Edward Bliss

Who was Edward Bliss?

Edward Lydston Bliss was a medical missionary who worked in China from 1892 to 1932. Coming from a religious family, Bliss originally sought to become a minister. After giving up these aspirations, he attended Yale University and became a teacher. He then went to medical school and began his career as a physician in China. During his time in Shaowu, located in the Fujian province of China, Bliss provided general care and also performed research on the rinderpest virus. He remained in China throughout many significant political conflicts throughout the early 1900s before returning to the United States in 1932. A biography of Bliss — Beyond the Stone Arches: An American Missionary Doctor in China, 1892–1932 — was written by his son, journalist Ed Bliss.