Edward Bliss

Edward Lydston Bliss (, December 10, 1865 – January 22, 1960) was a medical missionary who worked in China from 1892 to 1932. Coming from a religious family, Bliss originally sought to become a minister. After giving up these aspirations, he attended Yale University and became a teacher. He then went to medical school and began his career as a physician in China. During his time in Shaowu, located in the Fujian province of China, Bliss provided general care and also performed research on the rinderpest virus. He remained in China throughout many significant political conflicts throughout the early 1900s before returning to the United States in 1932. A biography of Bliss — Beyond the Stone Arches: An American Missionary Doctor in China, 1892–1932 — was written by his son, journalist Ed Bliss.

Early life

Family Edward Lydston Bliss was born December 10, 1865, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was the second child of Charles Henry Bliss, a wholesale dealer for Schleicher and Sohne needles, and Emily Lydston Bliss. One of seven children, Edward Bliss had three sisters — Clara, Marian and Mary — and three brothers — George, Charles and Will. The Blisses were a religious family that attended a Congregational church twice every Sunday. Bliss's battle against rinderpest began with his desire for milk, which he considered essential for good health. However, the Chinese did not raise cattle for dairy, but rather for plowing. Therefore, far less milk than was needed was available. When there was a rinderpest outbreak, this milk supply was depleted. Rather than coming to the hospital at Shaowu for Western medical care, many Chinese still sought medical attention from such practitioners. Bliss witnessed practitioners who treated cancer by puncturing the skin with gold and silver needles, eyesores with bile from bear gallbladders, malarial fever with uncooked pears, rheumatism with snake meat, and many ailments with ginseng root. Anti-foreign sentiments increased and led to killing of foreigners and Chinese Christians. Two women working near Shaowu at an Anglican mission were kidnapped for ransom and then executed.