownlow Ashe Moore
L.R.C.S. & S.I., Dublin; house surgeon, Meath Hospital and Co. Dublin Infirmary (1903); ship’s surgeon, Indo-China S.N. Co. (1904); Assistant Medical Officer of Health (March to September, 1905); Assistant Surgeon, Government Civil Hospital (September, 1905); Acting Dirctor (1929), Deputy Director, Medical and Sanitary Services; Lecturer in Chemistry (1907-1912), Director of Studies (1909-1912)(questionable), HKCMC; Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence and Hygiene (1924-1932), Clinical Obstetrics, HKU; member of the Legislative Council (1929-1934); President, St. Patrick's Society of Hong Kong (1934); member of Hong Kong Club

David Hunter Ainslie
b. April 11, 1875 – d. June 20, 1921 Hong Kong; M.B. (1898), Ch.B., D.P.H. (1900), University of Aberdeen; D.T.M. & H. (1905), Cambridge University; Medical Officer, Anchor S. N. Navigation Co., Glasgow (1899); Medical Officer, Lagos Government Railway, West Africa (1893-1901); Gold Coast Government Railway (1901-1904); Demonstrator in the School of Tropical Medicine, London (1905); came to Hong Kong, joined the medcial practice of Drs. Stedman, Reinnie and Harston (1905); Lecturer in Physiology (1905-1908), HKCMC; owned and ran a private practice in Amoy (Xiamen) (1909); appointed surgeon with a Briitsh Mediterranean squadron, and was later seconded to the French and Japanese navies operating in the Mediterranean during WWI; Medical Officer, s.s. "Keemuo," of the Ocean Shipping Company; member of Hong Kong Club; a prominent member of the Masonic Order in Hong Kong

Dr. Chan Hin-fun 陳衍芬
Head of Medical Department, Alice Memorial and Nethersole Hospitals (c.1905); Lecturer, Director of Studies (1908), Principal (1933), Guangzhou Guonghua Medical College 廣東光華醫學院; Medical Superintendent, Guonghua Charity Hospital光華贈醫院 (1908); Editor, Chinese Medical Journal; publications: 衛生展覽與市民健康的關係 (The Relations between Sanitation Exhibition and the Health of City Drillers), Guangzhou Sanitation, 1908

Gerald Hall Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1882, most probably Llandyfriog, Cardiganshire, Wales - d. April 8, 1968)
Physician-Turned-Spook

Qualifications: M.B., University of Edinburgh, ca.1904;  F.R.C.S., Edinburgh, Newcastle-Emlyn, 1907; Fellow, Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, 1907

Fitzwilliams was a house surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in around 1905-06. He came to Hong Kong either in 1906 or 1907 to start his private practice at Alexandra Building in Central. He asked his colleague at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, James Cyril Dalmahoy Allan, to join his practice in 1909. Allan came to Hong Kong the following year and became his partner. Fitzwilliams taught Practical Physiology and Pathology (1908-1909), and Anatomy (1909-1912) at the Hong Kong College of Medicine. He resided in a flat on the Peak, which he shared with Allan.

The year next following the onset of the Great War, Ftizwilliams returned to the U.K. and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps; he was shipped to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to work for his brother, Duncan Campbell  Lloyd Fitzwilliams, who headed Lady Muriel Paget's Anglo-Russian Hospital. For reason unknown to me he was recruited and had become an operative of the British Secret Intelligence Service some time between 1915 and 1917. (SIS, otherwise known as MI6, was established in 1909; and yes it was home for David John Moore Cornwell, a.k.a. John le Carré, and James Bond, but not his creator Ian Fleming. Fleming was a lieutenant commander RNVR (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve) in the Naval Intelligence Division, who served as Navy's liaison officer with MI6.) In 1917, Fitzwilliams, the spook (when I first read about this, I thought the material covered a different person of the same name, I thought wrong), was resent to Russia under the cover of a member of the Anglo-Russian Trade Mission. Very soon, he found his way to Southern Russia and from there to Romania, assuming this time the role of an army captain. His was tasked with collecting intelligence about military and political positions of nations/regions in the Eastern Front, viz. Romania, Poland, and Bohemia, in relation to their loyalty to the Entente. He and a French general by the name of Tabois were given a difficult mission to turn the side of Ukraine that supported and fought for the Central Powers, which they eventually failed. Tabois was under the command of General Henri Mathias Berthelot, chief of the French military mission in Romania. Fitzwilliams left the Eastern Front by the end of 1918.

Two of Fitzwilliams' brothers were also engaged in the same theater of war, and sometimes they met. Duncan Fitzwilliams (b.1878-d.1954) C.M.G., M.D., C.M., Edinburgh, F.R.C.S. (Edinburgh, London), who were previously in Petrograd, commanded the British Red Cross Unit at the Prince Mircea Hospital in Roman from December 1916 to November 1917. He was a captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and on October 10, 1918 was promoted to the rank of acting Lieutenant-Colonel. After the war, he was surgeon at the St. Mary Hospital, and the Mount Vernon Hospital and the Radium Institute, both in London. He was also a prolific author on medical topics; his published works had included: A Practical Manual of Bandaging, Radium and cancer (Curietherapy), Cancer of the breast, etc. The other brother was Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, C.M.G., A.S.C. (b.1872-d.1936) of the Royal Army Service Corps, a war hero who served in the Boer War and the Great War. In fact, all eight Fitzwilliams boys were in military service and all except one was in the Great War - fighting, saving lives or spooking around. John Kenrick Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1885-d.1918), M.C., a major of the Royal Field Artillery was killed in action during the advance on the Hindenburg Line in August 1918. (John's son, Major Anthony John Fitzwilliams Hyde of the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, was wounded landing in Normandy in 1944; he died two weeks after the D-day.) Richard Braithwaite Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1873-d.1902) served in the Royal Indian Marine, and became a lieutenant (Defense Squadron) (1895-1902). He died in service. Cuthbert Collingwood Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1875-d.1954)  was in the Army Service Corps as in the case of Edward. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant (temporary) on September 22, 1914. After the war, Cuthbert went to Indonesia to run a rubber plantation. Francis Crompton Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1877-d. Unknown) was in the Royal Navy; he was confirmed as a sub-lieutenant on February 15, 1897. William Logie Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1879-d.1901) was a lance corporal in the First Battalion,  Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was not in the Great War, he died in South Africa on May 20, 1901 fighting the Boer War.

