医务传道方法与“中国医务传道会”的早期活动

Medical Missionary Method and the Early Practice of the Medical Missionary Society in China

1830年代，来华基督教新教传教士在其传教活动中，根据中国社会文化的特点和中国民众对 外来宗教的态度，逐渐探索并形成了一种具有特色的传教方法，即“医务传道”方法。传教 士试图通过为一般民众提供免费的医疗服务，来扩大基督教在华传播的基础。1838年成立的 “中国医务传道会”，是具体推行这种传教方法的机构。从1830到1850年间，在它的组织和 支持下，一些传教医生在各通商口岸分别开办了医疗机构,医治病人数十万。“医务传道” 活动使基督教新教势力在中国的扩展获得了有利的条件，但同时在客观上也为近代西方医学 的传入准备了条件。

Medical missionary method was shaped by the Protestant missionaries to China in 1830's, when the missionaries tried to work out some special methods to cope with the special social and cultural condition they encountered in China. The missionaries hoped to improve the conditions for their evangelical efforts by supply free medical service for Chinese people.“The Medical Missionary Society in China”, founded in 1838, was the organization pursuing the method. From 1830's to 1850, the early times for medical missions, a dozen of medical missionaries opened hospitals in the treaty ports on Chinese coast, with the help of the society. Thousands of people were healed in the hospitals. The propagation of Protest ant Christianity benefited by medical missions to a considerable extent, and in the meanwhile the condition for the introduction of modern Western medical science to China was prepared by the activities of the medical missionaries.