Clinical Anatomy 00:000–000 (2013)

A GLIMPSE OF OUR PAST

Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873):

His Work as a Medical Missionary and Influence on the
Practice of Medicine and Knowledge of Anatomy in
China and Japan
ANAND N. BOSMIA,1 TORAL R. PATEL,1 KOICHI WATANABE,1
MOHAMMADALI M. SHOJA,1,2 MARIOS LOUKAS,3 AND R. SHANE TUBBS1*
1
Pediatric Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama
2
Medical Philosophy and History Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
3
Department of Anatomical Sciences, St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies

Benjamin Hobson was a British missionary and physician who lived in China for
twenty years. He founded multiple hospitals in Southern China and used his
knowledge of Western medicine to educate Chinese doctors. He wrote several
medical textbooks in Chinese of which the first was the A New Theory of the
Body (1851). The illustrations from his book were renditions and originals from
William Cheselden’s Anatomical Tables (1730) and Osteographia (1733).The
Japanese version of Hobson’s work appeared in Japan during the bakumatsu
period (1853–1867), when Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy and
began opening itself to the West. During this time, many books from Europe
were translated into Chinese to then find their way into Japan. The Chinese
anatomy textbook by Hobson (Quanti Xinlun) was instrumental in introducing
Western anatomic knowledge to the Chinese and thereby catalyzing a signifi-
cant change in the practice of medicine in China. A Japanese translation (Zen
Tai Shin Ron) of this text published in the 19th century is reviewed. Clin. Anat.
00:000–000, 2013. VC 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Key words: history; Asia; Japan; China; anatomy; medicine

INTRODUCTION
Benjamin Hobson was a medical missionary to China
who made major contributions to the practice of medi-
cine in China during a time when Western science was
being introduced to the Chinese. This article discusses
his life and the significance of his work using selected
images from a Japanese translation of his book A New
Theory of the Body (Quanti xinlun; Fig. 1), which is
alternatively called A New Treatise on Anatomy in some
references. This book, the first text on Western anatomy
written in Chinese, was authored by Hobson and his col-
laborator Chen Xiutang and published in 1851 (Shapiro,
2003; Heinrich, 2008). The authors will describe the
historical period during which Hobson’s endeavors took
place and will examine the introduction of Western med-
icine into Chinese society by discussing Hobson’s efforts
to teach anatomy. Larissa N. Heinrich’s book The After-
life of Images was found to be particularly helpful in this
regard. She argues that the works of Hobson and other
missionaries published in the second half of the 19th
century precipitated a more systematic introduction of
Western anatomy to the Chinese (Heinrich, 2008).
Western medicine spread into China towards the end
of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and the beginning of
the Qing Dynasty (1644–1900), and became increas-
ingly popular during the later period of the Qing Dynasty
and the Republican Period (Ebrey, 1999; Jingfeng and
*Correspondence to: RS Tubbs, JFL Bld 400, Children’s of
Alabama, Birmingham, AL 35233. E-mail: shane.tubbs@
childrensal.org
Received 25 September 2012; Revised 2 January 2013;
Accepted 15 January 2013
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ca.22230