According to J.C. Dalmahoy Allan, who himself went to France in 1917 to join the war, Fitzwilliams was already back in Hong Kong when Allan returned to the city in 1920. Fitzwilliams had by then given up medicine altogether; the scope of his activities in Hong Kong is unknown to me. In fact, I lost his trail at that point, except bits and pieces that said he was sojourning in Africa and Europe before returning to the U.K. in 1932. There was no information that showed whether his SIS role ended along with the Great War, or he took it with him to Hong Kong, and thence to Africa and Europe.

Colonel Edward C.L. Fitzwilliams
Source: Dave Boutcher

Fitzwilliams was the son of Charles Home Lloyd Fitzwilliams (b.1843-d.1925) and Margaret Alice Crawford (b.1847-d.1928). His grandfather, Edward Crompton Lloyd Hall (b.1807-d.1880), had his surname changed to Fitzwilliams in 1849 to sever ties with his father, Benjamin Hall, on knowing that he wasn't going to inherit anything from Benjamin despite of his status as the eldest son. I tried and failed to find a photograph of Fitzwilliams, but noted it was natural for SIS men to be camera shy (Well, that is not true, there is a good number of photos taken of him in 1917-18 in Romania, some together with Duncan and Edward; they are simply not available to me.) I did find one of Edward in dress uniform, which was simply too brilliant a photo not to be shared. Sotheby held an auction on June 27, 1969, in which the bulk of the contents were property of Fitzwilliams who died in 1968, unmarried. The catalog of this auction is even available today on the internet. Fitzwilliams had been keeping a journal since 1902 and continued until 1968, the year he died. His diaries, all 68 volume, are now kept at the National Library of Wales.

References:
- The Archer Family [internet].
- BBC / WW2 People's War [internet].
- The British Journal of Nursing, January 26, 1918.
- Carmarthen County War Memorial / County Boer War Memorials [internet].
- Dafydd Emrys Evans (1987) Constancy of Purpose, Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
- The Edinburgh Obstetrical Society (1922) The Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, Session 1920-1921, Volume XLI, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
- Edinburgh University Sports Union [internet].
- Hiroyoshi Kano (2008) Indonesian Exports, Peasant Agriculture and the World Economy 1850-2000, Singapore: National University of Singapore.
- James Cyril Dalmahoy Allan, A Memoir by D.F., The Archers, the Goodmans and Associated Families [internet].
- London Gazette, December 21, 1897; October 3, 1914 (Supplement); March 1, 1919 (Supplement).
- National Archives / India Office Records / Royal Indian Marine / Navy [internet].
- The Secretary of the State for India in Council (1902) The Indian List and Indian Office List for 1902, London: Harrison and Sons.
- P. Tomaselli (2002) C's Moscow station – The Anglo-Russian trade mission as cover for SIS in the early 1920s.
- The Peerage, A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe [internet].
- Rhyfel Byd 1914-1918 a’r profiad Cymreig / Welsh experience of World War 1914-1918 [internet].
- Victor M. Fic (1977) Revolutionary War for Independence and the Russian Question, New Delhi: Shakti Malik Abhinav Publications.

George Montagu Harston
b. 1873 - d. 1934 Putney; M.B. (1904), M.D. (1906), London University; L.M.; M.O.S.U.K. (1910); M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., London; D.O., University of Oxford (1914); Honorary Ophthalmic Surgeon, Tung Wah Hospital (1908); senior partner in the private practice of Stedman, Reinnie and Harston; President (1907-1908), British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch; Lecturer in Midwifery and Diseases of Women (1898-1902), Pathology and Materia Medica, examiner in Materia Medica and Therapeutics, HKCMC; Hong Kong Representative (1931), Member of the General Committee (1931), British Journal of Ophthalmology; President, Royal Society of St. George, Hong Kong (1925-1926); Member of Hong Kong Club

Arthur C. Franklin
d.1933; F.I.C. of Apothecary, Government Civil Hospital; Lecturer in Chemistry (1909-1912), HKCMC; one of the nine lecturers transferred from HKCMC to the Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912); Lecturer in Chemistry (1912-1918), HKU; member of the University Senate, HKU (1912)

1910s

George Harold Thomas
With a habit of being the first
Diocesan Boys’ School, Hong Kong; L.M.S.H., HKCMC (1912) being the first non-Chinese student and licentiate; M.B., B.S. (1914) being one of the first graduates when the there was only the Faculty of Medicine in HKU, M.D. (1920) being the first in Hong Kong, Hon LL.D. (1961), University of Hong Kong; F.R.C.S. (1961) being the first award to Fellowship without an examination, and first presentation ceremony took place outside the College premises in London; resident surgeon (1912), Superintendent designated (named for the period 1937-38), Tung Wah Hospital; Assistant Medical Officer (in charge of civil and mental hospitals, 1928); Medical Officer (in charge of the Mental Hospital and Tsan Yuk Hospital, 1937); Medical Officer, Queen Mary Hospital; Acting Director of Medical Services (1947-1949) being the first locally born person to be appointed; part time lecturer, Pharmacology, Vaccination and Anesthetics (1915-1918, 1936-1937), Obstetrics (1919-1921), Tropical Medicine and Parasitology (1922), Ophthalmology (1925), Mental Diseases (1938), HKU

"One of the main philosophic
convictions
the desire to leave the world
a little richer than when
I found it.", Dr. Li Shu-fanLi Shu-fan 李樹芬

b.1887 Hong Kong – d.November 24, 1996 Hong Kong; Christian; spent his childhood living in Taishan, Guangdong 廣東台山; lived with his father in Boston (1899-1902); Diocesan Boys’ School (1902-1903); graduated from HKCMC, qualified with L.M.S., Hong Kong (1908, same year as Prof. C.Y. Wang); M.B.B.S. (1910), D.T.M. & H. (1911) University of Edinburgh; F.R.C.S.E. (1921); active republic revolutionary, member of the Tongmenghui 中國同盟會 (since 1905); Minister of Health under the joint Revolutionary Military Government in Canton and Medical Adviser (1911) to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a fellow alumnus of HKCMC, first congregation (1892); retired to Hong Kong and entered private practice (1912-1921) when Canton fell to warlord Long Jiguang 龍濟光; Dean of the Canton Kung Yee University Medical School 廣東公醫學院 (1923-1924); Superintendent and Chairman of the Board, Yeung Wo Nursing Home 香江養和園, later reorganized by Dr. Li and became the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital 養和醫院; retired from medical practice (1958), but retained the two positions at the Hospital until his death; Hon LL.D., HKU (1961); F.I.C.S. (1961); member, Board of Regents of the International College of Chest Physicians (1956); member, Medical Board; President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association; Director, Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis Association; Patron, Hong Kong Paediatric Society; District Chief Surgeon, St. John's Ambulance Brigade; Permanent Advisor, Tung Wah Hospitals; member, Urban Council and its predecessor, Sanitary Board; member, Legislative and Executive Councils (1937-1941); Justice of the Peace; author of "Hong Kong Surgeon", Dr. Li’s own autobiography (published in 1964); naming honor: Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation (1962), Li Shu Fan Building

The Straits Times, on September 13, 1964, carried this story from UPI:
"Pigtail Cure (Chicago, Sat.) - Men who are fearful of growing bald should take a tip from the Chinese and wear a pigtail, a surgeon said yesterday. Li Shu-fan told the International College of Surgeon that the Manchu conquerors made the Chinese wear their hear in pig-tails. The wright of the pigtail stimulated blood vessels in the scalp, and the Chinese wore their hair in good health, he said."

