Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Norman Bethune was a Canadian surgeon, social activist, and internationalist. He innovated a revolution in military medicine on the frontlines of the anti-fascist struggle of republican Spain and the anti-imperialist struggle of China between 1936 and 1939. After his death Bethune became a Chinese cultural icon and example of communism's selfless “New Man.” Before his political conversion to communism in 1935 Bethune was a respected thoracic surgeon who dabbled in painting and art collecting. However, this period was characterized by a commitment to serving the poor. He contracted tuberculosis (TB), likely from the immigrant and working-class patients whom he tended despite their inability to pay. Bethune's own brush with death between 1926 and 1927 led him on a “crusade” against TB in which he recognized the primacy of the need for radical changes to the social and economic conditions that foster the disease. This realization, coupled with a trip to the Soviet Union in which he saw the possibilities of a radical restructuring of society, led Bethune to join the Canadian Communist Party in 1935. Bethune became an advocate for progressive healthcare reform and a founding father of Canadian Medicare by organizing Montreal healthcare workers to draft a manifesto for socialized medicine. In 1936 he began his involvement with military medicine when he traveled to Spain to aid the republican ... log in or subscribe to read full text