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Early graduate’s legacy continues in China by Mary Helen Yarborough Public Relations James Richard (J.R.) Wilkinson II was born during a time when the United States was ripped apart by civil war. The boy, who saw his home burned by Sherman, would grow to become his family’s breadwinner at 13 after his father lost a leg fighting for the Confederate army. He later became a doctor educated at the Medical College of South Carolina, and then a missionary who helped spread Western medicine to China.   Today, the facility once named the Wilkinson Hospital is now Suzhou (also Soochow) Psychiatric Hospital, the second largest of its kind in China. It was converted to a psychiatric hospital after World War II in response to growing awareness of mental disease. In the early days, the “study of lunacy” preceded psychology as a profession, and the pursuit of that study became the foundation of what now is the affiliated Suz Chow University, said Wyndham Wilkinson, J.R. Wilkinson’s grandson.   Wilkinson was visiting MUSC recently to research his grandfather’s legacy. The physics professor at Winston-Salem State University shared some relics of a man who helped bridge Eastern and Western attitudes.   According to genealogical records collected by Wilkinson, J.R. Wilkinson, his wife and three children left their home and his practice in Greenville in November 1894 for the long journey east, and arrived in China on New Year’s Day 1895. His intent was to establish a medical mission under the auspices of the Southern Presbyterian Church.   His first medical center was named the Elizabeth Blake Hospital after his bride from Greenwood. It was built in the city of Soochow in the Jiangsu province about 50 miles southwest of Shanghai. This facility in Soochow, located on “the Street of Ivory,” became the gateway through which many first class Chinese doctors were educated and first graduated in 1904.   Wilkinson said his grandfather spoke of the cultural challenges of providing medical care in China. “The Chinese were offended if they couldn’t pay for service,” Wilkinson said. “My grandfather insisted all work be done for free, but he ultimately allowed them to pay what was the equivalent to one nickel at the time.”   Eventually, despite struggles finding cooperation among Chinese leaders, he garnered quite a following and was able to build the Wilkinson Hospital. It was some time after the turn of the 19th Century and the facility still stands on its site on the Grand Canal.   The Chinese so appreciated J.R.Wilkinson’s contributions they insisted the hospital bear his name, which in Chinese is Ken Sen, meaning “renewal.” So the hospital became known as the Ken Sen (Wilkinson) Hospital, and also the Hospital of Restoration.   J.R. Wilkinson fell in love with China and its people and never left. He died and was buried there in 1935.   In 1936, as the Japanese invaded China, his widow and children fled, but eventually returned.   His son, L.L. Wilk-inson, M.D., returned to America to earn his medical degree from the University of Virginia and received his surgery credentials from the University of Pennsylvania. Though he returned to China to work in his father’s hospital, L.L. Wilkinson came back to the United States where he practiced in High Point, N.C. Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.