C
V 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
2 Bosmia et al.
Fig. 1. Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873). Photograph
(circa 1870’s) courtesy of Mr. Denis Bradley, the great-
great grandson of Dr. Benjamin Hobson.
Zhan, 2003). The Republican Period began with the for-
mal abdication of the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty
in 1912 and the creation of the Republic of China, and
ended in 1949 with the takeover of the government by
the Chinese Communist Party (Dillon, 1979). The dis-
semination of Western medicine to China was the result
of Christian missions to China: Roman Catholicism had
been brought to China in the 16th century, and Protes-
tant activity in China grew during the first half of the
19th century (Anonymous, 2012, Unschuld, 1985).
Prominent emissaries of the Roman Catholic Church
were the Jesuits Giacomo Rho (1592–1638), Niccolo
Longobardo  (1565–1655), and Johann Terrenz Schreck
(1576–1630), who collectively translated into Chinese
the book Anatomie universelle du corps humain by the
French surgeon Ambroise Pare . In contrast, Hobson’s A
New Theory of the Body is not a translation of another
physician’s work, but his own book that he wrote origi-
nally in Chinese; its content was drawn from multiple
sources and represented important principles of West-
ern medical science (Heinrich, 2008).
EARLY LIFE, EDUCATION, AND FAMILY
Benjamin Hobson (Fig. 1) was born on 2 January
1816, in Welford of Northamptonshire, England (Grund-
mann, 1999a,b,c; Anonymous, 2012). Hobson began
his medical studies as an apprentice at Birmingham
General Hospital and transferred in 1835 to University
College in London, where he obtained an M.B. degree
and joined the Royal College of Surgeons (Anonymous,
2012). The London Missionary Society recruited him af-
ter he completed his medical training (Tiedemann,
2010). The London Missionary Society was founded in
1795 and was a nondenominational Christian organiza-
tion associated with the Congregationalist movement in
England and the United States of America (Gosling,
1998). Before embarking on his first mission at the age
of 23, Hobson married Jane Abbay, with whom he left
on 28 July 1839, on a ship called the Eliza Stewart, to
serve as a medical missionary in China for the London
Missionary Society (Wylie, 1867).
MEDICAL MISSIONARY
Hobson and his wife reached Macao, China, on 18
December 1839, and joined the Medical Missionary So-
ciety (Wylie, 1867; Tiedemann, 2010), which was
founded in 1838 (Hao, 2003). Hobson began his prac-
tice at a hospital in Macao overseen by the Medical Mis-
sionary Society and worked alongside William Lockhart
(Anonymous, 2012). Lockhart (1811–1896) trained at
the Meath Hospital in Dublin and at Guy’s Hospital in
London, and has been described as the first British
medical missionary (Grundmann, 1999a,b,c). The Lon-
don Missionary Society had appointed Lockhart to work
as a medical missionary to the Chinese, and he had
arrived in Canton, China, in January 1839 (Wylie,
1867). Lockhart is known for opening in 1844 the first
hospital in Shanghai, and in 1861 the first hospital in
Peking, China’s national capital (Balme, 1921). Lock-
hart became one of the directors of the London Mission-
ary Society when he returned to England in 1864, and
the first president of the Medical Missionary Association
in 1878 (Grundmann, 1999a,b,c; Melton, 2005).
Melton (2005) writes that Lockhart opened the hos-
pital in Macao where Hobson held his first appointment
as a medical missionary. However, Wylie (1867) con-
tends that the American medical missionary Peter
Parker (1804–1888) opened the hospital in the
summer of 1838. Parker had graduated from both Yale
Divinity School and the Yale School of Medicine in 1834,
trained as a surgeon and ophthalmologist, and received
Presbyterian ordination in Philadelphia (Grundmann,
1999a,b,c). Parker arrived in Canton in October 1834
following his appointment as a medical missionary by
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions (Balme, 1921). Parker is a significant figure in the
history of medical missions to China. On 4 November
1835, Parker opened the first hospital run by medical
missionaries in the Far East, the Ophthalmic Hospital in
Canton, which became subsequently known as the
Canton Hospital (Balme, 1921). Parker also helped
found the Medical Missionary Society in China at Canton
in 1838 (Grundmann, 1999a,b,c), which was the orga-
nization overseeing the hospital at which Hobson held
his first appointment.
At an early point in his career, Hobson came into con-
tact with fellow missionaries who had administrative

