Norman Bethune

Born in Gravenhurst, Ontario in 1890, Norman Bethune was a respected thoracic surgeon who became a political activist in the 1930s. While practicing medicine in Montréal during the Great Depression, Bethune became sensitized to the economic and social ills of the era. He joined the Communist party in 1935 and, in 1936, Civil War drew him to Spain, where he pioneered the world’s first mobile blood-transfusion unit. Two years later, Bethune was in China, where he joined Mao Zedong’s Eighth Route Army, providing medical care to the wounded, combatant and civilian alike. While in China, Bethune cut himself during an operation and contracted septicaemia, from which he died. Revered by the Chinese as a hero, Bethune had to wait several decades before Canadians began to view him in a similar light.