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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
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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."
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