Medical Practice

Maggie wrote that Dr. McCartee (left) reminded her of her cousin Theophilus Wylie (right).

In a letter written on November 21, 1851, Maggie describes the Presbyterian Mission physician, Divie McCartee: “a very efficient man in all his duties, has great influence among the people, more probably from being a physician than as a missionary. If you would know who he looks like in personal appearance you have only to think of Theophilus Wylie.” When McCartee arrived in Ningpo in the 1840s, he opened a medical dispensary and began traveling to villages in the surrounding countryside to tend to those who were unable to come to the city.

Dr. MacGowan in 1859

In April 1843, the Medical Missionary Society sent Daniel MacGowan to open a hospital in Ningpo. In his reports, MacGowan noted that he commonly treated burns, cholera, entropium, measles, ophthalmia, rheumatism, smallpox, and typhoid. He also saw many victims of opium addiction and wrote that “the poor subjects of this destructive vice often apply either in person, or through relatives, for some remedy to enable them to overcome the fatal habit.” MacGowan’s Christian faith was integral to his medical practice. He wrote that a spiritual experience was “the only effectual antidote to the bane” of opium addiction and that “a purer faith” was “the only remedy for [his patients’] moral, and to no small extent for their physical, maladies” (1852 Report).