John Glasgow Kerr

John Glasgow Kerr (1824–1901) was an American, a member of the American Presbyterian Church (North), and one of the earliest well-known missionary physicians to come to China. Born in Duncansville, Ohio, he graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1847. He first arrived in China in 1853, and in 1854 began medical missionary work in Guangzhou. In 1856, because of the Second Opium War, his clinic was destroyed and he was forced to return to the United States. In 1859 he returned to Guangzhou and took over the Canton Hospital (博济医院), founded in 1835 by Dr. Peter Parker of the American Board (美国公理会), and became its superintendent. In 1866 the hospital opened the Boji Medical School (博济医学堂), enrolling students to train medical workers; he served as its principal and himself compiled and translated textbooks.

In 1886 he helped found the first medical society in Greater China, the China Medical Missionary Association (博医会 in Chinese), serving as its first president and as editor of its journal, the China Medical Missionary Journal (博医传报). In 1898 he established in Guangzhou the first psychiatric hospital in Asia, the Refuge for the Insane (惠爱医癫院), and served as its superintendent. In the second half of 1901 Kerr contracted dysentery with other serious complications and died. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery on the south side of Erwanggang (二望岗) outside the city of Guangzhou, between Baiyun Mountain, Huanghuagang and Shougouling. After the founding of the People's Republic, the cemetery was requisitioned by the authorities at the end of the 1950s; Kerr's grave was destroyed on the spot, and its good-quality stone was taken away and reused. In 2013, after a joint proposal by 4 members of the Guangzhou municipal Political Consultative Conference, including Liu Mingyuan (刘明远), Kerr's grave was rebuilt at the Guangzhou Christian Cemetery in Huangzhuang. At the end of 2014 the remains of Kerr and of members of his family were formally reinterred, and the restored grave site was named Jia Yuan (嘉园, “Kerr Garden”).

Sun Yat-sen studied at the Boji Medical School in 1886.