WE Tay Children's Work. The Need for Medical Work in China. DR. EMMA BOOSE TUCKER. E do not know how many chil dren there are in all China, but we do know that every third child born into the world is a little yellow-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed Chinese baby. There are so many of them, and they are so much wanted, especially if they are boys. Just why are they so much wanted when they can be given so few comforts and even necessities of life? It's hard to answer. I'm sure an American baby might object to being born into a home where no clothes are provided for it till it is at least three days old. So many of the children die in the first few days of life that the people in their great poverty wait to see if the little angel just from heaven will tarry with them before providing its slender wardrobe. This consists, in many parts of China, of a bag of earth in which it lives day and night till seven or eight months old, and a little jacket of cloth, soft from many washings and long use. The new cloth must be saved for children whose vigorous play demands clothes from firmer material. 1911 padded with cotton to keep the baby Bath? Did you ask how the baby. In spite of such drawbacks many children manage to live, especially if their mothers have food for them. In winter this bag and jacket are. When this fails, since the use of ani mals' milk is almost entirely unknown. in all China, and there is no proper artificial food for children, whether any little child can live to grow up, or not, is a real question. One reason the parents do not feed the starving babies milk is because the cost of it is so great-each quart, when bought, costing all that a working man can earn by one day's hard labor. So a great many babies, less than a year old, are brought to the hospital starving, so thin and yellow and poor, tian hospital, taking care of the little two-year-old child of a tired mother, at patient, was very much surprised to find the doctors did not approve of her feeding the baby raw cucumbers with their skins on. their skins on. She said, so penitently, when reprimanded, "I did not know they are not fit for a baby to eat " If the sick or starving child is a boy, a greater effort will be made to preserve its life. But if it is a girl rarely indeed will any money be spent to have it live. The food given to girls is al the mother asking if we haven't some medicine to make them well. When asked what they are feeding the babies they answer, "millet gruel," or "sweet potatoes," not "beef, beer and coffee," as we sometimes find under similar circumstances in the cities of enlightened (?) America! But many, many times the babies of one or two years are very ill, and the cause is pretty sure to be that they were fed green cucumbers, green apricots or peaches, in all cases eating them as their parents do, skin and all, considering them a great relish. Even the loving-hearted matron of a Chris most always begrudged, because, whem the girl is grown, she is married into another home, and works the rest of her life for it. So, all the food she ate to grow up has brought no return to the family that gave it-her father's family-therefore was wasted! Sometimes, when girls in a home are numerous, and food cannot be found for all, the last little uuwelcome girl is quietly smothered with a bed-quilt, that the others may have enough to eat. It is safe to say this does not happen very often, for God put a strong mother-love into nearly every heart. All the above illustrates why many 1911 Medical Work in China. I 53 children of China die through ignorance, and because there are no native doctors who know how to teach them better. Another great reason for even more deaths among the children, is because the Chinese have no knowledge of the causes of contagious diseases. Suppose in a village, children were dying by tens, or even hundreds, from scarlet fever or diphtheria, the neighbors must not be so impolite as not to go in and see how the sick are, and children run in and out freely. A relative will visit such a home, taking all her children with her. So the disease spreads and the wonder is that all do not die. The writer of this article has been handed babies to hold, all broken out with small-pox. Just now, when the deadly pneumonic plague, the Black Death, is raging in North China, the disease is spread from just these causes-ignorance of the cause and contagiousness of disease, and greater attention being paid to the proprieties of life, as making calls at the proper time, no matter if there is great danger. No wonder fully fifty per cent. of the children die before ten years of age! It is hard to have them die through ignorance, but when the native doctors treat all bowel troubles by sticking needles into the abdomens, even of babies, and treat other diseases, including those of the eye, by giving cupfuls of nasty medicine to take, such TWO LITTLE PANKIACHUANG GIRLS. children of China are girls. After five years of age they are made cripples by having their feet bound. The Chinese have a saying, "Every pair of bound feet fills a pitcher with tears." But the least of the ills, perhaps, is the pain. Just think how those feet limit the amount of exercise a girl can have! Do you wonder, then, that so many of them, in their teens, suffer from the great White Plague, tuberculosisand of the bones, especially the bones of the lungs, of the lymphatic glands, of the feet? What a merciful work is that of the Missionary Hospital in China! The missionary doctors and their Chinese men and women assistants, not only minister to all these sick and