From his earliest years, Norman was a headstrong, inquisitive, and opinionated child, and the constraints imposed by his parents were often difficult to keep him in line. At the age of six, he once roamed from his home to Toronto to explore the city, returning home on his own hours later. His father's frequent job transfers may also have reinforced his willingness to roam. The Whitechapel family left Gravenhurst when he was three years old, and by the time he was fourteen had moved six more times.
In 1911, Norman interrupted his biology studies at the University of Toronto to work at the Frontier College, where he taught classes to immigrant workers in the logging camps of northern Ontario, and in 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. After being wounded as a stretcher-bearer in Jebeles, France, he returned home to complete his medical degree, and in 1917 he enlisted again, this time in the Royal Canadian Navy.
After demobilization, he stayed in England to pursue his post-university medical studies, and in 1923 he married Frances Campbell Penny, the daughter of a well-known court accountant in Edinburgh. The couple's relationship was often stormy because of personality differences. They moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he began his first and only private medical practice. He was 34 years old at the time. Two years later he developed tuberculosis.
After treatment at the Creedo Sanatorium in Gravenhurst, White entered the Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranah Lake, N.Y., to continue his treatment. His isolation from the outside world through strict regulations and enforced recuperation, coupled with the excitement of Francis' divorce from him, made everything seem like a mere "dance of death" to him. When he read about the artificial pneumothorax treatment, he demanded that he be subjected to the dangerous operation of pumping air into the cavity of a diseased lung. A month later, Paik recovered and left the sanatorium where he had spent a year. Thereafter, he resolved to devote himself to the eradication of lung disease.
In early 1928, Paik moved to Montreal. For five years he served as first assistant to Dr. Edward Archibald, the pioneering Canadian thoracic surgeon, at the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1933, due to personal and professional friction with several other doctors, Baek left that hospital to become Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the Sacre Coeur Hospital in Cartierville, ten miles north of Montreal. Although Sacre Coeur was a smaller and slightly less prestigious hospital, during his time there he was twice elected to the executive of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons.
In addition to performing surgery, Paik wrote many articles for medical journals, describing new surgical procedures and outlining improvements he had learned. He devised several new instruments, which he continued to test and refine. One of these instruments, called the "Baeksuen Rib Cutter," is still in production.
Professionally, Bakun is internationally recognized as a highly skilled and dedicated surgeon. But in his treatment of people, he was unconventional. He was a complex man who could turn people against him and inspire them at the same time. He married Francis again in 1929, but their friction led to a divorce in 1933. During this period he made friends who were mostly creative. Whitechapel himself was a very talented amateur artist. His profound talent was enough to make a difference in the world. However, he often "liked to surprise the timid in an irritating way". In public places he could be seen in a different kind of secular dress, driving off in a beautiful yellow sports car. One of his friends recalled that Paik was like a "swiftly passing meteor".
But Paik could not be immune to economic conditions. One-third of Montreal's population lived on direct relief. As he recognized the impact of economic conditions on the health of the poor, he felt that medicine must focus not only on the medical symptoms but also on the social causes of disease. In 1935 he established a free clinic for the unemployed. Late in the summer of that year he went to the Soviet Union to attend the International Physiological Conference, than took the opportunity to examine the socialized medical system. Although he saw many things it could not agree with, he believed that the only way to guarantee access to treatment for all people, regardless of their financial situation, was for the government to regulate the private practice of medicine. In nineteen thirty-six Baines organized the Montreal Group for the Protection of the People's Health. That same year he joined the ****anization party.
In the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Franco, backed by the military might of the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis, revolted and went to war against the then democratically elected government of Spain. Paik, like many others, believed that democracy would be threatened if the military dictatorship in Spain was not stopped. In September 1936, he volunteered to serve in Spain under the auspices of the Canadian Committee for the Support of Spanish Democracy.
Soon after arriving in Madrid, Paik envisioned a program of mobile blood transfusion teams, which would collect donated blood from the city and deliver it to where it was most needed. Within a month the team was in action. Although Paik later called it the "Glorious Milk Brigade," his mobile blood bank was hailed as one of the greatest innovations in military medicine during the Spanish Civil War.
In February 1937, Paik and his blood transfusion team traveled to the besieged city of Maraga on the southern coast of Spain. Before he could reach Maraga, the city fell. On the way he met more than 40,000 refugees, carrying children and belongings, fleeing to Almeria, a hundred miles away. Those who could not proceed further lay by the roadside awaiting death. For three days, Paik and his blood transfusion team managed to get the most critical to safety in Almeria. But then Almeria was bombed. This deliberate bombing of the refugees was something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. "Spain is a scar on my heart," he later wrote to Francis.