John Taylor Connell
Principal Civil Medical Officer (1912-1923)

Edward Leslie Martyn Lobb
L.R.C.P., London (1908); trained at the Guy's Hospital; M.B, B.S. (1908), M.S., London University; came to Hong Kong (1912); first chair of Clinical Surgery, HKU (1915); first Honorary Visiting Surgeon, Government Civil Hospital; left Hong Kong (1915); publication: “The Hospital and the Primary Health Centre in relation to a Health Service, from the standpoint of the General Practitioner”, The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health (1921)

Kenelm Hutchinson Digby
b. August 4, 1884 London - d. February 23, 1953 London; M.B.; married Selina D. Law (1913); M.B., B.S., Guy’s Hospital Medical School, London (1907); F.R.C.S. (1910); Surgical Registrar, Guy’s Hospital (1909-1911); Principal Medical Officer, Great Central Railway, England (1912); Professor of Anatomy (1913-1923), Professor of Surgery (1923-1945), Ho Tung Professor of Surgery (1914-1945), Emeritus Professor (1945), HKU; Honorary Consultant in Surgery, Hong Kong Government (1915-1948); Surgeon, Queen Mary Hospital (1930-1948); interned in the Stanley Camp during the Japanese occupation where he conducted a surgical clinic for fellow internees throughout the internment as well as establishing and running a camp hospital nicldung the performance of surgical procedures; returned to U.K. in 1949; engaged in research work at the Royal College of Surgeons of England; President, British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch (1956); Council, British Medical Association (1952-1953); publications: Immunity in Health: the Functions of the Tonsils and the Appendix (1919); honor: O.B.E. (1939), K. H. Digby Memorial Fund, HKU (1954)

C.E. Lim 林宗揚
China’s first microbiologist
Alias Lin Zongyang; b. June 11, 1891 - Penang, Malaya – d. October 5, 1988 Peking; graduate of Nanyang Middle School of Penang (1911); last batch of admissions to HKCMC, transferred to Faculty of Medicine, HKU (1912); M.B.B.S., University of Hong Kong (1916), first graduation congregation of the University; Assistant to Government Bacteriologist (1917), under the direction of Dr. Harold Macfarlane; invited by Dr. Wu Lien-the (also from Penang) to Peking to assist in the opening of the Peking Central Hospital (1918) in the capacity as a resident and a bacteriologist; Dr.PH. (1922), Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Public Health; studied preparation of vaccines from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (1922); the overseas studies were supported by a Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship; Professor of Bacteriology (1930) (became the first graduate of HKU to hold a chair in bacteriology), Director of Studies (1937), Peking Union Medical College 協和醫學院 (1937); Professor, Peking Medical University 北京大學醫學 (1942); President, Chinese Medical Association 中華醫學會 (1934); Advisor, English Edition of the National Medical Journal of China 中華醫學雜誌 (1956)

Daisy Annabella Murdoc Gale
b.1875-d.1930; M.D. (1912), University of Glasgow; acting Medical Officer of Health (1918); author of "Some Points in the Epidemiology of an Outbreak of Cerebro-Spinal Fever in Hong Kong, 1918", Journal of Hygiene, November 1921

1920s

Wang Chungyi 王寵益
Pathologist; Hong Kong’s first professor
Alias C.Y. Wang; b.1889 Hong Kong - d.1930 Hong Kong; Christian; grandson of Wang Yuanshen 王元深 (b.1817-d.1930), Chair of Pathology (1920-1930), University of Hong Kong; researched focusing on tuberculosis; died from tuberculosis (1930)

Ma Luk 馬祿臣
b. year unknown Hunan 湖南 – d.1963 Hong Kong; Christian; L.M.S., HKCMC (1905); good friend and keen supporter of Dr. Sun Yat-sen; Members of the inaugural directors of the board of Yeung Wo Nursing Home (1922); according to a book about Hong kong history, Dr. Ma was the first Chinese member of the Masonic order in Hong Kong (but this cannot be true, early members of the Hong Kong Masonic Order had included Ho Kai and Wei Yuk as its members, years before Ma’s time); husband of Li Huiying 李惠英, educator, lawyer and promoter of Taiwan Strait relations who after Dr. Ma’s death remarried writer and political commentator Tao Mulian 陶慕廉; practiced with two sons, Dr. Ma Chiu Chong 馬超莊 and Dr. Ma Chiu Ki 馬超奇, on the third floor of King's Theatre Building in Central, Tel: 26504 in the early 1960s before he died in 1963

B.C. Wong 黃菖霖
Anti-slavery activist
Members of the inaugural directors of the board of Yeung Wo Nursing Home (1922) ; member of the congregation of the All Saints Church 諸聖堂, representative of All Saints Church in the Anti-Mui-Jai Society 反蓄婢會, which was founded in August 1921 by a number of Protestant churches for the purpose to rid of the Mui-Jai custom, a quasi-slavery tradition in China, Dr. Chau Wai Cheung was also of the Hong Kong Anglican Church

Edward Pigott Minett
d. October 5, 1935 Devon; trained at Guy’s Hospital; M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.P.H., Cambridge University (1907); M.D., Université libre de Bruxelles (1907); D.T.M.&H. (1909); specialized in bacteriology and public health; Assistant Government Bacteriologist (1910), Government Bacteriologist and Medical Officer of Health, British Guiana; came to Hong Kong and replaced Dr. H.H. Scott (Dr. Scott already left Hong Kong, the post was temporarily filled by Prof. C.Y. Wang) as the Government Bacteriologist and Officer in charge of the Bacteriological Institute (1922); Lecturer and Examiner in Hygiene and Medical Jurisprudence, Hong Kong University; Medical Officer, Hong-Kong Volunteer Defense Corps; left Hong Kong in 1931; member, British Medical Association (since 1909); publications: Diagnosis of Bacteria and Blood Parasites, Practical Tropical Sanitation, A Cheap Form of Artesian Water Supply for Villages in the Tropics , A Review of the Water Supplies of Hong Kong; Dr. Minett’s wife (name unknown), a graduated M.D. from the University of London (1916), held medical appointments in Hong Kong

