Norman Bethune
Title: Statue of Norman Bethune
Artist: Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng
Date: 2013
Material: Copper
Location: Grounds of the Medical Sciences Building
Latitude: 43.661060
Longitude: -79.392387
VISUAL ANALYSIS:
This copper cast statue of Norman Bethune may seem fairly unnoticeable in the middle of various busy sidewalks. From first sight, it shows an old man sitting on a step, with his head slightly tilted to the left and eyes looking up at a slope. On his left lap, he holds an unfolded journal with his left hand and has a pen on his right hand. Through his identity as a doctor, it can then be explained that Bethune might be making diagnosis notes of a patient or practicing medical evaluations. By observing his posture and his scant hair, it can be predicted that this is a sculpture of Bethune in his senior ages. There is also a quote of Bethune carved on his apron, “I am content. I am doing what I want to do. Why shouldn’t I be happy - see what my riches consist of. First I have important work that fully occupies every minute of my time…I am needed.” Dr. Bethune was well respected by the Chinese regarding his selfless contributions throughout his life.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION:
Norman Bethune was a Canadian physician, medical innovator, and noted anti-fascist. In September 1909 he enrolled at the University of Toronto. In 1914, when World War I was declared in Europe, he suspended his medical studies. He joined the Canadian Army's No. 2 Field Ambulance to serve as a stretcher-bearer in France. Norman returned to Toronto to complete his medical degree and received his M.D. in 1916.
In 1926 he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. At that time tuberculosis was still a fatal disease. However, undergoing a radical new treatment, he survived. After this personal crisis, he devoted himself to other tuberculosis victims and to thoracic surgery in Montréal at the Royal Victoria Hospital and later at the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur, Cartierville, Québec. Between 1929 and 1936 he invented or redesigned 12 medical and surgical instruments and wrote 14 articles describing his innovations in thoracic technique.
However, he grew increasing interested in the social and economic aspects of the disease. He challenged his profession and proposed radical reforms of medical care and health services in Canada. In 1935 Bethune travelled to the Soviet Union to observe firsthand their system of health care. During this year he became a committed Communist and joined the Communist Party of Canada. This commitment took him to the Spanish Civil War in 1936, where he organized a mobile blood transfusion service, the first of its kind, to operate on a 1000 km front. He returned to Canada in 1937 to raise money for the antifascist cause in Spain and soon turned his attention to the war being waged by communist forces against the Japanese invaders in China.
Bethune left Canada for the last time in 1938 to join the 8th Route Army in the Shanxi-Hobei border region. There, he was a tireless and inventive surgeon, teacher and propagandist, and he adopted the cause and the people as his own. Dr. Bethune effectively brought modern medicine to rural China and often treated sick villagers as much as wounded soldiers. His accidental death from septicemia evoked Mao Zedong's essay "In Memory of Norman Bethune," which urged all communists to emulate his spirit of internationalism, his sense of responsibility and his devotion to others.
