Edward Bliss
Edward Lydston Bliss was a medical missionary who worked in China from 1892 to 1932. Coming from a religious family, Bliss originally sought to become a minister. After giving up these aspirations, he attended Yale University and became a teacher. He then went to medical school and began his career as a physician in China. During his time in Shaowu, located in the Fujian province of China, Bliss provided general care and also performed research on the rinderpest virus. He remained in China throughout many significant political conflicts throughout the early 1900s before returning to the United States in 1932. A biography of Bliss — Beyond the Stone Arches: An American Missionary Doctor in China, 1892–1932 — was written by his son, journalist Ed Bliss.
Early life
Family
Edward Lydston Bliss was born December 10, 1865, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was the second child of Charles Henry Bliss, a wholesale dealer for Schleicher and Sohne needles, and Emily Lydston Bliss. One of seven children, Edward Bliss had three sisters — Clara, Marian and Mary — and three brothers — George, Charles and Will. The Blisses were a religious family that attended a Congregational church twice every Sunday. Charles Bliss served as superintendent of the Sunday school, which the children attended each week after morning service, and Emily Bliss worked on the missionary committee.Ambitions
Bliss's religious upbringing influenced his early ambitions. He sought to become a minister and, in his early childhood, Bliss showed signs of this ambition. As early as age four he was found standing upon a tree stump, preaching the words, "Will 'ou, oh will 'ou be dood." At age six he signed a card at Sunday school, reading, "I, the undersigned, hope I have found Jesus to be my precious Saviour, and I promise with his help to live as His loving child and faithful servant all my life." Throughout his childhood and young adulthood Bliss remained active in the ministry. He spoke frequently at Christian Endeavor meetings and at adult services. He received overwhelming positive feedback for his preaching and therefore he believed ministry was indeed his calling. However, Bliss eventually realized that preaching was not his passion and he gave it up.While Bliss's first goal was to become a minister, during his adolescence he also experienced influences for the missionary work he would eventually take on. In high school, Bliss's neighbor, General Adolphus Greely, left for the first of his Arctic expeditions. This inspired Bliss so that he read many exploration books, including Henry Morton Stanley's story of Daniel Livingstone in Africa.
Education
Bliss attended Yale University for his undergraduate education. While in school, he studied under famed professors such as Noah Porter, Edward Salisbury Dana and William Graham Sumner. Bliss took a variety of courses ranging from Latin and Greek to physics and chemistry. He was involved in the Pundits, a Yale literary society, and also enjoyed attending baseball and football games as often as he could. Bliss graduated from Yale in 1887 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin and Greek.Early work
After giving up his hopes of preaching, Bliss set his sights on becoming a teacher. After graduating from Yale he took a position as principal, sole teacher and janitor at the high school in Granby, Massachusetts. While teaching at Granby, Bliss discovered that teaching, like preaching, was not his passion. He then remembered the adventure stories he read when he was younger and concluded that he wanted to work abroad as a missionary. He said, "As soon as it was settled in my mind to become a missionary, I asked myself in what way I could best serve. The answer I thought was to become a doctor." Before Bliss could attend medical school, however, he wanted to repay a debt he had to his father. He took a new teaching position in Chicago at the Harvard School for Boys, where he stayed for one year.Medical school
After completing a year of teaching work at the Harvard School for Boys, Bliss returned to Yale and began medical school. While there he worked as an assistant to Dr. Herbert Smith, studying water quality in New Haven. Bliss completed the three-year course of study in two years and graduated second in his class in June 1891.Missionary work, 1892–1932
On April 23, 1891, Bliss wrote to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, applying to be a medical missionary. Bliss requested commission to China reportedly because he believed in "the probability that, at no distant day, it will occupy the position of supreme influence among nations of the East." He received a post as the physician for the mission in Shaowu, China. Bliss departed from San Francisco aboard the SS China on September 27, 1892. On February 8, 1893, four months after departing the United States, Bliss reached Shaowu.When Bliss arrived he immediately began studying the native dialect under the instruction of a teacher named Shi Xiansheng. Because many of the Chinese still utilized traditional medical practices, he did not have very many patients at first and he often studied the language for six and a half hours a day. Several months after his arrival, Bliss opened a small dispensary, equipped with medicine cabinets and a small operating table. He also planned to build a modern hospital as, at the time, the closest hospital was 150 miles away. Even then, Bliss had few patients, sometimes only one and at most five or six, in an entire morning. Finally, after breaking up a dogfight in the street using a long pole with a rag doused in ammonia on the end, Bliss received more patients. By April 1894, he was seeing 50 patients a day. This new workload created a need for a newer, larger dispensary, for which he requested funds from the American Board. The appeal was denied due to an American economic depression following the Panic of 1893. However, in 1896 building on a new dispensary began anyway, funded with Bliss's own money and "about 50 dollars or so" donated by friends. The First and Second Congregational Churches of Waterbury, Connecticut, contributed $180, making the building of a new hospital possible in 1897 as well. Building was completed in 1898. Bliss finally returned home on furlough in 1898. He returned to China in 1900, where he remained except for his furloughs in 1908 and 1916.
Bliss's work in Shaowu consisted of general medicine. He treated conditions such as leg ulcers, scabies, erysipelas, consumption and malaria, but was unable to perform major surgery. Furthermore, the size of the mission and his workload both increased over time. By 1920, the mission has expanded threefold and Bliss sometimes saw 100 patients per day. Therefore, Bliss needed assistance and starting in 1915, he requested the appointment of another physician. However, it was not until 1925 that the Missions Board answered his requests and assigned Dr. Walter Judd, a surgeon, to Shaowu.