| Biography | Harold Balme was a British medical missionary to China. He served as president of Cheeloo University from 1921 to 1927.
Balme took his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but interrupted it to serve with the Imperial Yeomanry field hospital in the South African war (1900-01), and won the medal and clasps. After qualifying in 1903 he served as house surgeon to Alfred Carless at King's College Hospital, and as clinical assistant at the Royal Eye Hospital.
He entered the medical missionary field in China and worked at the Memorial Mission Hospital at Tai Yuan Fu in Shansi. He was appointed professor of surgery at Cheeloo Shantung Christian University and superintendent of the University Hospital at Tsi Nan Fu, the capital of Shantung province, in 1913. He was subsequently Dean of the Medical Faculty, and became President of the University in 1921. He organised the first Council on Medical Education in China and acted for a time as its chairman, and was elected President of the Council on Higher Education.
He retired in 1927 and went into general practice at Dormansland, Surrey. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he was appointed medical superintendent of Haymeads Hospital, and out of an old and ill-equipped infirmary created an efficient hospital of 800 beds. Before the war he had published a book criticising nursing education and proposing reform. He was appointed medical officer in charge of rehabilitation under the Ministry of Health. He also served as director of welfare services to the British Red Cross Society, which elected him an honorary life member. |