Page 6 - GHS Pres

Dr. Henry Norman Bethune

Bethune Memorial House, a National Historic Site of Canada
in Gravenhurst, Ontario. commemorates the life and

achievements of Dr. Henry Norman Bethune.

Henry Norman Bethune (March 4, 1890 – November 12, 1939) was a Canadian physician and
medical innovator. Bethune is best known for his service in war time medical units during the

Spanish Civil War and with the Communist Eighth Route Army (Ba Lu Jun) during the Second Sino-

Japanese War. He developed the first mobile blood-transfusion service in Spain in 1936. A
Communist, he wrote that wars were motivated by profits, not principles.

Virtually unknown in his homeland durin g his lifetime, Bethune received
international recognition when Chairman Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic
of China published his essay entitled In Memory of Norman Bethune (in Chinese:
紀念白求恩), which documented the final months of the doctor’s life in China.
Almost the entire Chinese population knew about the essay which had become
required reading in China’s elementary schools during the 1960s. Grateful of
Bethune’s altruistic help to China, the nation’s normal elementary school text
book still has the essay today:

In August 2002, then-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, who is of
Chinese birth, visited the house and unveiled a bronze statue of Dr.
Bethune erected by the Town of Gravenhurst.