ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the missionary hospitals provided free medical service to the Cantonese, and how American medical missionaries extended their philanthropic services to the blind and to the insane, opening China's first mental hospital and south China's first school for the blind. It studies how American medical missionaries influenced the Cantonese reformers and elites in their attitude towards traditional philanthropic concepts and inspired them to launch a modern philanthropic movement in Canton in late Qing and early Republican China. American doctors' thinking on relations between charity and physicians as well as their charitable hospitals in Canton had an effect on the Cantonese reformers and elites to some extent, urging them to promote a modern charitable movement in Canton, although numerous forces had inspired them. Finally, the chapter also examines why and how the Canton government took over Kerr's Refuge for the Insane and became involved in the Mingxin School for the Blind.
