Chapter 6 05. Ma Haide—Health Pioneer International Warrior

Ma Haide (1910-1988), formerly known as George Haydem, male, was born in the United States, originally from Lebanon, and a member of the Communist Party of China.During his lifetime, he was a senior advisor to the Ministry of Health, and served as the president of the Chinese Leprosy Prevention and Control Association and the director of the China Leprosy Prevention and Control Research Center. Ma Haide graduated from the University of Medicine in Geneva in 1933 with a doctorate in medicine.In the same year, he traveled thousands of miles from the United States to China to participate in the revolution. At first, he worked in medical work in Shanghai, and then joined the Marxist-Leninist group organized by Shanghai International Friends to assist our underground party in its work. Introduced by Soong Ching Ling to northern Shaanxi in 1936, he joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and has been fighting in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.During the War of Liberation, he moved to Xibaipo with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He served the army and the people of the Liberated Area with his lofty spirit of internationalism and superb medical skills, and made outstanding contributions in foreign exchanges. praise. In just three years from 1938 to 1940, he treated more than 40,000 patients for soldiers and civilians in northern Shaanxi.After the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, Ma Haide served as a consultant to the General Health Department of the Eighth Route Army.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Ma Haide stayed in China and continued to support the revolutionary cause of the Chinese people. In 1950, with the approval of Premier Zhou Enlai, Ma Haide became a Chinese citizen.Ma Haide made great contributions to the eradication of venereal diseases and the prevention and treatment of leprosy in my country in the early 1960s.He is a member of the Fifth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Sixth and Seventh National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In 1988, he was awarded the honorary title of "Pioneer of New China's Health Care" by the Ministry of Health.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, sexually transmitted diseases were very harmful to the health of the Chinese people, especially in more than 50 ethnic minority areas in remote areas, many people suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, and the population of many places dropped sharply due to this.Ma Haide pointed out at the beginning: "Venereal disease is not a simple disease, but a social disease. This disease is left over from the old China and is extremely incompatible with the socialist system." For this reason, he made up his mind to fight for the disease in China. Struggle to eradicate STDs from the land.

In 1954, the Institute of Skin and Venereal Diseases was formally established. Ma Haide was in charge of the prevention and research of venereal diseases and leprosy, and concurrently served as the first director of the Leprosy Research Office.Since then, under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, he not only participated in the formulation of the national STD prevention and control plan, but was also responsible for the implementation of the plan.He personally formulated the plan to go to the countryside, determined the route to the countryside, and specific measures such as point selection and grouping. He also participated in many tasks such as compiling lecture materials and drawing maps, laying a good foundation for the eradication of venereal diseases in our country.

In the mid-1950s, in order to completely eradicate syphilis, the Institute of Dermatological and Venereal Diseases needed to formulate a set of measures to eliminate syphilis that were in line with China's national conditions, from patient discovery, diagnosis to treatment methods.In the treatment of syphilis, other foreign experts who were consultants to the Institute of Dermatology and Venereology at that time proposed to use "914" and bismuth in combination for a long-term treatment plan.This method requires a lot of manpower and material resources, which is not in line with China's national conditions.Both Ma Haide and domestic experts advocated the use of penicillin for 10 days.This method has been used abroad, and it has been proved that the method is simple and saves manpower and material resources, but there is no long-term observation data on the curative effect in China.For this reason, starting from 1954, Ma Haide spent more than half of his time every year leading a scientific research team to remote agricultural and pastoral areas to review the long-term efficacy of penicillin treatment of syphilis by the medical team in 1950 and 1951.

In the vast agricultural and pastoral areas, it is very difficult to conduct a complete review of syphilis patients. Often, they have to travel a long distance to find a patient.Sometimes when doing experiments, the water quality is not good, so the reliability of the serum test cannot be guaranteed. In this case, Ma Haide always does it himself, teaching everyone to use local materials to make simple sand filter tanks, so as to ensure the quality of the experimental water.Usually, dark field microscope is needed to check Treponema pallidum from lesions, but there is no electricity in these places, so Ma Haide modified the microscope and used dry batteries as power supply, so that the active spirochetes can be clearly seen, thus ensuring diagnostic accuracy.In this way, they were self-reliant and simple, overcoming one difficulty after another and ensuring the reliability of various laboratory data.After four or five years of hard work, Ma Haide finally confirmed from theoretical and scientific data that the use of penicillin in China to treat syphilis is effective and suitable for China's national conditions.Since then, this method has been promoted nationwide and a large number of syphilis patients have been treated.Under the organization of the people's government, through the joint efforts of the relevant personnel, various effective measures were taken. In 1964, China achieved the shocking achievement of basically eradicating venereal diseases.

In the early 1960s, after venereal diseases were basically eliminated in our country, Ma Haide devoted his energy to the work of eliminating leprosy.Leprosy has been prevalent in my country for thousands of years. People generally fear leprosy and discriminate against patients.At that time, the grassroots prevention and control forces in our country were quite weak, so it would be a very difficult task to control or even eliminate leprosy.In the face of difficulties, Ma Haide bravely shouldered heavy responsibilities with a fearless spirit, and personally led the staff in the research laboratory to draw up comprehensive prevention and control measures aimed at reducing the incidence rate, improving the cure rate and protecting the labor force.Under the chairmanship of Ma Haide, research bases for comprehensive prevention and control of leprosy were established in Hai'an County, Jiangsu Province and Chao'an County, Guangdong Province.Together with the staff of the research office and the local prevention and control personnel, he conducted long-term on-site prevention and control research in these two counties.He gave full play to the role of the grassroots medical and health network, paid attention to social prevention and control, integrated existing effective technical measures, controlled the occurrence of leprosy in counties with high prevalence, and conducted research on this, and soon gained successful experience .After this experience was popularized, the incidence and prevalence of leprosy in the whole country have decreased significantly, and many areas have reached the control or basic control indicators.

In order to draw the whole society's attention to leprosy patients, Ma Haide proposed to make the last Sunday of the first month of each year as China's Leprosy Day according to the regulations of the World Health Organization.This proposal was quickly approved by the People's Government. On the basis of investigation and research and full demonstration, Ma Haide confidently proposed in 1981 the goal of "China will basically eradicate leprosy by the year 2000", which was supported by the Ministry of Health.In order to achieve the above goals, Ma Haide believes that the old methods of establishing leprosy villages and leprosy hospitals in Europe and the United States in the 19th century should no longer be followed, but a new way of preventing and treating leprosy should be boldly explored according to China's national conditions.He respected science and emphasized that the prevention and treatment of leprosy should be transformed from hospital isolation treatment to social prevention; from single drug treatment to a combination of multiple chemical drugs; from simple treatment to both treatment and rehabilitation; The practice of "four transformations" in which all social forces work together.He also actively carried out cooperation and exchanges between Chinese and foreign medical circles, seeking extensive international assistance. In 1985, through his unremitting efforts, the China Leprosy Prevention Association, the China Leprosy Welfare Foundation and the China Leprosy Prevention Research Center were established in Guangzhou, and the first International Leprosy Academic Exchange Conference was held in China.