Notable Women of Modern ChinaBurton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
History
Notable Women of Modern China
Burton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
China -- Biography; Women -- Biography
The question may perhaps be raised as to whether days could be crowded so
full and yet work be done thoroughly. But Prof. J. Scott Clark of
Northwestern University said of her, at this time: "Dr. Kahn is one of the
most accurate and effective students in a class of eighty-four members,
most of them sophomores, although the class includes many seniors. The
subject is the study of the style and diction of prominent prose authors,
with some theme work. Last year Miss Kahn attained a very high rank in the
study of the principles of good English style during the first semester,
and in that of synonyms during the second semester. In the latter difficult
subject she ranked among the very best students in a class of over three
hundred members. She is very accurate, very earnest, and very quick to
catch an idea. In fact she is nothing less than an inspiration to her
classmates."
In the spring of 1910 Dr. Kahn was a delegate to the Conference of the
World's Young Women's Christian Association held in Berlin, and from there
went to London for six months of study in the School of Tropical Diseases.
She had planned to return to Northwestern University to complete the work
interrupted by her trip to Europe, and to receive her degree. Her work had
been of so unusually high a standard, however, that she was permitted to
finish her course by correspondence, and was granted her degree in January,
1911. She completed her course in the School of Tropical Diseases with high
honour, and in February, 1911, she reached Nanchang, where one of her
fellow-workers declares, "she is magnificent from the officials' houses to
the mud huts."
The new hospital was still in process of building, but the doctor began
work at once in her old dispensary, and the news of her return soon spread.
In a short time she was having an average of sixty patients a day, and
several operations were booked some time before the hospital could be
opened. It was ready for use in the autumn and in October Dr. Kahn wrote:
"The work has gone on well, and patients have come to us even from distant
cities clear on the other side of Poyang Lake. The new building is such a
comfort. It looks nice and is really so well adapted for the work. I would
be the happiest person possible if I did not have to worry about drug
bills, etc.... It is impossible to drag any more money out of the poor
people. Our rich patients are very small in number when compared with the
poor. Yesterday I had to refuse medicines to several people, though my
heart ached at having to do so. You see I had no idea that the work would
develop so fast, and things have risen in prices very much the last few
years."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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