Zending — the Protestant mission — appears in Een strijd in Atjeh (1934) chiefly in its medical capacity, as the agency whose village hospitals and dispensaries constituted, in Dr. J. Tijssen’s account, the only substantial provision for the indigenous population outside the government hospitals.
Tijssen’s assessment
Tijssen was careful not to be understood as disparaging it: “Ik heb het werk van de zending gezien. Geloof niet, dat ik dien arbeid gering schat. Wanneer u schrijft, zeg dan vooral dit. De menschen van de zending weten zelf nauwelijks, hoe goed bijv. het werk is, dat zij deden door de behandeling der avitaminose met levertraan, waardoor bij honderden kinderen vroege blindheid is voorkomen.” — I have seen the work of the mission. Do not believe that I undervalue that labour. When you write, say this above all. The people of the mission themselves hardly know how good is the work they did, for instance, by the treatment of avitaminosis with cod-liver oil.
But he held that more remained to be done: “Maar er is meer te doen. Er zijn tal van vrouwen waarbij we door operatief ingrijpen zouden kunnen helpen, wanneer wij den aanval begonnen in de kampongs.” — But there is more to do. There are numbers of women whom we could help by operative intervention, if we began the attack in the kampongs.
The figures of 1934
In Medische Nood, 1934, no. 1, Tijssen gave the numbers: “Ik ken de zendingsziekenhuizen. Ik wenschte, dat er in Ned. Indië in plaats van 33 zendingsartsen 330 waren! Zijn er 20 zendingshospitalen, ik wenschte, dat „Simavi” het geld bij elkaar kreeg om het tot 200 te brengen! Maar ook dan zouden er menschen noodig zijn, die naast het mooie werk in de hospitalen het vuile werk in de kampong willen doen.” — I know the mission hospitals. I could wish that in the Netherlands Indies, instead of 33 mission physicians, there were 330! Are there 20 mission hospitals — I could wish that „Simavi” got the money together to bring it to 200!
The object of the Vereeniging SIMAVI itself was defined by reference to the mission: the provision of medical help to and the spiritual elevation of the indigenous population “in den zin, waarin deze tot nu toe door de Prot. Medische Zending in practijk zijn gebracht.” — in the sense in which these have hitherto been put into practice by the Protestant Medical Mission.
On Samosir
On Samosir Tijssen found three Dutch missionaries and three small mission auxiliary hospitals, but recorded that real medical care had not existed there until a year before his visit, when a young Batak physician — Gido Siregar — was posted for the combating of leprosy, and that in ophthalmology “was het terrein even onbewerkt als heel Indië is.”
Zending and Islam in Atjeh
For Atjeh itself the pamphlet records the obstacle rather than the work. Of the West Coast Tijssen wrote that its people were “vrome fanatieke Mohammedanen,” that at the hour of prayer every boy spread out his head-cloth on the road wherever he was, and that “het woord van Paulus „Ik schaam mij het evangelie van Jezus Christus niet” is voor den Mohammedaan absoluut onbegrijpelijk. Zijn geloof is zijn eer.” — the word of Paul, „I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ”, is to the Muhammadan absolutely incomprehensible. His faith is his honour. Among such a population, he said, one could not work in the fasting month, and the administration would not gladly have seen it. He also observed that on the West Coast the Dutch faced a population among whom no officer went into a kampong without an armed soldier behind him, while he himself lived unarmed among them for weeks unharmed.
The mission’s cod-liver oil work in the later literature
The treatment of avitaminose with levertraan for which J. Tijssen praised the zending — crediting it with having prevented early blindness in hundreds of children — was confirmed as sound practice by the systematic eye survey of Dr. C. E. Gomperts in 1937.
Gomperts distributed 404.1 kilogrammes of cod-liver oil during the ten months of his own survey, recorded that corneal changes in xerophthalmie often disappeared under cod-liver oil and a vitamin-A-rich diet, and made the liberal distribution of cod-liver oil the second of his five recommended measures for combating the disease and preventing blindness through keratomalacie. On the therapy of xerophthalmia he and Tijssen were in complete agreement.
See Also
- J. Tijssen
- Vereeniging SIMAVI
- Medische Nood
- Avitaminose in Atjeh
- Kampong medicine in Atjeh
- Gido Siregar
- Samosir
- Een strijd in Atjeh (1934)
- 1934
- Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937
- C. E. Gomperts
- Oogheelkundig kampongonderzoek in Groot-Atjeh (Maart-December 1937)
- Levertraan
- Xerophthalmie
Source
Een strijd in Atjeh (Een oogarts op het oorlogspad), door Mr. C. Graadt van Roggen, met een voorrede van den heer H. Wanting, redacteur Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg, uitgave van de Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934), pp. 2, 5, 12–14, 16.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Een strijd in Atjeh (Een oogarts op het oorlogspad) by Mr. C. Graadt van Roggen (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.
Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.