suffering ones, not only help to train up native physicians and nurses to combat disease, but more than all, they show the Chinese by their deeds, that Jesus has compassion on the sick; that His love can move the hearts of men to pity and love people of another race, even when they are loathsome through hideous disease. Do the children of the Interior know that 5c. pays the cost, for a day, of a sick person in a missionary hospital in many parts of China? or, $18.00 the cost of a bed for one year? M SHAVING BABY'S HEAD. OTHER is shaving my head. Don't you ever have to have your head shaved? Mother is letting some more of my hair grow now, just a little ring of hair in the back. When that gets long enough she will braid it in two or United Study Topics for Recite together the twenty-third Psalm. Each Mission Band should own a box of building blocks. With them construct a compound in a Chinese village. Study the missionary magazines and the encyclopedia. Build the missionaries' houses, the school buildings and the hospitals. Spools might represent the people. Show the missionary doctor and her Chinese assistants. Represent the sick being brought on litters, in sedan chairs, on donkeys or walking on little feet, the blind being led by friends. Tell how the doctor unbinds the feet or treats the patients and how the helpers tell of the love of Jesus. Try to make it very real to the children and show how great is the need of physicians. See article in current MISSION STUDIES. ADDITIONAL PLEDGES. Iowa-Perry..... MAY. JULY ..... ....... J. C. E. for 1911. Girlhood in Japan. .$ 4.00 .Japan: Miss Rosamond C. . Mexico. NEW SOCIETIES. Y. L. Ohio-Cleveland, Trinity Ch., Covenant Circle. three little braids and tie them with Study Topics for Young People beautiful pink wool. I hope my hair will get long pretty soon. It makes your head feel so nice and cool to have it shaved. I don't mind it at all unless I have a boil, then it hurt terribly. But my mother is very careful, she sharpens the razor just so sharp, then she fills that basin with hot water and washes my head all over, then I get between her knees like this and hold so still, so as not to get cut. I was just a month old when my head was first shaved. Our relatives and friends came to celebrate the occasion, so mother says. I don't seem to remember much about it myself. But when we dress up to go visiting she shows me all the beautiful things grandma gave me then; shoes, hats, collars, and dresses, enough to last till I am a big girl, I think.-J. C. W. Columbus, Mayflower Ch., Marietta, First Ch.. ADDITIONAL PLEDGES. Y. L. Wisconsin-Ashland. Racine, Park Ave. Ch. Zor- Y. P. S. C. E. Wisconsin - Beloit, First Cong. Ch....... 14.00 20.00 5.00 nouncement at present, but is one of America's great names in philanthropy and missions. The committee have for many months been collecting data and have determined the use of the income for the next year. Critical needs of many years' standing can now be partially met. Practically all of the Board's seminaries and colleges will receive. substantial aid. Ferideh Hanum. A Turkish woman of rank, Ferideh Hanum by name, has given substantial aid to an Armenian Women's Society for establishing schools. She has also collected money for orphan girls under the care of the Armenian Patriarch. On the first day of the Bairam some members of the Women's Education Society, a few teachers and pupils, paid a visit to this Turkish lady and presented her with a frame which had been beautifully embroidered by the pupils of the schools. The pupils were escorted by their benefactress to the residence of the Minister of Finance, in order to be presented to His Excellency. As Djavid Bey was absent, they were received by his mother and sister. One of the girls read an address thanking Djavid Bey for the kindness shown to the Armenian Women's Education Society. Then a bouquet of flowers. was presented to his mother, who was very much touched, and especially requested the girls to come again on the following Sunday in order to meet her 163 It meets every Saturday from 3 to 9 o'clock in the Moody Church, corner of Chicago and La Salle avenues, about one mile north of the river. The main auditorium has a seating capacity of nearly 2,000, and is generally well filled, and at times proves too small for its audiences. The program consists of, first, Prayer; second, Teacher Training; third, Heart to Heart Talk; fourth, Luncheon; fifth, World Wide Missions; sixth, International Sunday School Lesson; last, Popular Bible Hour. How India is to be Saved. moting the agitation are ac. tuated by their apprehension of the effects of Christianity. They fear that Christianity will sweep womanhood into the fold, unless the grosser evils of Hinduism are reformed, with the aim of cleansing Hinduism of the system of child marriage, permanent widowhood, and the shocking abominations perpetrated in the name of religion at many temples. many temples. The very fact of such a movement is a striking tribute of the true moral nature and power of the Christian religion." Four or five years ago the Shanghai laymen organized what they called the Men's Auxiliary to extend the church in various prov Chinese Forward Movement. inces of Kiangsu. They have yearly meetings to confer with one another and the Bishop. At this gathering the savings of the year are presented in a united offering. At one of the last of these gatherings 142 Chinese laymen were present and reported $680 in the treasury. They have been using the money to support work in some of the smaller towns around Shanghai.-Spirit of Missions, Episcopa lian. |