Bethune, << buh THOON, >> Norman (1890-1939), a Canadian surgeon, became a national hero of China because of his medical service there. He went to China in 1938, when China was at war with Japan. Bethune organized hospitals in the field, served as a battlefield surgeon, and set up medical schools. In 1938, he became medical chief of the Chinese Eighth Route Army.
Henry Norman Bethune was born in Gravenhurst, Ontario, on March 3, 1890, and began his medical career in 1917. He was stricken by tuberculosis in 1926 and spent about a year recovering. From 1928 to 1936, Bethune practiced medicine in Montreal. He won worldwide fame during this period for experiments in lung surgery and for the invention of instruments used in chest surgery.
In 1936, Bethune joined the Republican forces fighting in the Spanish Civil War. That same year, he developed the first mobile blood transfusion service in history. Bethune served in China for about 21 months and died there of blood poisoning, on Nov. 12, 1939.