Joseph Bartlerr Addison
Principal Civil Medical Officer (1923-1929)

Chau Wai Cheung 周懷璋
M.B.B.S., University of Hong Kong (1916), Christian (Hong Kong Anglican Church); graduation was marked by the First Congregation of HKU held on December 14, 1916; President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1927-28, 1933-34, 1939-40); Chairman (1923-1926), Yeung Wo Nursing Home 香江養和園, the forerunner of Hong Kong Sanitarium; director, Hong Kong Sanitarium (1933-1965)

Ip Kam-wah 葉錦華
M.B.B.S., HKU (1920); started a private practice (1920s); President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1935-1936); father of Dr. Ip Yee 葉義 (enrolled in HKU but discontinued in 1941 due to Japanese invasion; studied under the National Shanghai Medical College in free China in Chungking (Chongcing) (1942); awarded M.B.B.S. by the HKU Emergency Committee on March 22, 1946; advanced studies in the U.K.; started private practice in Hong Kong (c.1953); most noted collector of Bamboo Carving artifacts; according to his will over 200 pieces of important artifacts in his collection were donated to the Hong Kong Museum of Art after his death in 1984.) These were the addresses in the 1960s where the father and son practiced respectively: 514, Nathan Road, Kowloon, Tel. 57942; 5, Homuntin Hill Road, Kowloon, Tel. 57020

Woo Wai-tak, Arthur 胡惠德
Rotarian to rejuvenate the club after the war
b. 1888 Hong Kong – February 1964 Hong Kong; Christian, member of the congregation of the Hong Kong Anglican Church; son of Dr. U I-kai 胡爾楷醫生; brother of Dr. Katie Woo 胡素貞博士, the late headmistress of St. Paul’s Girls’ School; attended Diocesan Boys' School in Hong Kong; studied Latin and French in England; trained at Middlesex Hospital and qualified with the Conjoint diploma (1913); M.B., B.S., University of London (1916); L.R.C.P., London; M.R.C.S., England.; F.R.C.S.; F.I.C.S. (Hon.); worked at military hospitals in Britain during WWI; studied in New York and Baltimore under a Rockefeller scholarship, including training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital; Assistant Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Peking Union Medical College 協和醫學院; Medical Advisor to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Transportation, ROC; practice as a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology in Hong Kong, his consulting-room was located at the China Building in Central (1925), and at Edinburgh House (early 1960s); Lecturer in Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Examiner, Hong Kong University; honorary consulting gynecologist to the Nethersole Hospital; established Babington Hospital 惠德頤養院 (his Chinese name of Wai-tak was used to name the hospital) in Babington Path 巴丙頓道 and assume the post of Medical Superintendent; President, Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1924-1925); Council, British Medical Association, Hong Kong and China Branch; Justice of the Peace (1938); largely responsible for the re-establishment of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong (1945, the Rotary was initially formed in 1932); internationally renowned postage stamp collector; honor: King George V Silver Jubilee Medal (1935), O.B.E. (1954)

1961 photo of Chau escorting
Princess Alexandra, a cousin of
Queen Elizabeth II, during her
visit to Hong Kong

Chau Sik-nin 周錫年
Otolaryngologist-turned-banker
b.April 13, 1903 Hong Kong –d. November 30, 1985 Hong Kong; Christian; graduate, St. Stephen College, Hong Kong (1918); M.B.B.S. (1923), Hon LL.D (1961), University of Hong Kong; D.L.O. (1925); D.O.M.S. (1926); first Chinese Otolaryngologist to practice in Hong Kong (1927); part time lecturer in Ophthalmology (1930-1936), HKU; Ophthalmologist, Government Civil Hospital (1930-1936); President, (1936-1937); Member, Medical Board (1936-1941); Member, Sanitary Board (1936-1941); Justice of the Peace (appointed on May 19, 1939); founder, Hongkong Chinese Bank 香港華人銀行 (1955), the bank was acquired by CITIC Ka Wah Bank in 2002 and ceased to exist thenceforth; director of more than 30 companies in Hong Kong and other areas in Asia Pacific; Honorary Advisor, the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; member of the General Committee, Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce; Member (1947-1962), Senior Member (1953-1959), Legislative Council, Senior Member (1959-1962),Executive Council; inaugural Chairman, Federation of Hong Kong Industries (1960-1966); inaugural Chairman, Hong Kong Trade Development Council (1966-1970); inaugural Chairman, Hong Kong Tuberculosis Association (1948-1963); Chairman, Po Leung Kuk (1941-1942); Permanent Advisor, Tung Wah Hospitals; first cousin of Chau Tsun-Nin 周埈年 (b.1893-d.1971), senior member of the Legislative and Executive Councils; father of flamboyant barrister and socialite Chau Kai-pong 周啟邦 (b.1934-d.2010)

Yeo Kok-cheung 楊國璋
The first Chinese to be appointed Director of Medical and Health Services
Alias Yeo Kok-cheang, K.C. Yeo; b. April 1, 1903 Penang - d. May 22, 2004 Battle, East Sussex; Christian; married to Florence Ho Tung (March 24, 1933), daughter of Robert Hotung; M.B., B.S. (1925), M.D. (1930), HKU; D.P.H., Cambridge University (1926); D.P.M.&H., London University; 1927 Assistant Medical Officer of Health, Hong Kong (1927); Chinese Health Officer, Senior Grade (1939); Deputy Director of Health Services, Health Adviser to Urban Council (1947); Deputy Director of Medical and Health Services (1950); Director of Medical and Health Services (January 1952 – 1958), the first local civil servant to rise to the substantive position of a department director; institutionalized the position of Specialist Anesthetist in the civil medical services (1953); first Unit Controller, Auxiliary Medical Service (1952); Lecturer and Examiner in Public Health, HKU (1928); Lecturer in Public Health (1936-1938), Professor of Social Medicine (1953-1957), HKU; President, HKCMA (1932); Justice of the Peace (1938); Member, Legislative Council (1951-1957); Vice Chairman, Urban Council; Senior Hospital Medical Officer (Psychiatry), St Ebbaís Hospital, Epsom, Surrey (1963); honor: C.M.G. (1956); WHO Traveling Fellowship (1948); held the world record in sitting ups for his body weight for several years

