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Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873) (Chinese：合信) was a British Protestant medical missionary who served with the London Missionary Society in imperial China during its Qing Dynasty dynasty. His Treatise on Physiology, reproducing and elaborating on work by William Cheselden, helped revolutionize Chinese and later Tokugawa Japan medical understanding and treatment.
In 1845, his wife's health was so poor that they left for Britain in July but she died while at anchor off Dungeness on December 22. Left with a young son and daughter, he married Rebecca Morrison, the daughter of his fellow Chinese missionary Robert, while in England. He returned with her and Mr Hirschberg on the Hugh Walker. This left Britain on March 11, 1847, and reached Hong Kong on July 27, whereupon he resumed direction of its hospital.
He visited Guangzhou (then known as "Canton") with Mr Gillespie in October 1847 and moved there the next February, operating a clinic out of his residence. In April, he opened a pharmacy and, in June, purchased the house on Kum-Le-Fo. (, Jīnlì Bù, . "Golden Benefit Wharf") in the Xiguan for use as the Missionary Hospital or Clinic Huìài Yīguǎn).. While there, he was assisted by the Chinese ministers and missionaries Liang Fa and Zhou Xue. At the end of 1854, he traveled to Shanghai for a five-week rest for health reasons. He and his family were forced to evacuate to Hong Kong in October 1856 on account of the onset of the Second Opium War.
The missionary community of Shanghai prevailed upon him to return in February 1857 and he took Dr Lockhart's place at their hospital when Lockhart returned to England at the end of that year. His eldest son took work with a merchant house, but the rest of the family returned with him to Europe, reaching England in March 1859. His health not permitting his return to China, he then resided at Clifton and Cheltenham. He died at Forest Hill near London in 1873.
Five of the medical works were published with assistance from Kuan Mao-tsai. The illustrations of his Treatise on Physiology were derived from William Cheselden's 1730 Anatomical Tables and 1733 Osteographia. Hobson's work has been called "instrumental" in introducing Western anatomical knowledge to China and Tokugawa Japan, beginning their shift away from traditional understandings based on the flow of qi and other pseudoscience.
Works
Benjamin Hobson published the following works:
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