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Chong, Thomas (1887 - 1950)

Gallery

Dr

Born
1887
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died
1950
Bairnsdale, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
herbalist
Alternative Names
  • Chong, Dr Thomas (also used)
Website
http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b3092217
Summary

Thomas Chong was born in Sydney in 1887, the eldest of four children of Ong Chong, successful shipping merchant, and Young Die, both from Canton. At the age of twelve years, Thomas was sent to China by his father to receive a classical Chinese education, which was followed by a medical training conducted under the traditional apprenticeship system in the clinic-dispensary of Huang Jy Shen, a master in Zhen Jiang, Guangdong. Graduating from this clinic in 1898, Thomas gained further experience working for a four year period in the Kwong Yen Hospital of Canton, and also as Medical Advisor to the Military Authorities of Szechuan.

Returning to Australia in 1908 after 18 years of study and clinical practice, Thomas settled, and in 1916, married in Melbourne, where he conducted his practice for some years from his residence in Nicholson St, Fitzroy. Encountering racial prejudice under the White Australia Policy (1901) on his return to Australia, and probably hostility from a medical profession who were trying to restrict the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Thomas Chong relocated his household and practice in 1920 to Bairnsdale, Gippsland, where he developed a successful practice servicing an extensive area of the surrounding district.
His library and papers show that far from a marginal figure in health care in east Gippsland, Chong was integral to a small section of the population there, treating with success the more chronic and musculo-skeletal conditions for which western medicine could offer little help. Under the fluctuating conditions of racial prejudice, the years of economic Depression, and the opposition of a western medical tradition keen to maintain their monopoly of the healing arts and deny the Chinese herbalists their freedom to practice, Chong earned not only the respect of his patients, but also for Traditional Chinese Medicine as an acceptable and effective method of medical practice.

Thomas Chong died in Bairnsdale hospital in 1950. His family retained his library and manuscripts until 1994, when they were offered to the Medical Library at the University of Melbourne, where they are now available for research.

Courtesy University of Melbourne, 'The Thomas Chong Collection', , accessed 11.11.2011.

Sibling

Related People

Related Places

Published Resources

Book Sections

  • Loh, Morag, 'A country practice: Thomas Chong - herbalist of Bairnsdale, Victoria; his place, his peers', in P. Macgregor (ed.), Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 15-28. Details

Images

Title
Chong family pruning branches in their garden
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1938
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Chong family with friends in front of rock cliff in Sydney
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1927
Place
Australia - New South Wales - Sydney
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong and Peter Sue
Type
Photograph
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong at Lakes Entrance
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1948
Place
Australia - Victoria - Lakes Entrance
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong holds his infant daughter, Dorothy, in their garden in Bairnsdale in 1923.
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1923
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong in his front garden
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1947
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong in studio with book and chair
Type
Photograph
Place
Australia - Victoria
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong standing on his verandah
Type
Photograph
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong stands by his home
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1949
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong, his wife Florence and two of their children, Ray and Dorothy
Type
Photograph
Date
1930
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
Dr Thomas Chong, his wife Florence, and two of their children, Dorothy and Jeffrey
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1947
Place
Australia - Victoria - Bairnsdale
Details
Title
George and Thomas Chong
Type
Photograph
Details
Title
Group on front steps of Tock Liang's house in Camberwell
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1930
Place
Australia - Victoria - Melbourne - Camberwell
Details
Title
Portrait of the wedding reception of Florence Sam and Thomas Chong in the Masonic Hall, Melbourne
Type
Photograph
Date
c. 1916
Place
Australia - Victoria - Melbourne
Details
Title
Wedding group at the marriage of Thomas and Florence Chong in 1916
Type
Photograph
Date
1916
Place
Australia - Victoria
Details

Created: 1 March 2007, Last modified: 11 November 2011