Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1963)
o I B SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6. l'Jta .MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD, OREGON Burma Surgeon' Becomes Living Legend for His Work on Asian Frontier By GERALD S. SNYDER United Press International NEW YORK (UPI) -In a Un roofed hospital on a lonely Asian frontier, a stubborn old man bends daily to the task of helping the sick. His chest is sunk and his once-sturdy body is wracked with amoebic dysentery. But Dr. Gordon Stifler Seagrave, now 66, is a living legend. The "Burma Surgeon" goes on with his work. Some 40 years ago, as a young Johns Hopkins graduate, Seagrave fished some used and broken medical instruments out of a wastebasket, tucked a Bible under his arm, and set out for Namkham in the far northeast ern corner of Burma. The hos pital he took over was a decay ing wooden building with 20 wooden beds. Its only patient a man with a leg ulcer. Two Miles From Border Today on a hillside overlook ing that same green valley, two miles from the Red China border, some 15,000 backward hill people walk, ride or are carried on litters each year to the hospital compound "Daddy" Seagrave built for them. An area populated by an estimated 400,000 people depend on it for medical care. Dr. M. Donald Olmarson, .12, a lanky doctor from St. Peter, Minn., who is the first Amer ican physician to work with Seagrave and return to this country, flipped a switch in his New York hotel room. The i bator." problems Seagrave's medical Help has come from Amer staff battles were displayed in ican drug companies about alarming clarity on one of the $250,000 worth each year), the walls. Medical slides of patients rid dled with malaria, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, acute anemia . . . disturbing almost horrifying to a healthy American. "On an average," he said, "Seagrave's patients have two or three major diseases, some times as many as five. Diseases you simply read about in text books here. The life expectancy is 29 years and the infant mor tality rait 50 per cent." "That was a 2-pound infant baby," he pointed. "It lived for five weeks and died. No incu- Burmese government and a U.S. fund-raising group called the American Medical Center for Burma. But the biggest problem by far is finding a suc cessor for the flagging old doc tor, beloved by the Burmese. "I don't want this hospital to die when I die," Dr. Seagraves said. "I want it to continue and the only way I can prove to these Burmese here in Burma that I've meant every word I ever said to them on the subject is for me to die right here in Namkham. My accepting a small salary ($00 a month) proves to them that I'm not a i ' ' CONTINUES WORK Dr. Gordon Stifler Seagrave, the famed "Burma Surgeon" of World War II, now 66, continues with his work and has become a living legend. The picture at left shows Dr. Seagrave at his Hankham hospital in 1960. The picture at right shows Dr. Seagrave being driven in a Jeep by Burmese nurse on a medical errand somewhere in Burma in 1942. (UPI) Changes Noted in Burma Since First Elizabethan Traveler Entered Area By U BA THAN United Press International RANGOON, Burma (UPI) It was 300 years ago that an Eliza bethan traveler and trader set out from faraway England to open the spice and Jewel mar kets of the Orient. i Ralph Fitch journeyed alone through India in 1583 and then onward across the Lushai and China hills into the Irrawaddy Valley and the ancient Burmese capital of Pegu. Here lived the white elephants of the king of Burma. Fitch wrote of how he watched in won der as the stately procession made its way to the river bank. Since Fitch's time, there have been many changes in Burma. There are still plenty of ele phants around, but they don't live quite so comlortably. The elephant is an important beast of burden and does much of the heavy hauling in Burma, par ticularly in the milling opera tions of the teak forests. But cnange, tor belter or worse, has been the kcynole of Burmese life down through the centuries. The present rcvolu- tionary government of the Un ion of Burma uses the catch word "forward" in its program to change the Burmese way of life overnight, to bring it into harmony with the 20th century world. The revolutionary govern ment led by Gen. Ne Win as chairman took over in an almost bloodless couo on March 2. 1 n il from the tottering regime of Premier U Nu of the Pyidaung su, or Union party, an offshoot of the anti-fascist Peoples Free dom League (AFPFL), the par ty that led Burma to indenend-1 ence under Gen. Aung San. The latter, like many of his con temporaries in Southeast Asia, was assassinated July 19, 1047, only a few months before inde pendence was proclaimed on Jan. 4, 1048. To many people in the West ern world, the mention of Bur ma brings to mind only t h e famed Burma Road of World War II, or Rudyard Kipling's well known poem, "On the Road to Mandalay." The Burmese are a bit annoyed by the geographi cal misconceptions in the poem, since there arc few flying fishes around land-locked Mandalay, and the sun doesn't really come up like thunder out of China across the bay. There is no bay and China is 200 miles away across the mountains. Burma is seven times t h e size of England but has only NEW CLASSES FORMING FOR THE DALE CARNEGIE COURSE In Effective Speaking, Human Relations, Leadership Training L.t Ui Shew You Hew Yeu May Develop a more positive attitude Become a better Salesman Become a more effective leader Enjoy life more Attend a FREE PREVIEW SESSION Mon., Oct. 7 7:27 P.M. Medford YMCA 2 11 10 DALE CARNEGIE Ways the Dale Carnegie Course Helps Men & Women Acquire Poise And Confidence Speak Effectively Sell Younelf and