The westward migration of Tongji Medical College during the Anti-Japanese War

Abstract

Tongji Medical College began its "education Long March" after the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, with six westward migrations across almost 10,000 kilometers over eight years. It first moved to the city of Shanghai because Tongji Medical College had to rent space in Shanghai, then moved to Jinhua in Zhejiang Province soon afterwards. After that it migrated to Ganzhou and Jian in Jiangxi Province, then He County in Guangxi Province and Kunming in Yunnan Province, ultimately locating in Li Village in Sichuan Province. Tongji Medical College was operated by Chinese and implemented high-level administration and teaching under the difficult conditions during the Anti-Japanese War. As a result, Tongji Medical College made advances in the medical field, such those by Professor Wu Mengchao. It also made advancements in research and treatment, such as identifying pathogenesis of a local epidemic and offering some treatment methods, and popularised medical knowledge for local people by exhibitions and news paper columns. It also established the Number One and the Number Five UMC Trauma Centre, participating in battlefield treatment. The German teachers of Tongji Medical College, who did not move to the west, established a German Medical School in Shanghai. Tongji Medical College returned back to Shanghai, incorporating the German Medical School in Shanghai after the Anti-Japanese War.