responsibilities. Hobson became the sole manager of
the hospital in Macao when Lockhart left Macao in 1840
to open a hospital for Chinese natives on the island of
Chusan (Wylie, 1867). Hobson remained in Macao
throughout the first Anglo-Chinese War, which lasted
from 1839 to 1842 (Le Pichon, 2006), and focused his
attention on famine, small pox, cholera, leprosy, and
opium addiction (Anonymous, 2012). Thus, he demon-
strated commitment to working as a medical mission-
ary even during periods of strained relations between
Great Britain and China. Fortunately for Hobson and his
colleagues, peace was established in 1842 through the
Treaty of Nanking and changes to the sociopolitical
scene that were more conducive to a stable environ-
ment for Christian missionaries (Anonymous, 2012).
These changes included the establishment of Hong
Kong as a British colony, the reopening of the five ports
of China to Westerners, and an edict in 1844 by the Chi-
nese Emperor that promoted tolerance of Christianity
(Anonymous, 2012).
Hobson moved to Hong Kong in 1843 to take
charge of a hospital founded by Peter Parker and over-
seen by the Medical Missionary Society; the hospital
opened on June 1 of that year (Wylie, 1867; Tiede-
mann, 2010; Anonymous, 2012). Grundmann
(1999a,b,c) writes that Hobson’s work in Hong Kong
led him to rely on Chinese nationals for assistance in
treating his patients, who were greater in number
than he had anticipated, and this partnership influ-
enced him to implement systematic medical training
for the Chinese. During his time in Hong Kong, Hob-
son attended the conference of the London Missionary
Society in August of 1843, and a series of general
meetings that concerned the translation of Biblical
scripture (Wylie, 1867). Hobson thus demonstrated
commitment to his work as a missionary in addition to
his responsibilities as a physician. While working as a
medical missionary, Hobson had two children with his
wife (Wylie, 1867).
RETURN TO ENGLAND
Hobson remained in Hong Kong until 1845 when
his wife fell ill (Wylie, 1867; Tiedemann, 2010). Hob-
son and his family left Hong Kong for England in July
of 1845, but Jane Hobson died on December 22
before they landed in England (Wylie, 1867). Follow-
ing his wife’s death, Hobson stayed in England for 1
year (Tiedemann, 2010), but another source states
that he remained in England for 15 months (Wong,
2009).
While in England, Hobson raised funds to open a
medical school in Hong Kong (Wong, 2009) and mar-
ried Mary Rebecca Morrison, who was the daughter of
the medical missionary Robert Morrison (Wylie, 1867;
Wong, 2009) and with whom he had two more chil-
dren (Anonymous, 2012). Robert Morrison was known
for completing a translation of the New Testament in
Chinese in 1813 and producing a three-volume Chi-
nese-English dictionary, the writing of which was initi-
ated in 1815 and completed in 1823 (Shenk, 1999).
To further his objective of establishing a medical
school in Hong Kong, Hobson leased land from Sir
Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873) 3
John Francis Davis, who was the Governor of Hong
Kong from 1844 to 1848 (Wong, 2009).
RETURN TO CHINA
With his new wife and children, Hobson left for
Hong Kong on the ship Hugh Walker on 11 March
1847, arrived on 27 July 1847, and resumed leader-
ship of the hospital there (Wylie, 1867; Tiedemann,
2010). Hobson’s efforts in Hong Kong evidenced his
dedication to medical education: he supported the
China Medical and Chirurgical Society founded in
1845, provided training to students who assisted him
at the hospital, and sought support from the Medical
Missionary Society to develop courses for Chinese
medical students (Anonymous, 2012).
Despite public support to establish a medical school
in Hong Kong, Hobson was not successful in this
endeavor, and his failure may have been due to a con-
flict with Peter Parker, who was opposed to basing the
medical school in Hong Kong (Wong, 2009). This con-
flict between Hobson and Parker developed amid
administrative strife within the Medical Missionary So-
ciety that started in 1845 and that led to the creation
of two separate organizations: the Hong Kong Mis-
sionary Society and the Medical Missionary Society in
Canton (Lockhart, 1861).
William Lockhart (1861) delineates the events that
led to the creation of these two organizations. First, the
Medical Missionary Society, which was founded in Can-
ton, normally had held many of its meetings in Macao.
By 1845, the foreign community, including medical
missionaries, mainly resided in Hong Kong. Thus, a pro-
posal was made that the Society’s meetings should be
held also in Hong Kong. Second, Parker had raised
5,000 dollars to advance the agenda of the Medical Mis-
sionary Society. Disagreement over who would control
these funds ensued. The committee for the Medical
Missionary Society argued that their treasurer should
have control over the money, but Parker believed he
alone was responsible for these funds. Parker subse-
quently formed the Medical Missionary Society in Can-
ton. Parker likely was not in favor of the Society’s
meetings being held in Hong Kong; thus, he may have
opposed Hobson’s plans to establish a medical school in
Hong Kong out of concern for logistics. Hobson became
a supporter of the Hong Kong Missionary Society
(Anonymous, 2012). However, the Medical Missionary
Society did not immediately dissolve upon the inception
of these two organizations. Its last meeting took place
in 1847 (Anonymous, 2012).
Furthermore, members of the Society had differing
views concerning the responsibilities of the medical
missionary. Some members felt that evangelism was
more important than medical care, and others
endorsed the opposite (Anonymous, 2012). Parker
demonstrated that he made medical care the greater
priority. In 1847, the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Medicine, which had appointed Parker as a
medical missionary, accused Parker of devoting too
much time to medical affairs and not giving enough
attention to evangelism and subsequently terminated