Your Ideii 8a Your Bet With Any Group Remember Namei Total Cost to Qrtjgfii Note $10.09 Think and Speak on Your Feel Control fear and Worry Be Better Conversationalist Develop Your Hid den Abilities Win That Better Job, More Income DALE CARNEGIE COURSES ffrmmti by J. R. Taylor-Asiciatt SfxnM for Further Information CAll 773-5125 one-third Britain's poulatinn in an area of 261,7119 square milrs. With independence granted by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1948, the Burmese vot ed to leave the British Common wealth. On Jan. 4, 1048. the 20 million Burmese and other con stituent races the tribes of Kachin, Chin, Shan, and Kayah became independent and their country became the 58th mem ber of the United Nations. Rangoon, the capital, is de signed like an American city with broad parallel avenues crossed at right angles by nar row streets. It is a city bursting at its scams. Designed for a maximum population of 600,000 it now has one million. Three new "satellite" towns have sprung up almost overnight north of the city on sites that were once scrubland. Malnlv Prmliiirs Hire Burma mainly produces rice, lis exportable surplus today, however, is far below the pre World War II record of .1.5 mil lion bushels annually. Also ex ported is the finest teak; min erals like tin, tungsten, and wol fram; beans; precious stones such as rubies and emeralds: jade, and small quantities of lead and silver. The dominant religion in Bur ma is Buddhism, although there are substantial numbers of Christians, Muslims and Hindus. The revolutionary government has mapped out a program in what is called the "Burmese Way to Socialism" for which they delved deep into Buddhist theology, as well as into the writings of Nasser, Tito and the publications of the Fabian soci ety. The "Burmese Way" as it is popularly called is non-Marxist. But its authors cite the spe cial circumstances existing in Burma for the (act that it does not follow the Fabian concept of the "inevitability of gradual ness " Making Drastic Chance The government is bringing about drastic chances in almost every field of activity. It has openly stated its intention In nationalize all means of pro duction and distribution. It has already nationalized banks, bought up the services of all the international news agencies, na tionalized the multi-million dol lar rice export business and soon will take over the equally profitable rice-milling industry. But if the measures taken ap pear to be harsh, the problems which the government faces are serious. According official es timates there are over two mil l lion landless peasants in the i country. The Burmese have one of the lowest per capita incomes ,in the world and the farmer, 'mainstay of the (rtlions econ omy, lives a life that is, to quote Ne Win. "miserable and down i trodden " The culf between rich mi poor is wider than ever. money grubber. But I can't prove to them that my prime interest is in their welfare un less I spend my whole life here. And that means to the very end of my life." In August, the Medical Center sent Dr. Joseph F. Newhall, a surgeon and gynecologist from Bradenton, Fla., to replace Dr. Olmanson and assist in the vital nurses training program Sea grave has set up. Olmanson returned to the United States with his pregnant wife when the difficulty of edu cating his three other children became pressing. "I feel that a man to stay will have to be somebody without children," Dr. Olmanson said. Mission Aid Tradition Mission aid to Burma has been a Seagrave tradition for 128 years. Both of Seagrave's great grandfathers were Bap tist missionaries in Burma, as arrested for alleged treason were his grandparents and his against the government, tried, parents. found guilty and sentenced to Born in Rangoon in 1897, Sea-1 jail, grave is the last of 28 of his He spent six months in prison family to have lived and worked and another year and a half continuously in Burma, a ' un(jer house arrest before the country with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world and with more than 2 million landless peasants in a popula tion of some 20 million Bur mese and constituent races the tribes of Kachin, Chin, Shan and Kayah. Seagrave has never consid ered himself a missionary just a "man with a mission," as he likes to put it. Sentenced to Jail In 1942, he walked out of Burma in the retreat into India under Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stil well during the Japanese in vasion. Two years later he was back again. But in 1950, he was Burma supreme court exoner ated him. Back in Namkham, the peo ple turned out by the thousands to cheer him. "The old man is back!" they shouted. With the help of a faithful Goanese-In-dian doctor, Olwen Silgardo, and a few nurses, Seagrave was bark in business. The revolutionary government of Gen. Ne Win is behind the Burma surgeon and, when he's gone, will have the benefit of some 750 nurses he has trained. But as Dr. Olmanson put it: "I don't think anybody is going to be a true successor to Dr. Seagrave." NEW HOURS 6 A.M. to 12 midnight Daily OPEN 24 HOURS ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY 1025 South Riverside 'A Urge YOU to be a "Good Guy"! The United Crusade here is now underway . . , the goal is $180,040 . . . and generous citizens of the Rogue River Valley will not hesitate to give all they can afford. The slogan this year is "Good Guys Give, Be a GOOD GUY". All of us, here at Jorgensen's, urge YOU to support the 1963 Crusade for a better community, state and nation! ''. r'iif 'faff" IFfMffljfJ f U via nw3s&c"t - r -"'r, ,-lfw lit I'M SjNC- ' f ' 'ft, f, .SIS 1 TOH3pfiJN?7i; i til ji-jMi 3 w te - . ; v ?f - . mm mmm 0 ( o O (-') (a) Ssi'2 (Q; 0 o o (Q) a) (3)