Hua Tse Jen 華則仁
b. February 2, 1901, Tianjin – ; attended Nankai High School 天津南開中學, read mining at Nankai College 南開大學; enrolled in HKU as a Hopei (Hebei) Provincial Scholar; M.B., B.S., HKU (1927); Resident physician in several hospitals (1927-1929), working under HKU; Medical Officer, Kailan Mining Administration 天津開灤礦務局 (1929-1937); Unit 2, League of Nations Medical Service, served in the interior of China (1937); Medical Superintendent, Lai Chi Kok Hospital (1938); Medical Superintendent, Kwong Wah Hospital (1940-c.1956); volunteer work in many refugee camps opened in Hong Kong prior to the fall of Hong Kong, and assisted many internees during the Japanese occupation; imprisoned for a while by the Japanese for keeping a store of food and other supplies to be smuggled in the POW camps for the internees; private practice from 1956 (his consulting-room was located on the first floor, 510 Nathan Road I 1968); President, BMA, Hong Kong and China Branch (1951-52); President, HKCMA (1949-50); founding member, Anti-tuberculosis Association; founding member, Kowloon Rotary Club; founder, Society of Boys’ Centers 香港扶幼會 (1953); honor: O.B.E. (1946), Hon.LL.D., HKU (1968)

Hugh Alderson Fawcett
Noted Archaeologist and Collector
d.January 11, 1982; University College, London; Captain, Royal Army Medical Corps (1914-1919); D.P.H. (1920); D.T.M. & H. (1928); M.R.C.S.; Medical Officer in charge of a sexually-transmitted diseases clinic (for men), member of the Sanitary Board (1928-1930); compiled a collection of over 8,000 items of archaeological finds and artifacts from the British Isles, Europe, the Mediterranean, Far East and America; the collection was purchased by the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (1979); publication: Diphtheria: Its Causation, Prevention and Investigation (April 1923)

Arthur Robartes Wellington
Director of Medical and Sanitary Services (known as Principal Civil Medical Officer before 1929)(1929-1936); Director of Medical Services (known as Director of Medical and Sanitary Services before 1936)(1936-1938)

Douglas Laing 梁德基
Big time owner of racing-horses
M.B., B.S. (1928), Hon. Fellow (December 2, 1999, posthumous), HKU; Assistant to Government Bicteriologist (1929-1930); studied otorhinolaryngology in the United kingdom; started a private practice (1934) (according to a HKU site Dr. Laing became the first ENT surgeon in Hong Kong, but the fact is Dr. Chau Sik-nin, also a HKU graduate and an Otolaryngologist, pracitced in Hong Kong in 1927, seven years earlier than Dr. Laing); served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in India during WWII; re-start private practive after the war (1948), his consulting-room in the 1960s was located inside the Gloucester Building, Central, Tel. 30635; Honorary Clinical Lecturer in Otorhinolaryngology, HKU; founder of Digby Memorial Fund (1959) to provide scholarships and gold medals to outstanding medical students; Senior Founding Member, HKU Foundation for Educational Development and Research; donated more than HK$3 milion to HKU including the funding used to build the new Medical Complex at Sassoon Road; retired (1996); a consultant for the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, Nethersole Hospitals and Nam Long Hospital; President, Welfare League (founded in 1930); Member of the Executive Committee, Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society; Steward, Honorary Steward (1984), Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club; publications: Prognostic significance in early diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by Douglas Laing (Unknown Binding - 1965), Nasopharyngeal carcinoma in the Chinese in Hong Kong by Douglas Laing (Unknown Binding - 1967)

Dr. Laing’s reputation as a racehorse owner was well-known amongst the horseracing fans in Hong Kong. According to HKU information, which refers to records of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Dr. Laing owned his first horse as early as in 1927. I do not know how credible that is as he hadn’t finished university in 1927. I learn that his horses are quite popular, although I was unable to find all the corresponding names of the horses in English; here they are: Gay Eighties 快樂八十, Gay Nineties 快樂九十, 快樂一百, 快樂王子, 快樂龍王, 快樂飛馬, 快樂飛俠

1930s

L.J. Davis
M.D., University of Glasgow; M.R.C.P., F.R.C.P., Edinburgh; Professor of Pathology, HKU (1930-1939); Muirhead Professor of Medicine, University of Glasgow (1954); Professor of Medicine, Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, 1960; publications: Scarlatina Immunity in Hong Kong (1935, co-authors - J.S. Guzdar and F.S. Fernando)

October 1953 photo of Professor and Mrs. Sze
(second right) at a WHO receptionSze Tsung-sing 施正信

The first Chinese WHO Medical Officer
b. January 23, 1909 Shanghai; graduated from Medhurst College 麥倫書院, Shanghai (1924); enrolled in the Peking Union Medical College 協和醫學院 (1924) but did not attend college due to out break of civil war; admitted to HKU with two scholarships (1925) for a six year medical program; M.B., B.S. (1931), Hon. D.Soc.Sc. (1997), HKU; D.T.M.&H. (1936), D.P.H. (1937), University of London; Dr.P.H. (1938), Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health; Surgical Assistant (1931), Resident Internal Medicine (June to December, 1931), Hong Kong Government Civil Hospital; went to Shanghai to provide medical relief service (January to February, 1932); Assistant Resident Internal Medicine, Peking Union Hospital (1932-1933); Assistant in Medicine, HKU (1933-1935); while in London in 1936, went to Berlin and served as the ROC team physician at the Eleventh Olympic Games; general staff, HQ, Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps. (1938- August 1942); Professor and Chair of Department, Public Health, Guiyang Medical College (1944); Head of Medical and Health Agency, Guiyang (1944); Head of Health Department, Guizhou (1945); Head of National Health Agency (1946), based in Nanjing; Head of Healthcare Department under the National Health Ministry (1947); Professor, Social Medicine, HKU (1950-1952), the department was established in 1950 with Prof. Sze as its first professor, also Prof. Sze was the first HKU graduate to be offered a professorship; Medical Officer, Social and Occupational Health, World Health Organization (July 1952-1966), based in Geneva; resigned from WHO (1966) after being accused of being a threat to the national security of Switzerland and was named persona non grata by the Swiss Government; returned to China in 1966 and was caught up in the Cultural Revolution; Foreign Affairs Department, Ministry of Health (1972-1975); Executive Director (1975), Vice President (1980), China Medical Association; founded theChina Medical Journal, China’s first technical journal in English; member, National Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (1978-1987); married to Wang Chunjing 王春菁 (February 2, 1941)