his appointment (Grundmann, 1999a,b,c).
4 Bosmia et al.
Following a visit to Canton in October 1847, Hobson
resigned from the Hong Kong Missionary Society and
left Hong Kong in February 1848 to begin work in
Canton (Wylie, 1867; Wong, 2009). This move seems
strange considering that Hobson supported the Hong
Kong Missionary Society. Wong (2009) writes that
Hobson’s conflict with Peter Parker was a motivating
factor in his decision to leave Hong Kong. Hobson
may have felt that Canton was in greater need of his
services, as Canton was less tolerant toward Christian
missionaries than Hong Kong was (Anonymous,
2012), and Hobson’s failure to open a medical school
in Hong Kong may have diminished his motivation to
stay there. Furthermore, Hobson’s outlook on the role
of the medical missionary, which placed equal, if not
greater, emphasis on evangelism, and ensuing con-
cern with Parker’s neglect of evangelical endeavors
may have encouraged this transition. Hobson pro-
ceeded to open a missionary hospital in Canton
(Wong, 2009). During his time there, Hobson studied
leprosy and opium addiction and continued to train
Chinese medical students (Anonymous, 2012).
Toward the end of 1854, Hobson fell ill and went to
Shanghai to recuperate, but returned to Canton after
five weeks (Wylie, 1867). Hobson had to leave Canton
again in October 1856 when the Second Anglo-Chi-
nese War, which lasted from 1856 to 1860 (Le Pichon,
2006), led to the closing of his hospital, and he sought
asylum for himself and his family in Hong Kong
(Wylie, 1867; Hao, 2003). In February 1857, Hobson
moved to Shanghai to practice medicine (Wylie,
1867). Toward the end of 1857, he served at a hospi-
tal overseen by the London Missionary Society, and
worked there until he left for England in early 1859
out of concern for his health (Wylie, 1867; Tiede-
mann, 2010).
FINAL YEARS
Hobson arrived in England in March of 1859 and took
up residence in Clifton and then Cheltenham; his health
did not permit him to return to China (Wylie, 1867). In
early 1864, Hobson suffered from an attack of facial pa-
ralysis (Anonymous, 1873). His obituary states that he
was “quite unable” to continue his practice as a physi-
cian even though he “appeared to have greatly recov-
ered from its effects (Anonymous, 1873).” Thus, his
obituary does not make clear whether he discontinued
his practice altogether or adopted a less demanding
work schedule. Hobson died on 16 February 1873, at
Forest Hill, Sydenham, near London (Grundmann,
1999a,b,c; Anonymous, 2012). The cause of his death
was bronchitis (Anonymous, 1873).
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE,
MEDICINE, AND ANATOMY
Benjamin Hobson was a significant figure in the
history of medicine in China because he was the first
Protestant writer of science in the Chinese language,
and, with his work Treatise of Natural Philosophy, the
first writer to discuss modern chemistry in Chinese
(Reardon-Anderson, 1991; Ho and Lisowski, 1997). In
total, Hobson produced 21 works, 18 of which were
written in Chinese (Wong, 2009). Treatise of Natural
Philosophy was critical in introducing Western science
to the Chinese. Hao (2003) provides a quote by the
medical missionary John Fryer (1838–1929) from his
article “Science in China,” which was published in Na-
ture in 1881, that evidences the impact of this text:
“This book, though of a very elementary character,
was like the dawn of a new era upon their minds, ena-
bling them [the Chinese] to leap at one bound across
the two centuries that had elapsed since the Jesuit
fathers commenced the tack of the intellectual
enlightenment of China, and bringing them face to
face with the results of some of the great modern
discoveries.”
Hobson’s publications represented the first sustained
introduction of modern science and medicine from Eu-
ropean society into China during the first half of the
19th century (Elman, 2006). Examples of his works are
Summary of Astronomy (1849), Treatise on Physiology
(1851), First Lines of the Practice of Surgery in the West
(1857), Treatise on Midwifery and Diseases of Children
(1858), and Practice of Medicine and Materia Medica
(1858). The admiration for Hobson’s work cannot be
overemphasized. Hobson’s obituary (Anonymous,
1873) contains the following passage from the edition
of the China Mail published on 11 May 1854, praising
Treatise of Physiology: “The work of Dr. Hobson’s has
probably excited a deeper interest among Chinese lite-
rati than anything that has ever issued from foreigners.
When first issued in 1851, it was so eagerly sought after
that a reprint of it was made for sale by Pwan-tsze-
shing, a wealthy and influential Chinese of Canton. We
regard with great interest the circulation of books of this
character among the Chinese.”
INFLUENCE ON JAPAN
Hobson’s influence also extended to Japan. Rear-
don-Anderson (1991) notes: “Hobson’s books circu-
lated during the 1850’s and 1860’s throughout the
treaty ports of China and to Japan.” Through the Chi-
nese treaty ports, the Meiji government of Japan
obtained Chinese translations of scientific texts pre-
pared by Protestant missionaries, and Japanese trans-
lations of these works were subsequently produced
(Elman, 2006). Tsien (2011) notes the following major
texts by Hobson that were translated by the Japa-
nese: Treatise on Physiology (1851), Natural Philoso-
phy (1855), Fine Lines of the Practice of Surgery in
the West (1857), Treatise on Midwifery and Diseases
of Children (1858), and Practice of Medicine and Mate-
ria Medica (1858). Images and translations from a
Japanese edition of A New Theory of the Body that
was published in Japan in 1857 can be seen in Figures
2–5 (Hobson, 1857). A New Theory of the Body was
instrumental in introducing Western anatomy to the
Chinese and changing the practice of medicine in
China. The book begins with a discussion of the bones
and comparative anatomy, and then discusses such
topics as the muscles, circulatory system, nervous
system, and organs.
 Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873) 5

