Edwards on Medical School in China

Dr. M. R. Edwards M. '08, gave an informal talk on "The Harvard Medical School in China" last evening, under the auspices of the Harvard Mission.

Dr. Edwards outlined the plans of the new school in regard to the methods of education which it will employ, and explained the relations which it will have to the University. The school will take students from the Chinese institutions already in operation and will give them a five-year course with a view to sending out men trained to be leaders and teachers of medicine in the medical schools which the Chinese government is establishing.

The question of supporting and equipping the Harvard Medical School in China has been very satisfactorily settled for the time being. The Chinese government is planning to give money to support the school, and western state legislatures and private individuals have already pledged $36,000 a year for the first five years. As regards buildings, it is probable that those now occupied by the St. John's Medical School of Shanghai will be used. The course will deal largely with public health and preventive hygiene, for which there is great need along the Chinese coast where plagues run rampant.

Although on the other side of the globe, the Harvard Medical School in China will have an important relation to the University. It is distinctly an outgrowth of Harvard efforts, the instructors who will start the work will be Harvard men, and it is intended that each year one of the instructors from China shall give a course here so that in time the Chinese school may become a department of tropical diseases of the University Medical School.