Li Shu-pui 李樹培
The first HKU graduate to be admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons
b. January 1903 Hong Kong – d. August 31, 2005 Hong Kong, at the age of 102; entered Peking Union Medical College (1920) at the age of seventeen, later transferred to HKU; M.B., B.S., HKU (1928); F.R.C.S., University of Edinburgh, and became the first HKU graduate to attain admission to R.C.S.; studied ear, nose and throat at University of Vienna; joined the practice of Dr. Li Shu-fan in Hong Kong (c.1932); continued performing surgical operations until 1980 and ran an outpatient clinic until well into his 90s; Medical Superintendent, Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital (1966, following the death of Dr. Li Shu-fan), remained actively involved in the affairs of the hospital as chairman of the board until his death; during Dr. Li’s tenure as M.S. an vitro fertilization centre was added where Hong Kong’s first test tube baby was delivered; founding member (1965), Treasurer (1965-1979)Federation of Medical Societies of Hong Kong; honor: O.B.E.; married to Ellen Li 李曹秀群 (b.1908 Shanghai - d.2005 Hong Kong), who was the first woman Justice of the Peace, the first woman member of the Legislative Council and the first woman recipient of C.B.E. in Hong Kong

Pang Hok-ko 彭學高
b.1900 Hong Kong - d.1974 Hong Kong; Christian; M.B.B.S., University of Hong Kong (1929); private practice (1934-1972), in Yaumati district, Kowloon; President, Hong Kong Medical Association (1952-53); naming honor: Rhenish Church Pang Hok Ko Memorial Collage 禮賢會彭學高紀念中學; father of Dr. Pang Wing-fuk 彭永福 (M.B.B.S., HKU, 1962; M.R.C.P., 1966, F.R.C.P., University of Edinburgh; F.H.K.A.M., Medicine; D.T.M.& H., University of Liverpool) and Dr. Pang Wing-luk 彭永祿 (M.B.B.S., HKU, 1966). (Dr. Pang was my parents’ physician, his son Dr. Pang Wing Fuk is still taking care of my mother)

George Duncan Ralph Black
M.B., C.M., Trinity College, University of Toronto (1905); member, British Medical Association (1908); President, British Medical Association, Hong Kong and China Branch (1934-1936); President (1925-1926, 1939-1940), Hong Kong St. Andrew's Society; Major, Royal Army Medical Corps (1941); Principal Medical Officer, Lieut.-Col., Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Corps (HKVDC), in charge of a temporary military hospital established at the beginning of the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941 inside St. Stephen’s College in Stanley; killed by Japanese troop storming the hospital in the early morning of Christmas Day, 1941; honors: O.B.E., Military Division (1935), V.D. (Volunteers Decoration); wife, Anne Lilian (nurse ND14) and daughter (nurse ND6) served in the Nursing Detachment during the war.

Ling Ke Dieh 林開弟
M.B.B.S., HKU (1932); Assistant (Lecturer) in Physiology, HKU (1935-1938); Nanjing Renji Hospital 南京仁濟醫院; Medical Superintendent (c.1949), Kwong Wah Hospital 廣華醫院 (a part of the Tung Wah Hospitals); President (1958), Lai Chi Kok Hospital 荔枝角醫院 (1960s); Council (1972), Hong Kong Medical Association

Eva Ho Tung 何嫻姿
The first woman graduate from the Faculty of Medicine, HKU
Alias 何綺華; daughter of Robert Ho Tung and Clara Lin-kok Cheung; attended the Diocesan Girls' School; M.B., B.S., HKU (1927), and became the first woman graduate from the Faculty of Medicine, HKU; D.G.O., University of Dublin (1928); D.T.M.&H., London University; M.R.C.P.I.; Assistant in Obstetrics and Gynecology, HKU (1937-1938); served in the Red Cross Medical Relief Corps. in China, commanded a unit in the field; Dr. Ho Tung’s practice in the 1960s was located on the first floor of the Bank of East Asia Building, Central, Tel: 25925

Peter Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke
Director of Medical Services (1938-1941)

Lim Ek-quee 林益桂
M.B.B.S., HKU (1932); Assistant Lecturer in Physiology (1938-1941), temporarily put in charge of the Department of Physiology (1940), HKU

Philip Wen Cee Mao 毛文奇
A prominent Asian art collector
Alias Philip Moore; b. September 5, 1915 Shanghai – d. 2004 Hong Kong; son of a Chinese doctor who practiced in Hawaii and an art student who studied in Japan; attended English public school in Shanghai, anglicized surname to Moore; M.B., B.S., HKU (1938); Chinese Red Cross Relief Corps., China and Hong Kong (1939-1945); F.R.C.S., University of Edinburgh (c.1947); founding member, Society of Anesthetists of Hong Kong; President, HKCMA (1960-1962); worked for HKU as resident in Queen Mary Hospital and later at Kowloon Hospital (1950-1955); started private practice (1955); retired in 1980s; prominent collector / scholar in Asian art; member, Oriental Ceramic Society in London (1965); first President (1974-1977), Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong; Honorary Advisor, Hong Kong Museum of Art (1974-2004); Chairman (1969-1971, 1974-1975), Min Chiu Society 敏求精舍; Founder and first Chairman (1980-1997), Chairman emeritus (since 1997), East Asian History of Science Foundation 香港東亞科學史基金會; married Barbara Chu (1940) who became a leading gynecologist in Hong Kong and appointed an examiner for gynecology in HKU.

Soochow Watergate, by R.C. Robertson,
oil on canvasRobert Cecil Robertson

b. December 16, 1889 Kilmarnock - d. August 4, 1942 Hong Kong; son of a glass merchant; M.B., Ch.B., Glasgow University (1914); Captain (temporary commission), R.A.M.C. during WWI and gained a Military Cross; M.R.C.P., D.P.H. (1919), Edinburgh; F.R.F.P.S. (1920); M.D., Glasgow University (1921); Assistant Pathologist, Shanghai Health Department (1925); Henry Lester Research Institute, Shanghai (1929), Head of Division of Pathology; Commissioner, League of Nations anti-epidemic unit No.2 (1930s); President, Shanghai Medical Society;  Professor and head of Pathology Department, professor of bacteriology and pharmacology, University of Hong Kong (1939-1942), succeeding Professor L.J. Davies; held in internment by the Japanese army after the Battle of Hong Kong in the Bacteriological Institute; said to have took his life by jumping from the roof of the Institute on August 4, 1942; member, British Medical Association (1917-1942); gifted painter and photographer

Dr. Robrtson cheated death twice in Shanghai. The second time was in August 1937, when KMT army attacked the Japanese flagship in Shanghai and bombs fell disastrously in the International Settlement. Dr. Robertson was officially reported among the 2,000 dead, but his families in Scotland later received a cablegram from him bearing the single word "unharmed". The first incident took place three year earlier and was reported in detail in the British Medical Journal dated March 17, 1934:

