Background
James William McKean was born on March 10, 1860 at Scotch Grove, Jones County, Iowa. The son of Hugh and Elizabeth McKean.
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James William McKean was born on March 10, 1860 at Scotch Grove, Jones County, Iowa. The son of Hugh and Elizabeth McKean.
McKean was educated at Lenox College in Iowa and took the M. D. degree at Bellevue Hospital Medical School in New York City, graduating in 1882. He was practicing medicine in Omaha, Neb. , when he applied to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. in 1889, and was appointed to the Siam Mission.
The McKeans were assigned to Chiengmai, the capital of the recently suppressed Lao or Northern Thai kingdom. It was at that time so remote and inaccessible that the journey took six weeks from Bangkok. The roads of the north were so bad generally that the doctor had to use five horses to carry his medicines and equipment when traveling on extension service. In Chiengmai he drove a bay trap pony with amazing skill and speed, until he eventually acquired a Model-T Ford. The whole north region of Thailand was afflicted with smallpox and malaria. Vaccination had been introduced into Thailand more than half a century earlier by Dr. Dan Beach Bradley in Bangkok, but it had never reached the remote northland. Vaccine could not be imported, so McKean manufactured it. He trained and supervised more than 200 vaccinators, who were also evangelists, and sent them through the district. Smallpox was almost entirely eliminated throughout the north. When many years later the government established the Pasteur Institute, manufactured vaccine, and made vaccination compulsory, McKean stopped this activity. Badly adulterated quinine sold by profiteering traders through the area was making little impression on the endemic malaria. McKean solved this problem by importing quinine and other drugs, opening a drug manufacturing plant, and standardizing the dosages. He created a drug sales department at the hospital and sold on both the wholesale and retail level, supplying medicines for the populace as far north as China. McKean drastically reduced malaria in the north countryside. Leprosy, however, was a scourge for which no cure was known, and the only preventive was the isolation of lepers in lonely misery and squalor. The lepers were truly the wretched ones of the land. James McKean had great love and compassion for them, and his concern was recognized as being as important as his medical service to them.
He obtained from the local governor in 1908 an island in the Menam River about five miles from Chiengmai, and the king confirmed the gift. The island was cleared and cultivated. A central clinic and, later, a hospital were erected. A model village with cottages for two persons was developed. A chapel was built, also a recreation building and a powerhouse. Eventually there were more than 150 buildings. There was a separate village for uncontaminated children of the lepers. Every successive advance in the treatment of leprosy was introduced as it became known. Chaulmoogra oil treatment was initiated by Edwin C. Cort in the 1915-1918 period, when McKean was in the United States. Plastic surgery eventually became a practice also in the leprosarium. Important also was the extension service through the countryside, which brought patients into residence in the institution and cared for others in their homes. The inmates usually became Christians soon after entering this community. The church was vigorous and active, and its benevolent offerings were applied to causes throughout Thailand and abroad. The first women elders in Presbyterian churches anywhere are said to have been elected and ordained in this church. Dr. McKean persistently sought to interest the Thai government in the welfare of lepers, and through his influence the Siamese Red Cross began the treatment of lepers in the south in 1923 and in Bangkok in 1924. The government gave financial assistance to the Chiengmai leprosarium and its extension service. The king made a present of a paved road from the island to the city. The American Mission to Lepers was a major supporter. An able assistant, Dr. Chanta Indhravudh, was associated with McKean for forty-two years. When the founder retired in March 1931 there were 500 inmates. He died at Long Beach, California, after a lingering illness.
McKean first established a dispensary, and then McCormick Hospital, named for Mrs. Cyrus McCormick of Chicago, from whom he obtained a grant for the central block. He created a leprosarium which was to become one of the most famous in the whole world. The king decorated Dr. McKean with several national orders in recognition of his service. After the missionary died, the institution was renamed the McKean Leprosy Hospital. The physician was always an active church man and was an elder of the Chiengmai church almost from his arrival. Upon his retirement, the Presbyterian Church of Upland, Calif. , made him a life elder. Through his evangelistic work he personally established the churches at Ban Den and Subnatitham.
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His sense of humor was as great as his love, and it carried him through the grueling service he was now to perform for the lepers through the whole remainder of his missionary career.
McKean was first married to Nellie Banton; they had one child, Ethel, born at Anamosa, Iowa, in 1883. Nellie McKean died December 5, 1886. McKean and Laura B. Willson of Clinton County, Iowa, were married on August 29, 1889, and sailed for their new post in September. The couple had two children: Kate P. , born October 30, 1890, and J. Hugh, born November 18, 1893, who was also to serve in the Presbyterian Thailand Mission from 1922 to 1942 as treasurer of McCormick Hospital in Chiengmai and superintendent of the leprosarium founded by his father.