In May 1937, the Spanish **** and the National Army Medical Corps were organized into a bureaucracy, and Paik felt unable to continue to work in it. In a state of anger and exhaustion, Paik returned to Canada, but he immediately began a cross-country speaking tour to raise money for his work in Spain.
However, in the summer of that year, Japanese troops invaded China and the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. Paik believed another military dictatorship was forming in China. He wrote, "Spain and China are both a part of the same battle. I am going to China, where the need is most urgent."
Baikouen on Jan. 8, 1936, took $5,000 worth of medical equipment and said goodbye to Canada for the last time, accompanied by a Canadian nurse, Joan Unwin. When he arrived in Hankow, China's temporary capital, ****production party delegate Zhou Enlai tapped a guard to escort him to Yan'an, the seat of the ****production party's central committee, about 500 miles northwest of Hankow.
The night he arrived in Yan'an, he was received by Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese ****production party, who invited him to stay and supervise the Eighth Route Army Border Hospital. Within a month Paik decided he wanted to go to the front, where the wounded could be treated more effectively and in a timely manner.
On May 1, he left Yan'an for the mountains of the Jinchahi Border Region, 200 miles north of Yan'an, where the fighting was most intense and isolated from the outside world. The wounded, sent back from the front days or even weeks earlier, huddled under thin blankets, their bandages unchanged for days, their wounds gangrenous. Many of the wounded could only be treated by amputation. After a five-day trek, Bai refused to rest and began work immediately.
In a region of 13 million people, Bai was one of only a handful of qualified doctors. When he realized that those he had trained could train others, he concentrated on teaching. He conducted training courses in first aid, hygiene and basic surgery. He wrote illustrated textbooks, translated them and reproduced them for distribution. His goal was one year of training for doctors and six months for nurses.
Paik and his military chiefs discussed setting up a hospital at the front for teaching and treatment. Although they did not agree to this from a tactical point of view, out of respect for Baek, they let him go ahead with his plan. Bai Koun spent two months planning and supervising the construction of his beloved "model hospital. The hospital held its grand opening on September 15, 1938, but was destroyed by enemy forces within three weeks.
This was when Paik realized that in the Chinese guerrilla theatre all medical equipment had to be mobile. In a subsequent issue of his monthly bulletin, he emphasized, "The time for doctors to wait for their patients to come to them is over. Doctors should go to the wounded." The following year, he trekked 3,000 miles in one ****, including 400 miles on foot over treacherous roads impassable to mules. He took local materials and designed a portable operating room that could be carried by two mules. The speed with which he operated was phenomenal. On one occasion he performed one hundred and fifteen surgeries in sixty-nine hours **** without interruption, even under artillery fire.
In a very short period of time, the name of Bai Kouan became legendary. "Attack! Bai Chun is with us!" became the battle cry of the fighters. The story of this extraordinary foreigner, who was not afraid of suffering, who gave his clothes, food and even his own blood to the wounded, was being celebrated everywhere.
In turn, the dedication of the Chinese people infected Bakun. Working with the Chinese took away his impatience. In a letter to a friend in Canada, he said, "I am indeed very tired, but for a long time I have never been more cheerful ... because the people need me."
Near the end of October, he accidentally cut his finger when he operated on a wounded man without rubber gloves. At the time, his wound didn't seem to matter because it had happened before, and it was fine. But this time it became infected with a viral blood poisoning. Even on his deathbed, he refused to stop working. Norman Bethune died in the early hours of November 12, 1939, in the morning.
When Chairman Mao heard the news of Bakun's death, he wrote the article "In Memory of Norman Bakun". The essay has become one of Chairman Mao's most important works and a must-read for the Chinese people. Bai Koun was honored as a model of selflessness and extreme responsibility for his work. His picture appeared in propaganda books, books and stamps. Sometimes it is enough to mention "selflessness" in Chairman Mao's article to know that it refers to Bai Qun.
Memorials celebrating Bai Kouen's virtues are found throughout China. Model hospitals have been rebuilt. The mountainside shelter he used, the old temple in which he operated and his house have all been renovated into museums. In 1950, his body was buried in the Shijiazhuang Martyrs' Cemetery. This Martyrs' Mausoleum was built to honor the more than 25,000 martyrs who died in the War of Resistance against Japan. There is only one giant statue erected in this large park, and that is the statue of Bai Kouen. Across the road, next to the Bai Koun Memorial Hall, is the 800-bed Bai Koun International Peace Hospital.
In Canada, Dr. Norman Bethune was honored in 1972 as one of Canada's historic figures. In 1973, the federal government of Canada purchased the former Presbyterian Church parsonage in Gravenhurst, the birthplace and birthplace of Dr. Norman Bethune, and officially opened it to the public in 1976 as a Canadian memorial. In 1996, the birthplace was listed as a National Historic Landmark. In 1998, the name of Dr. Bakun was included in the Who's Who of Canadian Medicine.