Nelson Fu

Nelson Fu or Fu Lianzhang (; 14 September 1894 – 29 March 1968) was a Chinese medical doctor. He was one of the few Western-trained medical doctors to have made the Long March and later, in Beijing, a Vice Minister of Public Health, to be responsible for the health of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elite. According to Mao's personal doctor Li Zhisui, it was Fu who recruited him, then living in Australia, back to work for the government. In 1955, he was awarded the rank of Lieutenant General of the People's Liberation Army.

Education and career

In the 1920s and 1930s, Fu lived and worked in the then-prefectural seat of Changting (now Tingzhou) in Western Fujian. He was a senior medical doctor at its British Christian missionary Ashington Medical Center, where he was educated. It was renamed the Hospital of the Gospel under Fu's management in 1926.

In late 1925, he met Deng Zihui, who gave him several copies of the newspaper "The Sound of Rocks" and the magazine "New Social View", which promoted communist ideology and greatly influenced his thinking.

After the establishment of the People's Republic, he became a member of the All-China Federation of Natural Science Societies' Planning Committee, Director of the Chinese Medical Association and a participant of the second meeting of the National Political Consultative Conference. In 1952, Fu was a member and one of the many directors of the Chinese Red Cross Society. He also served as the Vice Minister of Health for the Central Committee and the first Vice Director of the General Logistics Department of the Central Military Commission. After Lin's death, Mao posthumously rehabilitated him in 1973. Before his passing, Fu had authored works such as "How To Maintain Health" and "The Treatment of Tuberculosis".