All in the Day's Work - Details have now reached this country, through the columns of the Shanghai Times, of the kidnapping and escape from death of Dr. R. Cecil Robertson, head of the division of pathology and bacteriology of the Henry Lester Institute of Medical Research, Shanghai, and a member of the British Medical Association. On January 31st Dr. Robertson left his home in his car for the institute with his chauffeur and the 8-year-old son of his Chinese cook, who was to be vaccinated

Dr. Robertson put up a fierce fight, during which he was twice shot at; appeals for help to Chinese police and bystanders were ignored. Dr. Robertson explained who he was, and his captors appeared surprised and disappointed, but the car continued its course. Resuming the struggle, one of the Chinese was wounded in the hand by his own revolver, the speed of the car slackened, and Dr. Robertson forced open the car door and jumped out, holding the boy. His captors made no further attack upon him, but drove off rapidly and escaped. Dr. Robertson, who is president of the Shanghai Medical Society, owed his life to the failure of a revolver to fire when in contact with his head. He ascribes the incident to an error on the part of the gangsters, who had presumably proposed – to carry off a wealthy Chinese, but mistook the car. He was twice wounded in the war in France, and was awarded the M.C. He went out to Shanghai in 1925, and was at first pathologist to the Shanghai Municipal Council, joining the Henry Lester Institute in 1929.

The University Senate decided, at a meeting on December 31, 1941, to confer degrees in medicine on the students, named below, whose examinations were interrupted by the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. This is a photo taken on New Year’s Day 1942 behind Eliot Hall after the clandestine degree ceremony.

1. Professor Robertson

2. Gordon King, Dean, Faculty of Medicine

3. Duncan Sloss, Vice-Chancellor

4. Professor Kenelm Digby, Professor of Surgery
The new graduates (M.B.B.S.)were: Hilda Tse Kau Chan (5) (陳自求醫生 who practiced at No.229, Nathan Rd., Ground Floor, Kowloon, tel 59053, in the 1960s), Chan Ping-kwok, Chow Cham-lau (周湛鑾醫生 who practiced at No. 22, Des Voeux Rd., C., Hong Kong, tel 22847 in the 1960s), Lau Po-hei (劉寶希醫生 who practiced at No.55, Bonham Road, Hong Kong, tel 32000 in the 1960s), Lee Ching-Iu, Leong Lean-sang, Ling Sing-hang, Ong Hian-pitt (escape to India and then his native Indonesia where he prepared for the re-occupation by the Dutch forces), E.N. Orloff (posthumous, Dr. Orloff died defending Hong Kong before his graduation), Soon Cheng-Hoe, Wong Ching-Kuen (黃呈權醫生 who worked at the Tung Wah Eastern Hospital in the 1960s)

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The Pioneer Medical and Pharmacy Practices

The Medical Hall
1853-1914; a pharmacy with German proprietorship
Harold von Kauffman (d.May 1891 Wiesbaden), proprietor, established the Medical Hall in 1853 at a central location on Queen’s Road. Dr. Kauffman married a Spanish woman, Emelda Manuela. When he left Hong Kong in 1873 with his wife and four children, the Medical Hall was left to the management of a relative Theophil Koffer. Emil Niehardt joined the pharmacy in 1890 in the capacity of the chemist and became the proprietor upon the departure of Koffer. Niehardt left in 1913 after forty one years in Hong Kong. In 1897, H. Kammel, an apothecary, was admitted as a partner. By 1914, all German business concerns were treated as enemy alien properties and faced liquidations. At the time when the Medical Hall was liquidated, it was situated on Ice House Street opposite the King Edward Hotel and under the management of two pharmaceutical chemists -- A. Kucy and W. Kornetz.

The Medical Hall
Under the same name as the German pharmacy practice, this one was listed in the 1859 Hong Kong Directory. All the persons listed associated with it had names that sound Portuguese: J.J. Braga. C. Braga, Vicente Barga, Joao L. Britto, Francisco da Roza and J. Jesus. Judging from the fact that there were several Bargas, it could be a family-owned business, and most probably a pharmacy practice rather than a medical clinic.

Drs. Gregory Paul Jordan and W.S. Adams (c1884- )
A medical practice that would evolve into Drs. Anderson & Partners
Twenty-seven years old Dr. Jordan arrived in Hong Kong in c.1884 and entered into partnership with Dr. Adams who at that time also held the position of Port Health Officer. Dr. Friedrich Piers Grone, L.R.C.P. (1901), registered in Hong Kong in 1906 to practice as a medical doctor. He joined the firm of Drs. Jordan and Adams. At the time of the First World War, Dr. Grone changed his name, which was German sounding, to Frederick Pierce Grove and served with the British Army. He died in May 1929 in Hong Kong aged fifty five.

Muller and Justi, Surgeons and Doctors of Medicine
(1900-c.1914) The medical practice was first located at the Bank Building, No. 16 Queen's Road Central (the present location of the New World Tower), in the office that was previously the clinic of Dr. Erich Hermann Paulun who moved to Shanghai in 1899. In 1905 they moved to the Hotel Mansions Building (the present location of the Chater House), newly built on reclaimed land in Central. The firm was established by Oscar Muller (b.May 4, 1873), surgeon, a graduate of the University of Munich. He qualified in 1897, and was registered as a medical practitioner in Hong Kong on November 2, 1900. Dr. Carol Justi (b. March 3, 1873) joined Dr. Muller in 1903. He was a graduate of the University of Marburg and qualified to practice in Germany in 1897. He left Hong Kong in 1913. Other members of the firm included Karl Hoch (joined in 1907), a graduate of University of Kiel and qualified in 1904; Theodore van Wezel (joined in 1912) who received his medical education at the University of Freiburg and qualified in Germany in 1903. Dr. Muller was a member of the German Club Germania, the predecessor of the German Club. I have no information on the fate of this medical practice came 1914 where almost all German businesses were forced to liquidate.

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The Case of Susan Lobina Lamb – Lamb or Lam? Doctor or no Doctor?

Ms. Lamb (she is definitely a medical practitioner, but there is no actual reference to her being a doctor from materials I have been through) of the American Board Mission was charged in 1910 with violating the Medical Registration Ordinance (1844) by practicing without being registered. Specifically, she had attended a Portuguese woman who subsequently died. Lamb was an American who was identified as being of Anglo-Saxon descent. In her defense, she claimed exemption from the ordinance on account of having married a Chinese (whose name is Lam), and thus taken his nationality. In other words, she claimed to be a Chinese medical practitioner and therefore not required to be registered as stipulated in Clause 2 of the 1884 ordinance.

