Peter Parker

Peter Parker (June 18, 1804 – January 10, 1888) was an American physician and a missionary who introduced Western medical techniques into Qing dynasty China, at the city of Canton. It was said that Parker "opened China to the gospel at the point of a lancet." Early life Parker was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1804 to an orthodox Congregational family. His parents were farmers. Parker received a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1831, and his M.D. degree from the Yale Medical School, then called Medical Institution of Yale College, in 1834. In January 1834, he completed his theological studies at Yale and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. China In February 1834, Parker (phoneticized in Cantonese: 伯駕) traveled to Canton, where he had the distinction of being the first full-time Protestant medical missionary to China. In 1835, he opened in that city the Ophthalmic Hospital, which later became the Guangzhou Boji Hospital (the Canton Hospital). Parker specialized in diseases of the eye, including cataracts, and also resected tumors. Parker also introduced Western anesthesia in the form of sulphuric ether.