BETHUNE RIB SHEARS, LONG HANDLE CIRCULAR SCREW JOINT, RUBBER SLEEVES ON HANDLE, 13½ INCH
Inscription
PILLING /HAND FORGED /MADE IN ENGLAND
Production organisations
GEORGE P. PILLING & SON CO.
Labels
Norman Bethune (1890-1939) was a Canadian surgeon who was famous for the many surgical instruments that he developed, with the most famous being the Bethune Rib Shears, which are still in use today in a wide range of surgical procedures. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Bethune took up the profession of surgeon, but chose to suspend his medical studies in order to serve as a stretcher bearer in the First World War. Bethune would suffer an injury whilst serving in Belgium, and would return home to Canada in order to finish his medical studies, later joining both the Royal Canadian Navy and Air Force. Outside of his inventions, much of Bethune’s fame originates from his political views which had a massive impact on his life and career. As a member of the Communist Party of Canada, Bethune was an avid supporter of socialised medicine, believing that there should be a universal healthcare system in place that is operated and paid for by the government. In favour of this belief, Bethune produced the following quote:
“Medicine, as we are practising it, is a luxury trade. We are selling bread at the price of jewels. Let us take the profit, the private economic profit, out of medicine and purify our profession of rapacious individualism. Let us say to the people not ‘How much have you got?’ but ‘How best can we serve you?'”
Bethune’s ideological fervour would lead him to serving in the Spanish Civil War, operating on the frontlines as a surgeon in support of the Republican government against Franco’s Nationalists. During his time in Spain, he developed a mobile blood transfusion service to provide blood for soldiers. In order to raise funds to expand this service, he toured around North America, yet upon its completion, he was strongly advised against returning to Spain by his medical peers. Bethune, now alone and feeling without purpose, set his sights on a new goal to provide aid to those in need and travelled to China to join the Communist forces of Mao Zedong. He was appointed as a medical adviser to the military district of a prominent Chinese general, Nie Rongzhen, and quickly set about establishing makeshift hospitals, performing battlefield surgeries, writing medical textbooks, and providing training for young Chinese medical staff.
During the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, Bethune was injured whilst performing a surgery, with the wound he suffered becoming infected. He would eventually develop septicaemia and would die in November 1939. For actions in service of China, Bethune was famously eulogized by Mao Zedong himself, with this text being published around the world and becoming required reading in Chinese schools during the 1960s. Since then, Bethune has been idolised in China, and is one of few western figures that China has dedicated statues towards. Norman Bethune’s legacy continues in China to this day, as since 1991, the Bethune Medal has been awarded as country’s highest medical honour.
Alexander Walker, Hidden Histories project participant