Clause 2
This Ordinance shall not operate to limit the right of Chinese practitioners to practice medicine or surgery or to receive demand or recover reasonable charges in respect of such practice.

The material I went though says not whether Susan L. Lam, nee Lamb, won the court case. But, judging from a later revision of the ordinance in the relevant provision, I say she did.

Clause 3.1
Nothing in this Ordinance shall be deemed to affect the right of any Chinese person to practice medicine or surgery according to any Chinese methods and to demand and recover reasonable charges in respect of such practice; provided that such person does not take or use any name, title or addition calculated to induce any one to believe that he is qualified to practice medicine or surgery according to modern scientific methods.

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Officers of the British Medical Association Hong Kong and China Branch 1907-8:

G. M. Harston (Hong Kong) – President (President, The Royal Society of St. George, Hong Kong, 1925-6; Member of the General Committee, The British Journal of Ophthalmology, 1931)
W. V. M. Koch (Hong Kong) – Vice President James Herbert Sanders (Hong Kong) - Honorary Secretary and Treasurer (Medical Superintendent, Matilda Hospital; d.May 16, 1956 Devon)
John Milfred Atkinson – Council
Gregory Paul Jordan – Council
Frederic Osmund Stedman – Council
Staff Surgeon Gilmore, Royal Navy - Council
Captain Rankin, Royal Army Medical Corps. – Council

I noted there actually was no one from China, although there ought to be British physicians working in China in around 1907.
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The Boys from Penn

Where Scots dominated the domains of medicine and surgery, American took dentistry. Dr. Joseph W. Noble, notably was the second dentist to practice in Hong Kong (1887) as well as the second to have come from America. A graduate (1883) of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Noble ran a flourishing dentistry practice, located at the Alexandra Building in Central, where he went on hiring fellow alumni from Penn as associates, and here are several names I could find: Drs. John M. Crago and Leidy R. Reel (both from the class of 1900) and Dr. Edward Evan Jones. Dr. Emerson G. Curry (class of 1904) went to join Dr. Noble in Hong Kong after he sold his extensive practice in Plainfield, New Jersey. What I couldn’t ascertain is whether Dr. Herbert Poate, who was Dr. Noble’s original partner, was still around when the firm was filled with the boys from Penn.

There was a Dr. Frederick Hoard Kew (class of 1903) who practiced at 39 Queen’s Road (and later moved to the Alexandra Building), and who I theorize was one of Dr. Noble’s recruits from his alma mater, under the name of Drs. Kew Brothers. I was unable to find information of the other Dr. Kew, but found the name of a Dr. George T. Lemis (class of 1905) who joined the Kew Bros. So you see there were plentiful of American dentists in Hong Kong at the turn of the twentieth century.

Dr. Leidy R. Reel did not stay long in Hong Kong and returned to Pennsylvania to practice where his name was shown as the President of the Dental Society in the Scranton District (1919, 1920). To go back in time a bid, an 1890 census in Scranton showed a Leidy R. Reed who resided at 1128 Blair Avenue and whose occupation was a clerk

Dr. Emerson G. Curry lived and worked in Woodstock, Ontario where he married Canadian Winnifred Sellery before moving to New Jersey. Dr. Curry apparently was quite successful with his practice that he became the owner of a country estate in New Vernon, NJ, comprising 114 acres of farm land. As the information concerning the country estate was undated I can only assume that this happened after his stint in Hong Kong.

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Old-Boy Network

University of London

1881
John Mitford Atkinson / MB, CS / Hong Kong 1887-1912 (25 years) / government / Council, BMA-HK, 1907-8; HKCMC lecturer

1886
Francis William Clark / MB, CS / Hong Kong 1895-1922 (27 years) / government / HKCMC lecturer; HKU professor

1888 Frederic Osmund Stedman / BS; MD 1888 / Hong Kong 1890s-unknown / private - Stedman, Reinnie and Harston / Council, BMA-HK, 1907-8

1902 Friedrich Piers Grone / M.B. / Hong Kong 1901-1929 (28 years) died in Hong Kong / private - Gregory Paul Jordan and W.S. Adams

1906 George Montagu Harston / MB 1904, MD 1906 / Hong Kong 1908-ca.1932 (24 years) / private - Stedman, Reinnie and Harston / President, BMA-HK, 1907-8; HKCMC lecturer

1908
Oswald Marriott / MB, BS / Hong Kong 1902-unknown / private / lecturer, HKCMC, HKU
Edward Leslie Martyn Lobb / MB, BS 1908; MS / Hong Kong 1912-1915 (5 years) / government ________________________________________________________________

Abbreviations
A.B.C.F.M. - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
BMA-HK - British Medcial Association Hong Kong and China Branch
Ch.B. - Bachelor of Surgery
C.M. - Master of Surgery
D.Ch. - Doctor of Surgery
D.D. - Doctor of Divinity
D.D.S. - Doctor of Dental Surgery
D.G.O. - Diploma in Gynecology and Obstetrics
D.L.O. - Diploma in Laryngology and Otology
D.O. - Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
D.O.M.S. - Diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery
D.P.H. - Diploma in Public Health
D.T.M. & H. - Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Dr.PH. - Doctor of Public Health
F.C.C.P. - Fellow of the College of Chest Physicians (of the United States)
F.H.K.A.M. - Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine
F.I.C.S. - Fellow of the International College of Surgeons (Chicago based)
F.R.C.O. - Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists
F.R.C.S.E. - Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
F.R.F.P.S. - Fellow of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons
F.R.I.P.H. - Fellow of the Royal Institute of Public Health
F.R.M.C.S. - Fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society
HKCMA – Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association
HKCMC - Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (1887-1915), renamed Hong Kong College of Medicine in 1907
HKU - Hong Kong University
LL.D. - Doctor of Laws
L.M. - Licentiate in Midwifery
LMS – London Missionary Society
L.M.S. - Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery
L.R.C.P. - Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians
L.R.C.P. & S.I. – Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ireland
L.S.A. - Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries
M.A. - Master of Arts
M.B. - Bachelor of Medicine
M.B.B.S. - Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery
M.B.C.M. - Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery
M.D. - Doctor of Medicine
M.O.S.U.K. - Member of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom
M.R.C.P. - Member of the Royal College of Physicians
M.R.C.P.I. - Member of the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland
M.R.C.S. - Member of the Royal College of Surgeons
M.R.C.S.E. - Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
M.R.C.S.Eng. - Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

- TO BE COMPLETED -