much felt, and the superstitious regard of the Chinese

for the dead would seem to be an insurmountable ob-
stacle to the prosecution of this important branch of
study [anatomy].” Thus, Hobson and his colleagues
had to implement alternative methods to educate Chi-
nese medical students in gross anatomy: using
imported models, skeletons, and preserved speci-
mens; demonstrating dissections on dogs; and creat-
ing diagrams and charts (Heinrich, 2008). As a result,
students became more receptive to anatomical
instruction. After conducting classes on surgery for
students, Hobson and other missionaries saw an op-
portunity to engage the Chinese through anatomical
texts (Heinrich, 2008), motivating Hobson to write A
New Theory of the Body.
Chinese nationals helped propagate Western sci-
ence by producing texts influenced by the works of
missionaries. Government agencies became important
in producing translations of Western textbooks on sci-
ence. The Translation Bureau (Fanyi guan) of the Jian-
gnan Arsenal merged with the Guang fangyan guan, a
school for instruction in foreign languages, in 1869,
and by 1871, the Translation Bureau was publishing
translations of texts on science, engineering, and
other subjects (Tsien, 2011). Reardon-Anderson
(1991) notes that Hobson’s work Natural Philosophy

Fig. 2. Title from the Japanese translation of the Chi-

nese Quanti Xinlun [Zen Tai Shin Ron–written vertically in
Chinese script (kanbun) in center of page, English trans-
lation, A New Theory of the Body] with publication date
seen at the top as “Late Winter, 1857.” Author’s (RST)
personal copy.

