Written by Yuan Guoxiang
On August 10, 1983, Zhang Yuhua, the attending military doctor of the 12th Army Hospital, died in a car accident on his way to work. I was a political commissar in the Ali Army Sub-district in Tibet at the time, and hearing the news made me sad for several days. Because I have known this old doctor for a long time, he treated me in the fifties, I was suffering from tuberculosis at that time, and he was the doctor in charge of my ward in the third department. At the beginning of 1960, I wrote about his exemplary deeds -- "Treat the Sick as Relatives, Treat the Sick Children as Children", which was not only publicized at the congress of activists of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, but also appeared in the journal "Pioneers in the Great Leap Forward." Because at that time he was already a well-known model doctor in the 12th Hospital, and I was an officer of the Organization Section of the Political Department, the task of sorting out the materials of his advanced deeds naturally fell on me.
Zhang Yuhua is a native of Yulin, northern Shaanxi, the same age as me, and enlisted in the army in the same year, but he used to work as a nurse and nurse, and I worked as a photographer. In 1956, he graduated from the military medical school and came to the 12th Army Hospital in Kashgar, the western border of the motherland, as a doctor, but was soon sent to the Ali military station to follow the camel transport team to the Kunlun Mountains to carry out tasks. He was young and strong at that time, not afraid of any difficulties, and the Uygur fighters climbed the snowy mountains, waded through glaciers, lived in tents, drank milk tea, not only cured many transporters of the alpine disease, to ensure the completion of the transport task, but also treated the Kirghiz herdsmen along the way, one of the women's pneumonia was cured by him, she carefully embroidered a flashlight cover with colorful thread, and waited on the side of the road for more than a month before giving it to Dr. Zhang on the way back.
On October 1, 1957, the Xin-Tibet Highway was opened to traffic, and camel transportation came to an end. In the summer of 1958, Zhang Yuhua was assigned to the only automobile company under the jurisdiction of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region and began to transport materials to the Sino-Indian border defense and the Ali Plateau. On 9 September, when he returned with the convoy, he spotted foreigners in the valley near Ahelangan. So, Zhang Yuhua picked up his gun and followed the company commander Xing Shuxiang to take a dozen drivers to capture the seven Indian soldiers and their ten horses who had invaded the mainland territory to reconnoitre. When they sent the group to the border guards for interrogation, they took the border guards and went to Palangkapo to capture another group of Indians and their horses, thus making a meritorious contribution to the defense of the sacred border of the mainland. The Indians were diplomatically deported from the Karakoram Pass on 22 October after admitting to the illegal border crossing and repenting.
In 1961, when the 12th Hospital received a notice from his superiors to send a competent doctor to the Shenxian Bay outpost to rescue a critically ill soldier, Zhang Yuhua volunteered to go, he thought that he had been on the mountain many times, his body had been tested, and he had also cured some mountain patients and had some experience. The leadership thought that the reason was sufficient, so he sent him up to the Karakoram Mountains together with the comrades of the border regiment. At that time, there was no road in Shenxian Bay, so they rode to Shenxian Bay, the country's first outpost at a height of 5,380 meters, and treated oxygen overnight, saving the lives of the soldiers. Then, after four days of trekking on the back of a camel with the sick number, the soldier was finally safely transported to the then command post of Consiva. He also carried out such a mission to rescue the wounded in the mountains several times in the future, and the soldiers who were treated by him regarded him as a relative, and often reluctantly sent him away from the border post.
In 1957, I had tuberculosis and a cavity in the upper lobe of my left lung, and after I was admitted to the third department of the 12th Hospital (i.e., the infectious disease department), I was a little pessimistic, but the head of the department, Sun Qi, was highly skilled, and the doctor in charge, Zhang Yuhua, had an excellent attitude. They told me that there are now special drugs such as streptomycin and nicotine hydrazide, and it is entirely possible to cure your disease. Therefore, in addition to giving me injections and medicines, they also inserted tubes from my nostrils and throats to my lungs, and after filling me with the medicine, I turned my head and chest down to the left and poured the medicine into the cavity to kill the tuberculosis dried bacteria. To be honest, this treatment is very cruel, and the general nurses, even Dr. Zhang, can't insert the skin tube into me, because foreign bodies are not allowed to enter the human trachea, especially when it passes through the throat, and the strong cough makes people uncontrollable. Therefore, after two experiences, I was able to operate the intubation myself, and although it was painful, I still put it in ruthlessly. In this way, I poured the medicine once a week for about half a year. Moreover, after the infusion, it is necessary to inject air in the abdominal cavity, so that the diaphragm is bulging, and the cavity of the lungs is compressed to calcify. Later, I was transferred to Urumqi General Hospital for treatment, and after examination and laboratory tests, the doctor of the pulmonary department of the General Hospital said in surprise: "I didn't expect your lung disease to be treated so well!"
