At the time of the Boxers all the missionaries in Manchuria were obliged to flee, some without time to take even necessary clothing with them. One of the most popular doctors learnt afterwards that the robbers in a certain village had planned to carry him off in order to save him from the Boxers! It is impossible to overestimate the influence of the medical missionary, and no mission field has been more favoured in this respect than Manchuria. The medical mission work was started at Moukden in 1882 by Dr. Christie, who has steadily built up the work there, and whose new hospital is the model for what such institutions should be. Despite the prejudices of the people, the work has steadily grown. The renown of the foreign doctor has spread for hundreds of miles, and the message which is nearest to his heart has been carried into remote villages in the Long White Mountains by patients who return from the hospital not only cured, but also imbued with the missionary spirit which has brought a new life to them. The respect which is felt for this work is shown in no way more clearly than in the fact that when the hospital was obliged to be left for ten months during the war between China and Japan, the buildings with their contents were left absolutely unharmed. Not so fortunate, however, was the hospital during the Boxer time, for all the buildings were destroyed by fire, and when they might have been rebuilt, another desolating war swept over the country. The missionaries had returned and had their hands more than full, for Moukden was the refuge to which crowds of destitute Chinese were driven. No less than seventeen refuges, containing some 10,000 people, were under the care of the missionaries, for the officials thankfully recognised their efforts and cooperated with them, doing similar work themselves. There were as many as four hospitals being carried on at the same time, for not only were there numbers of wounded, but epidemics of smallpox and fever spread among the refugees.