Physician and Communist.

Born at Gravenhurst ON, died at Huang Shiko, China, Norman Bethune was a surgeon, inventor, and communist, who served in the First World War. When Bethune discovered in 1926 that he was suffering from tuberculosis, he decided to specialize in treating this disease, and moved to Montréal to train at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

His invention of medical and surgical instruments during the next decade won him some fame, but he had turned his attention to the social and economic conditions which seemed to be the source of a much higher rate of tuberculosis in poor people.

After visiting the Soviet Union in 1935, Bethune joined the Communist Party of Canada. This new development prompted him to fight against the Fascists in Spain, where he invented a mobile blood transfusion service. He felt a similar political call to China to help with the struggle against Japanese attacks. In 1938, he joined the 8th Route Army in the Shanxi-Hobei border region of China, adopting the cause of those whom he taught and treated. Also while in China, he proposed a universal health care system for Canada.

Bethune died accidentally from septicemia (blood poisoning) in 1939. His fame issued from the awareness raised by Mao Zedong's essay "In Memory of Norman Bethune." This essay, which became one of three prescribed readings during China's Cultural Revolution, and remains required reading for students today, urged all communists to take Bethune as an example of internationalism and devotion to others.

It is accurate to state that Bethune's fame in Canada only resulted from Chinese veneration of him. Bethune is a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.