Book Review

摘要

The Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese was founded in 1887 with expansive ambitions: the adoption of western medicine and science by the Chinese population of colonial Hong Kong and China more broadly. By such means, the College’s founders aimed at the ‘modernisation’ of the country and the substitution of science for what was believed to be China’s superstition and backwardness, medical and otherwise. Training overwhelmingly – but not exclusively – Chinese students between 1887 and 1915, the College would have an influence greater than its small size of 128 students would suggest. Among its alumni – as respectively staff and student – would be Patrick Manson, sometimes known as the ‘Father of Tropical Medicine’, and Sun Yat-sen, similarly referred to as ‘the Father of Modern China’.