ANATOMIC EDUCATION
Hao (2003) cites a quote by Hobson from Hobson’s
Report of the Shanghai Hospital for 1858: “Medical
science in China is at a low ebb. The knowledge of
anatomy and surgery in ancient Greece and Rome
was much superior to anything now in India and
China.” Hobson’s assessment was not off the mark.
Medical education in China by the second half of the
19th century did not incorporate gross anatomy and
dissections of the human body. Western missionaries
noted that the Chinese were unwilling to perform
autopsies because of cultural superstition, and in
some instances, Chinese students willing to study
gross anatomy used stolen corpses for dissection
(Heinrich, 2008). A quote from the Report of the Med-
ical Missionary Society in China for the Year 1866 by Fig. 3. An illustration with descriptions from the Zen
John Glasgow Kerr illustrates these cultural barriers: Tai Shin Ron showing the fetus, its selected organs, and
“The want of opportunities for dissection has been the placenta with umbilical cord.
6 Bosmia et al.
Fig. 4. A drawing from Hobson’s book on anatomy
demonstrating the heart and great vessels and the trans-
ected heart. Note detail seen in the heart valves, entrance
of the pulmonary veins into the left atrium, and chordae
tendinae.
and Natural History (1855) was very influential on Xu
Shou (1818–1884). Shou was a Chinese chemist from
the lower Yangtse Valley and worked as a translator at
the Jiangnan Arsenal and as a lecturer at the Shang-
hai Polytechnic Institute (Reynolds, 1991). Shou and
another Chinese scientist, Hua Hengfeng, helped initi-
ate the production of translations of Western text-
books at the Translation Bureau (Tsien, 2011). Shou
and John Fryer wrote a translation of a textbook on
chemistry titled Mirror of Chemical Science, which was
published in 1871 (Hao, 2003). Thus, Hobson’s works
inspired individual Chinese scholars to produce their
own translations, and helped initiate the mass produc-
tion of translations of Western textbooks by the Chi-
nese government.
Hobson collaborated with his Chinese colleague
Chen Xiutang to write A New Theory of the Body.
Such collaboration was necessary because Hobson
had no earlier translations to which he could refer in
order to denote anatomical structures in Chinese
(Heinrich, 2008). Other missionaries followed Hob-
son’s example and produced textbooks on medicine,
some of which were considered superior to Hobson’s
works. For example, John Glasgow Kerr, who began to
train students at a hospital in Canton during the
1860’s and who founded the Chinese Medical Mission-
ary Association in 1886 (Hao, 2003), published 34
volumes on medical science over 30 years (Reardon-
Anderson, 1991).
Hobson and Kerr had different approaches toward
writing scientific texts in Chinese. In the course of
producing these texts, the translators would either
invent new scientific terms while minimizing the use
of existing terminology, or use existing terminology to
convey scientific concepts (Heinrich, 2008). Hobson
embraced the latter method and thus employed vo-
cabulary that Chinese laymen commonly used; how-
ever, Kerr adopted the former approach and produced
the first full-length chemistry text in Chinese using a
formal scientific language developed for this purpose
(Reardon-Anderson, 1991). Hobson’s approach was
problematic because the lack of a specific scientific
nomenclature resulted in confusing terms for subjects.
For example, using Hobson’s method, the missionary
W.A.P. Martin (1827–1916) called silicon po-ching and
manganese wu-ming-i, which translate as “essence of
glass” and “nameless wonder,” respectively (Reardon-
Anderson, 1991).
Hobson’s method did not solve the problem of
standardizing scientific jargon in the Chinese lan-
guage. In his An Account of the Department for the
Translation of Foreign Books, John Fryer notes that in
subsequent publications translators had not used the
same scientific terms that Hobson had developed,
which made standardizing scientific terms an impor-
tant goal of the Jiangnan Arsenal (Elman, 2005). Hob-
son’s nomenclature is not completely obsolete,
however. For example, Chinese scientists still use his
translations for oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen,
which are yangqi (nourishing gas), qingqi (light gas),
and danqi (diluting gas), respectively (Hao, 2003).
TEXTBOOK IN ANATOMY
In addition to developing a new vocabulary, Hobson
and Chen faced the problem of conveying to the Chi-
nese that all humans are fundamentally the same and
that the human body reflects this universalism; a dis-
cussion of gross anatomy would not have been suffi-
cient for this purpose (Heinrich, 2008). Hobson and
Chen incorporated theology into the text to evoke the
idea of God creating the body to convey the
“theoretical foundations of the body itself,” yet such
passages were sometimes removed from Chinese and
Japanese reprints of A New Theory of the Body (Hein-
rich, 2008). Thus, East Asian societies in some instan-
ces embraced Western science more readily than
Western religion.
TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE
The principles of traditional Chinese medicine
(TCM) must be discussed so that the ideological land-
scape into which Western medicine was introduced

