Ted Allan - The Scalpel, the Sword: The Story of Doctor Norman Bethune

VOYAGEUR CLASSICS

BOOKS THAT EXPLORE CANADA

Michael Gnarowski - Series Editor

The Dundurn Group presents the Voyageur Classics series, building on the tradition of exploration and rediscovery and bringing forward time-tested writing about the Canadian experience in all its varieties.

This series of original or translated works in the fields of literature, history, politics, and biography has been gathered to enrich and illuminate our understanding of a multi-faceted Canada. Through straightforward, knowledgeable, and reader-friendly introductions the Voyageur Classics series provides context and accessibility while breathing new life into these timeless Canadian masterpieces.

The Voyageur Classics series was designed with the widest possible readership in mind and sees a place for itself with the interested reader as well as in the classroom. Physically attractive and reset in a contemporary format, these books aim at an enlivened and updated sense of Canada's written heritage.

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The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery,
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Canadian Exploration Literature: An Anthology ,
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introduced by Alan Filewod 978-1-55002-832-4

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VOYAGEUR CLASSICS

BOOKS THAT EXPLORE CANADA

THE SCALPEL,
THE SWORD

THE STORY OF
DOCTOR NORMAN BETHUNE

TED ALLAN & SYDNEY GORDON

INTRODUCTION BY
JULIE ALLAN, DR. NORMAN ALLAN & SUSAN OSTROVSKY

Copyright Julie Allan, Dr. Norman Allan, and Susan Ostrovsky, 2009
Originally published by McClelland & Stewart in 1952

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press.Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Michael Carroll
Copy Editors: Jason Karp and Kelvin Kong
Design: Erin Mallory
Printer: Marquis

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Allan, Ted
The scalpel, the sword : the story of Doctor Norman Bethune / by Ted
Allan and Sydney Gordon ; introduction by Julie Allan, Dr. Norman Allan, and
Susan Ostrovsky.

First ed. published 1952.
ISBN 978-1-55488-402-5

1. Bethune, Norman, 1890-1939. 2. Surgeons-Canada--Biography.
I. Gordon, Sydney II.Title.

R464.B4 A6 2009 617.092 C2009-900103-9

1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books , and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program , and the Ontario Media Development Corporation .

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and
the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper

www.dundurn.com

To those for whom he worked and died;
and more personally, to Julie, Norman and Susan

1. Introduction by Julie Allan, Dr. Norman Allan,
   and Susan Ostrovsky

BY MADAME SUN YAT-SEN

I n comparison with the human world of past times, our world is highly complex. Because of its highly developed communications, events in every part of the globe and of human society are closely interconnected. There are no isolated disasters and there is no progress that does not help the progress of all.

This situation is reflected in the minds of men. The contents of men's minds have also become worldwide in scope and complexity. It is not enough for a man, seeking the welfare of his own people and country, to consider his domestic situation in relation to his immediate neighbours. World trends encompass every one of us, and it is by participating in them and contributing to them that we influence our own future. The highest task before men's minds today is to understand, to fight against the forces of regression and death, to strengthen and convert into reality the possibilities which our world offers, as no previous world has offered, for a fuller life for all men.

The hero in any age is one who carries out with a surpassing degree of devotion, determination, courage and skill the main tasks with which his times challenge every man. Today these tasks are world-wide, and the contemporary hero - whether he works at home or in a foreign land - is a world hero, not only in historical retrospect but now.

Norman Bethune was such a hero. He lived, worked and fought in three countries - in Canada, which was his native land; in Spain, where forward-looking men of all nations flocked to fight in the first great people's resistance to the darkness of Nazism and fascism; and in China, where he helped our guerilla armies to capture and build new bases of national freedom and democracy in territory which the military fascists of Japan fondly hoped they had conquered, and where he helped us forge the mighty peoples' army which finally liberated all China. In a special sense he belongs to the peoples of these three countries. In a larger sense he belongs to all who fight against oppression of nations and of peoples.