Collection consists of material originally held by Library and Archives Canada, relating to Bethune's personal, medical and political activities in North America and Spain. Correspondents include Dr. Edward Kupka, Grant Fleming, J.S. Woodsworth, and the Jefe de Sanidad Militar, Madrid. Much of the material documents Bethune's participation in the Montreal Group for the Security of the People's Health and other aspects of the movement for socialized medical care. Also included are press clippings on his death, a letter from Dr. Robert McLure to Dominion Archivist Dr. W.I. Smith regarding Bethune, notes on a televised interview about Bethune, and a photograph of Bethune.
Collection also consists of material exchanged between Library and Archives Canada and the People's Republic of China in 1982. The seventeen items from the Archives (also available on microfilm, reel H-1309) amassed from various North American sources, document Bethune's personal, political and medical activites in Spain and North America. Included are correspondence, articles by Bethune on medical subjects, and press clippings. There is slight duplication between this material and that originally held by the National Archives. The eighteen documents donated by the People's Republic of China (also available on microfilm, K-169) pertain largely to Bethune's activities in China and consist of correspondence, Bethune's writings on the organization of military hospitals, and telegrammes and press articles mourning his death. There is also some personal correspondence predating his arrival in China. Originals, 1971-1982, 4 pages. Photocopies, 1926-1975, 11 cm.
Also included in collection are sound recording documenting proceedings of a conference of The Bethune Foundation at McGill University, including sessions on Norman Bethune, his life, his career, and their implications, 1979. Conference entitled Bethune: his times and his legacy.
Bethune, Norman, 1890-1939 : Norman Bethune, the son of a clergyman, was born in Gravenhurst and educated at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine. During World War I he enlisted with the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and, after being wounded, served as a lieutenant-surgeon in the Navy.
After the Armistice, Bethune practised medicine in England and Canada, and in Detroit where he learned that he had tuberculosis, spending the next year in sanitoriums and recovering in 1927. He later joined Dr. Edward Archibald, the tuberculosis specialist, at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, where he helped organize the Montreal Group for the Security of the People's Health, an organization devoted to establishing socialized medicine. During the Civil War Bethune set up a blood transfusion service in Spain and in 1938 he went to China to attend to the wounded during the Sino-Japanese War. He died there the following year.
Bethune's fame resulted from his status as a hero in the People's Republic of China and the impact of this on Sino-Canadian relations.
