Preface. My recent detention in the Chinese legation, 49 Portland Place, London, has excited so many friends and has raised so many legal, technical, and international points of law that I feel I should be failing in my duty did I not place on public record all the circumstances connected with the historical event. I must beg the indulgence of all readers for my shortcomings in English composition and confess that had it not been for the help rendered by a good friend who transcribed I could never have ventured to appear as the author of an English book. Sun Yat -sen, London, 1897. End of Preface. Chapter 1. The Embroilio. When in 1892 I settled in Macau, a small island near the mouth of the Canton River, to practice medicine, I little dreamt that in four years' time I should find myself a prisoner in the political sensation which culminated in the active interference of the British government to procure my release. It was in that year, however, and at Macau, that my first acquaintance was made with political life, and there began the part of my career which has been the means of bringing my name so prominently before the British people. I had been studying medicine during the year 1886 in Canton at the Anglo -American mission under the direction of the venerable Dr. Kerr, when in 1887 I heard of the opening of a College of Medicine at Hong Kong and determined immediately to avail myself of the advantages it offered. After five years' study, 1887 to 1892, I obtained the diploma entitling me to style myself Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery, Hong Kong. Macau has belonged to Portugal for 360 years, but although the government is Europeanized, the inhabitants are mostly Chinese, and the section of the population which styles itself Portuguese consists really of Eurasians of several inbred generations. In my newly selected home, I found the Chinese authorities of the native hospital willing to help me forward in the matter of affording me opportunities to practice European medicine and surgery. They placed a ward at my disposal, supplied me with drugs and appliances from London, and granted me every privilege whereby to secure my introduction amongst them on a fair footing. This event deserves special notice as marking a new and significant departure in China, for never before had the board of directors of any Chinese hospital throughout the length and breadth of the great empire given any direct official encouragement to Western medicine. Many patients, more especially surgical cases, came to my wards, and I had the opportunity of performing several of the major operations before the directors. On the other hand, I had difficulty from the first with the Portuguese authorities. It was not the obstructive ignorance of the East, but the jealousy of the West which stepped in to thwart my progress. The law of Portugal forbids the practice of medicine within Portuguese territory by anyone who is not possessed