Dr. Norman Bethune (1890-1939)

Dr. Norman Bethune achieved international renown as a physician and social activist. He made significant contributions to thoracic surgery in Canada, writing manuals and developing instruments, and was an early advocate of government-subsidized healthcare. Embracing communism, he led a Canadian team which pioneered the use of front line blood transfusions to republican forces in 1936-37 during the Spanish Civil War. Bethune subsequently served as a battlefield surgeon and medical advisor to Mao Zedong’s 8th Route Army in 1938-39 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After his death at the front in 1939, he became a national hero in China and a symbol of Canadian-Chinese friendship.

Norman Bethune was born in 1890 in Gravenhurst, Ontario, and had an interest in medicine from an early age. He attended the University of Toronto, but in 1911 took a year off to teach lumber camp workers at Frontier College. During the First World War, Bethune served overseas as a stretcher-bearer until he was wounded. He returned to Canada and finished his medical degree in 1916, then re-enlisted as a lieutenant-surgeon. After the war ended, he studied and worked in Britain, Canada, and the United States before contracting tuberculosis in 1926. Bethune’s experience with the illness motivated him to specialize in treating tuberculosis.

He moved to Montreal and became a prominent thoracic surgeon, improving and inventing medical instruments like the “Bethune Rib Shears.” He grew concerned with poverty’s negative impact on people’s health, and in 1935 he opened a clinic offering free treatment. A proponent of socialized medicine, he organized the Montreal Group for the Security of the People’s Health and joined the Communist Party. In 1936, Bethune became involved in the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer for the republicans. He and his team pioneered a mobile blood transfusion system, bringing blood from donors in cities directly to front line casualties.

Bethune briefly returned to Canada in 1937, but the next year he left to help the Chinese Communists fight off Japanese invasion. He served with the 8th Route Army and travelled along the front lines, where he performed countless operations using a portable operating theatre he had developed. As one of the few skilled doctors there, Bethune also provided others with medical training. During a routine operation, he cut his finger and infection set in. On November 12, 1939, he died of blood poisoning. Communist leader Mao Zedong wrote “In Memory of Norman Bethune,” an essay that became required reading in China. Honoured in China as a hero for his devoted wartime service, and remembered in Canada for his medical achievements, Bethune continues to be an important link between the two countries.

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