Dugald Christie (missionary)

Rev Dugald Christie CMG (11 November 1855 – 2 December 1936) was a Scottish missionary active in China, and founder of the Shengjing Clinic and Mukden Medical College in Mukden.[1]

Dugald Christie CMG
Dugald Christie as a Student, ca. 1880
Born	11 November 1855 Glencoe, Highland
Died	2 December 1936 (1936-12-03) (aged 81) Edinburgh
Nationality	United Kingdom
Education	Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
Occupation	Medical missionary

Life

Christie was born in Glencoe in Scotland on 11 November 1855.[1]

He received qualifications in both medicine and surgery from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (LRCPE LRCSEd 1881). In 1882 he was sent to Mukden (now Shenyang) in northeastern China as a medical missionary and opened the Shengjing Clinic. For the next 30 years Christie worked towards opening a full medical school; as funds became available (from Scottish churches, the Chinese government and local people) the clinic became a hospital and in March 1912 Christie became the first Principal of the Mukden Medical College. It was the first foreign medical college to be opened in northeastern China.[2]

Dugald Christie's grave, Grange Cemetery

Christie retired in 1923 and died in Edinburgh on 2 December 1936. He is buried with his second wife, Elizabeth Inglis (1855-1952), in the north-east section of the Grange Cemetery.[1] His daughter May Christie (1890-1946) became a journalist and fiction writer.[3]

The Hospital

The hospital continued as the MMC's teaching hospital until MMC was absorbed by the China Medical University in 1949 when it became one of that university's hospitals and was renamed the 2nd Affiliated Hospital. In 1969 the hospital was relocated to Chaoyang as part of the plan to bring medical care to rural areas but moved back to Shenyang in 1983.[4]

In 2002 the hospital absorbed the 3rd Affiliated Hospital and in 2003, on its 120th anniversary, restored its name as Sheng Jing Hospital.

Works

• Christie, Dugald (1895). Ten Years in Manchuria: A Story of Medical Mission Work in Moukden, 1883-1893. J. and R. Parlane.
• Christie, Dugald (1914). Thirty Years in the Manchu Capital in and Around Moukden in Peace and War: Being the Recollections of Dugald Christie. London: McBride, Nast & Company.

References

1. Walls, Andrew F. (2014). "Christie, Dugald (1855–1936)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/48851. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Crawford, David S. (2006). "Mukden Medical College (1911–1949): an outpost of Edinburgh medicine in northeast China. Part 1: 1882–1917; building the foundations and opening the College" (PDF). Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 36 (1): 73–79. PMID 17146954.
3. "New York Papers Are Wonderful, Says Feature Writer". The Fourth Estate: 10. 26 August 1922.
4. Crawford, David S. (2006). "Mukden Medical College (1911–1949): an outpost of Edinburgh medicine in northeast China. Part 2: 1918–1949: expansion, occupation, liberation and merger" (PDF). Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 36 (2): 179–184. PMID 17153154.

Further reading

• Christie, Elizabeth Inglis (1932). Dugald Christie of Manchuria, Pioneer and Medical Missionary: The Story of a Life with a Purpose. J. Clarke and Co. OCLC 613144718.