46 Facts About Edward Bliss

Edward Lydston Bliss was a medical missionary who worked in China from 1892 to 1932.

Edward Bliss then went to medical school and began his career as a physician in China.

Edward Bliss remained in China throughout many significant political conflicts throughout the early 1900s before returning to the United States in 1932.

Edward Lydston Bliss was born December 10,1865, in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Edward Bliss was the second child of Charles Henry Bliss, a wholesale dealer for Schleicher and Sohne needles, and Emily Lydston Bliss.

Charles Edward Bliss served as superintendent of the Sunday school, which the children attended each week after morning service, and Emily Edward Bliss worked on the missionary committee.

Edward Bliss sought to become a minister and, in his early childhood, Bliss showed signs of this ambition.

Edward Bliss spoke frequently at Christian Endeavor meetings and at adult services.

Edward Bliss received overwhelming positive feedback for his preaching and therefore he believed ministry was indeed his calling.

However, Edward Bliss eventually realized that preaching was not his passion and he gave it up.

Edward Bliss took a variety of courses ranging from Latin and Greek to physics and chemistry.

Edward Bliss was involved in the Pundits, a Yale literary society, and enjoyed attending baseball and football games as often as he could.

Edward Bliss graduated from Yale in 1887 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin and Greek.

Edward Bliss then remembered the adventure stories he read when he was younger and concluded that he wanted to work abroad as a missionary.

Edward Bliss took a new teaching position in Chicago at the Harvard School for Boys, where he stayed for one year.

Edward Bliss completed the three-year course of study in two years and graduated second in his class in June 1891.

Edward Bliss departed from San Francisco aboard the SS China on September 27,1892.

When Edward Bliss arrived he immediately began studying the native dialect under the instruction of a teacher named Shi Xiansheng.

Several months after his arrival, Edward Bliss opened a small dispensary, equipped with medicine cabinets and a small operating table.

Edward Bliss planned to build a modern hospital as, at the time, the closest hospital was 150 miles away.

Finally, after breaking up a dogfight in the street using a long pole with a rag doused in ammonia on the end, Edward Bliss received more patients.

Edward Bliss returned to China in 1900, where he remained except for his furloughs in 1908 and 1916.

Edward Bliss treated conditions such as leg ulcers, scabies, erysipelas, consumption and malaria, but was unable to perform major surgery.

Therefore, Edward Bliss needed assistance and starting in 1915, he requested the appointment of another physician.

Edward Bliss persuaded several Chinese Christians to form an association and buy a plot of land to use for agriculture.

Edward Bliss spent much of his time in China focusing on the immunization of cattle against rinderpest.

Edward Bliss raised his own cattle and goats in China and experimented with rinderpest prevention.

Edward Bliss found that serums for immunization were available in Shanghai, but realized that the serum used for this was unattainable and unaffordable for farmers in regions like Shaowu.

Edward Bliss sought to find another method of immunization that was within the means of Shaowu.

Edward Bliss built off of the discovery of Robert Koch, who found that if the bile from a rinderpest gall bladder were diluted with an equal amount of pure glycerin, it would lose its virulence and would be safe to inject after 10 days.

Edward Bliss then deducted that if a cow was injected with a small quantity of rinderpest blood ten days after being injected with the bile, it would have immunity.

Edward Bliss discovered that the calves of immune cows had a temporary immunity that decreased as they aged.

Edward Bliss found that if they were injected with a small amount of rinderpest blood within their first month of life, they would have immunity.

Edward Bliss witnessed practitioners who treated cancer by puncturing the skin with gold and silver needles, eyesores with bile from bear gallbladders, malarial fever with uncooked pears, rheumatism with snake meat, and many ailments with ginseng root.

Therefore, Shaowu missionaries, including Edward Bliss, were advised to retreat to Fuzhou, a port city with a large mission, for safety.

Edward Bliss remained at Fuzhou for two months until the danger passed.

While, the Fujian province experienced less conflict than many other regions, there was still a significant impact and Edward Bliss received notice that the Shaowu mission had undergone some damages.

Edward Bliss returned to China in 1900 to find his house empty and stripped of all doors and window frames.

All of the medicines and Edward Bliss's microscope were stolen from the dispensary.

Edward Bliss noted a "peculiar air of excitement" in the city, as if before a storm.

Two of Edward Bliss's students became medical officers in the Revolutionary Army.

Edward Bliss was forced to evacuate as the army reached city gates of Shaowu.

When Edward Bliss was 81 years old, the couple moved to his hometown, Newburyport.

Edward Bliss died in his sleep on January 22,1960, at the age of 94.

Edward Bliss considered some of his most important work in China to be his medical training of many young men.

Edward Bliss usually taught them materia medica and anatomy for about two years.