The cavity is closed, the phlegm is no longer bacteria-free, and you can be discharged from the hospital with peace of mind. "But in order to consolidate the effect of the treatment, I insisted on supplementing the abdomen with qi for more than a year, and it was completely better. Therefore, I would like to thank the doctors and nurses who cured my illness, and even more so Director Sun Qi and Dr. Zhang Yuhua, who are also advanced workers. If it weren't for them, how could I be able to go up to the Karakoram Mountains to participate in the Sino-Indian border self-defense counterattack operations like a healthy person? I could go to the Ali Plateau to guard the border for 10 years!
It was precisely because I had been hospitalized in the Third Department of Internal Medicine for a long time and had personally experienced the cordial and good medical style and service attitude of the doctors and nurses, especially Zhang Yuhua, that at the end of 1959, when the 12th Hospital selected the Third Department of Internal Medicine as an advanced unit, and Zhang Yuhua, who had made a third-class meritorious service, as an advanced individual, and attended the congress of activists of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, I was very happy to accept the task of interviewing and writing materials on their advanced deeds. Zhang Yuhua is an honest person, and he won't say anything, only that it's what I should do. But I was very familiar with the other doctors and nurses, and I quickly grasped the situation and came up with two manuscripts. The title of the three sections of the book is: "Wonderful Hands and Red Hearts, Resurrection from the Dead", which illustrates the situation of advanced units on this medical front with a large number of facts, so it is listed in the upper part of "The Pioneers of the Great Leap Forward". The article on Zhang Yuhua's exemplary deeds, "Treating patients as relatives, and treating sick children as children," is published in the back of the book. Looking at that booklet now, Zhang Yuhua studied hard, worked actively, and devoted himself to the specific episodes of the patient, such as using his fingers to pick up the patient who could not relieve the stool, and breathing breathing to the mouth of the child who could not breathe, etc., which are still touching to this day.
Of course, more of Zhang Yuhua's exemplary deeds were created in the next 20 years, especially his study of traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine to treat common diseases, endemic diseases, and the remarkable achievements he made in the treatment of local people's diseases, I have often heard of it. Because, I have seen a lot of articles praising him in the "Kashgar Daily". For example, he once eliminated the sequelae of the cerebrovascular patient Rexiti, cured the stomach ache of the severe stomach disease patient Tursun, made the ear disease patient Zao Guxili hear the voice, and restored the language function of the aphasia patient Escal. In particular, he cured mumps of many people with earthworms and sugar, and cured many peasants' skin diseases with the medicine of bitter bean grass. In June 1971, he went to the rural areas of Shule County to make a medical tour and used the "eight needles and one can" therapy to cure more than 700 Uygur farmers of intestinal infectious diseases. There are many cases of him paying for the patient's medicine, delivering food to the patient, helping the woman who fainted at the door to enter the hospital, and carrying the injured child he met on the way to bandage the wound. In short, he has done a lot of good deeds, and he is often praised by the masses and praised by the troops. In 1982, Zhang Yuhua was selected by the 12th Hospital to attend the National Unity Commendation Conference held in Shule County, Kashgar Prefecture and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Zhang Yuhua is hard and simple, honest and upright, does not smoke, does not drink, and is reluctant to throw away a shirt after wearing it for 13 years. He did good deeds for the people of all ethnic groups for free medical treatment, and he resolutely refused to accept some melons, fruits, and vegetables sent to him by the masses. He often said, "It is a despicable act to accept gifts from patients for medical convenience." I am a doctor trained by the party, and if you want to be grateful, then thank the party and the People's Liberation Army!"
When the news of Zhang Yuhua's death broke, more than 300 people of all ethnic groups near the station came to the morgue of the 12th Hospital to mourn him. Many Uyghur villagers in the Second Brigade of the Urban Commune actually went so far as to mourn Zhang Yuhua's dead by not shaving for 40 days for men and not combing their hair for 40 days according to the customs of their own people. On the Qingming Festival in 1984, more than 2,000 soldiers and civilians came to the martyrs' graves to mourn the martyrs, and the "Kashgar Daily" received more than 60 letters from the masses praising Zhang Yuhua. On July 25, 1984, the Urumqi Military Region awarded him the honorary title of "a good military doctor who wholeheartedly serves the people of all ethnic groups in the border areas", and through the extensive publicity of the "People's Liberation Army Daily", "Xinjiang Daily", "Shengli Bao" and other news media, an activity to learn from Zhang Yuhua was widely carried out among the military and people in the border areas!
Comrade Zhang Yuhua, rest in peace! Your spirit of wholeheartedly serving the military and the people in the border areas will be passed down forever and become an invisible force for promoting national unity and strengthening border construction.