Wednesday, April 29, 2009

James Hyslop -- Amoy Medical Pioneer

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I was delighted to hear today from Stephen Due, Editor of the Australian Medical Pioneers Index, Barwon Health Library Service. He is seeking information on Dr. James Hyslop, who served in Amoy from 1848 to 1851.

Hyslop, like many missionaries and doctors, was from Scotland, so it is no wonder that he stayed on in Amoy after he decided to pursue private practice. Many from Scotland called Amoy the Scotland of China. But ill health moved Hyslop to visit Australia, leaving his wife in China. He was shipwrecked off the Great Barrier Reef on 17 April, 1852, while enroute from Sydney to Manila, and killed by aboriginals.

Read more on the Australian Medical Pioneers Index site, and please share any information you have (especially photos) with us, or with Mr. Due.

Dr. James Hyslop Bio (from Wylie's "Memorial of Protestant Missionaries," Pp.191,192:

CXXII. JAMES HYSLOP studied medicine, and graduated as M. B. in Scotland. He was married to Miss James, and practised his profession for a time in his native land. Being accepted by the London Missionary Society, he was appointed a medical missionary to China, and left Portsmouth with Mrs. Hyslop, a child and sister, in the Ferozepore, on the 19th of March, 1848, accompanied by the Revs. Dr. Legge, B. Kay and W. Young with their wives, and the Revs. J. Edkins and T. Gilfillan, arriving at Hongkong on July 22nd.
He reached Amoy on December 5th, and resumed in part the medical operations which had been suspended by the departure of Drs. Hepburn and Cumming. He sustained that duty till 1851, when he retired from the missionary service, but still continued to reside in Amoy in private practice.
In 1853 he left for Australia, and was wrecked on that coast, when he fell into the hands of the natives, by whom he was massacred.

See Scottish Medical Secretaries

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