Fig. 5. Schematic showing the anatomy of the whole
and sectioned brain with peripheral nerves of the head
and neck (bottom right).
can be appreciated. Three important concepts that
guide clinical practice in TCM are the yin-yang theory,
the five-phase theory, and the Eight Guiding Principles
(Jingfeng and Zhan, 2003). The yin-yang theory illus-
trates the importance of balance in the paradigm of
TCM. TCM holds that all creation is born from the
interdependence of two opposite principles (Yin and
Yang), and that disease results when either yin or
yang is in a state of excess or deficiency (Jingfeng
and Zhan, 2003). The five-phase theory illustrates the
belief that a person’s health is connected to nature
through governance by the five elements of wood,
fire, earth, metal, and water, each of which is associ-
ated with a particular season and a specific set of
organs (Jingfeng and Zhan, 2003). The Eight Guiding
Principles are employed to analyze a patient’s ener-
getic imbalances, and consist of four pairs of oppo-
sites: the cold/heat principle, which determines the
patient’s overall energy; the interior/exterior principle,
which describes the location of the patient’s problem;
the deficiency/excess principle, which describes the
strength of an illness and how resistant the patient’s
Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873) 7
body is to that illness; and the yin/yang principle,
which is a combination of the previous three pairs of
opposites (Jingfeng and Zhan, 2003).
Some Chinese scholars began to question TCM fol-
lowing the spread of Western science. For example,
Xu Shou published an article in April of 1876 that
attacked the yin-yang dichotomy and the five-phase
theory, the latter of which Hobson had criticized in
Treatise of Natural Philosophy (Elman, 2006). Hobson
was frustrated with the assessment of bodily functions
in TCM, as evidenced by his comment in William Lock-
hart’s book The Medical Missionary in China (1861):
“There is no lack of books and observations on the
functions of the body; for everything, even the most
inscrutable and mysterious, is explained by the Yin
and Yang, the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist,
the superior and inferior!”
CONFLICTS
Hobson’s efforts as a medical educator sometimes
were resisted because certain elements of Chinese re-
ligion and culture ran counter to his recommenda-
tions. For example, Hobson used ice-water douches to
expel the placenta, but TCM recommends avoiding
cold substances during parturition (Johnson, 2011).
The ineffectiveness of some Western medical prac-
tices, such as Hobson’s method to expel the placenta,
was another reason they were not readily adopted
(Johnson, 2011).
Another source of conflict was Hobson’s endorse-
ment of surgery. The Chinese demonstrated aversion
towards surgery, as evidenced by the relegation of
minor surgical procedures such as cutting warts and
lancing boils to less educated doctors (Elman, 2006).
Surgery was not an advanced field in China when
Hobson started his work as a medical missionary in
the first half of the 19th century. Hao (2003) notes
Hobson’s opinion on Chinese surgery in Hobson’s arti-
cle “Report of the Medical Missionary Society,” which
was published in The Chinese Repository in 1844:
“Everyone at all acquainted with the state of medicine
in China must be aware to what a low system of em-
pirical practice it is reduced, especially in surgery,
which as a science, based on human anatomy, is
entirely unknown.” This state of affairs is no surprise
given the cultural stigma towards autopsies and other
invasive procedures. In addition, practitioners of TCM
argued that studying human cadavers did not enhance
understanding of a living person’s body, and that Hob-
son’s cadaveric studies did not take into account the
circulation of “qi” in the living human body (Elman,
2005). Thus, the belief that “qi” is absent in a cadaver
contributed to the attitude of Hobson’s Chinese critics
that not all of the data obtained from cadaveric dis-
sections could be applied to living persons for the pur-
pose of medical care.
The conflict between TCM and invasive surgery is
illustrated by their respective treatments for postpar-
tum complications. Hobson’s Treatise on Physiology
and Treatise on Midwifery encouraged Chinese physi-
cians to implement such surgery, whereas practi-
tioners of TCM preferred therapies for women based
8 Bosmia et al.
on a holistic model of the human body (Elman, 2006).
Despite his disagreement with fundamental principles
of TCM, Hobson was receptive to constructive criticism
from his Chinese colleagues and did not completely
disregard Chinese culture when preparing instructional
texts on medical care. For example, Wang Tao, an as-
sociate of Hobson, pointed out that he had not
included a discussion of practical therapies, a strength
of the Chinese’s body of medical knowledge, in the
original draft of Treatise of Physiology; Hobson replied
by preparing a guide published in 1857 that discussed
these therapies (Elman, 2006).
CONCLUSIONS
Various successes evidenced the growing influence
of Western medicine in China: merchants in Canton
established an institute for vaccination in 1815; vac-
cines were introduced in Peking in 1828; and by
1915, missionary organizations were sponsoring 16 of
29 medical schools in China (Anonymous, 2012). It
must be recognized that Benjamin Hobson’s scholarly
endeavors were made in the context of his religious
faith. Hobson’s evangelical outlook made the practice
of medicine an avenue by which to share his faith with
a population he believed was in need of spiritual nour-
ishment. Hobson left an influential legacy on the sci-
entific enterprise and medical education in China.
Heinrich (2008) cites the medical historians K. Chimin
Wong and Wu Lien-teh to describe Hobson’s influence
on Chinese medicine: “The greatest compliment to
the author lay perhaps in the fact that his books were
several times republished by the Chinese. Hobson’s
books remained for many years the standard works in
Chinese, and their influence, not only upon the Chi-
nese in touch with western medical men but upon
scholars in general, cannot be overrated.”
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