A Canadian and an Indian doctor who served in China

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In 1931 Japan had occupied Manchuria, in north eastern China. This marked beginning of Japanese occupation of China. Six years later, in 1937 Japan occupied larger Chinese territory. Thus began Sino-Japanese wars from 1937 to 1945. This war was devastating, with large casualties on the Chinese side. The republican and communist Chinese sides were together fighting this war. They needed medical help, to take care of their wounded soldiers. Two doctors who heeded this call, are recognised in postage stamps – Dr Norman Bethune from Canada, and Dr Dwarkadas Kotnis from India. Both independently reached China in 1938. While Bethune died in China in November of 1939, Kotnis passed away in December of 1942.

Norman Bethune

Norman was born in Ontario, Canada in 1890. He entered medical school in Toronto in 1909, and after some interruptions graduated in 1916. After initially serving in the Royal Navy, he started a private practice in Deteroit, Michigan in 1923. Three years later he was down with Tuberculosis, and was admitted to a sanitorium in New York. Here part of his diseased lung was surgically removed (pneumonectomy), and Norman became interested in Thoracic surgery as a specialisation.

Norman in Canada

He indeed got trained in Thoracic surgery at McGill University, Montreal Canada. He improvised on many surgical instruments while working at Victoria hospital in Montreal.

By 1935, Norman Bethune was interested in social medicine. In next year, he had travelled to the Soviet Union, had joined Canadian Communist Party, and had volunteered his services for the republican side in the Spanish civil war. In Spain, he designed a mobile blood transfusion van. He returned to Canada in 1937, but in January of 1938 he travelled to China to offer his services to the Chinese communist party.

Norman in China

In January 1938 Bethune travelled from Hong-Kong to war zone in Shaanxi province in China. There he joined the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong. George Hatem, a Lebanese-American doctor was already these, and helped Norman with task of improving medical services. He worked tirelessly as a military surgeon, treating many injured soldiers, and organising medical care.

Norman injured his finger, while operating on a soldier in October of 1939. He died a month later due to septicemia. He was 49.

Virtually unknown in his homeland during his lifetime, Bethune received international recognition when Chairman Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic of China published his eulogy entitled In Memory of Norman Bethune. Hospital where he worked was named after him, and now is a medical university.

Dwarkadas Kotnis

Dwarkadas Kotnis, born in 1910, was a young medical graduate from GS Seth Medical College in India in 1938. The same year, he and four other medical doctors volunteered for service in China. They were to provide medical assistance to communists in China, who were engaged in a war with the colonial powers. While other members of the mission returned back to India, Kotnis stayed on. Kotnis and Norman, worked for the same unit and hospital in China.

In 1940 he married Guo Qinglan, a nurse and two years later they had a son. Kotnis had meanwhile drowned himself in work, and became famous as a prominent battlefield doctor. He also became a director of the hospital, then named as Norman Bethune hospital in Hebei province.

He died in 1942, after suffering multiple seizures, as a young age of 32. He along with Norman is still remembered in China. In 1976 a Dwarkadas Kotnis Hall was opened in the Norman Bethune hospital. Both Norman and Kotnis lie buried in the same cemetery, next to each other in Hebei, China.