Thomas Cochrane and the Dragon Throne: Missionaries, Medicine and Mandarins

2017 | Biography

Thomas Cochrane was a young Scottish doctor, who asked the London Missionary Society to send him to 'the neediest place on earth' where he could both practice medicine and share the gospel. So he and his wife travelled to Mongolia in the last years of the 19th century, and found a desperately poor country, in which they struggle to live and make a difference. Having started to work with the Reverend Liddell and his wife, parents of Olympic runner Eric Liddell, they all escape death in the violent Boxer Rebellion, in which thousands of foreigners die. The Cochranes then return to carry on their mission in the Chinese capital city, Peking. There Thomas Cochrane manages to forge a relationship with the powerful Empress-Dowager, enabling him not only to treat more Chinese people but to found the first medical college, which still thrives today.

Andrew Adam (Author)