Norman Bethune performing a surgical operation. Colour lithograph, 1975.

Norman Bethune, galloping along a stream in the valley between mountains, his case of surgical instruments strapped around him, his Chinese assistants riding behind. Norman Bethune (1890 1939; Chinese name: 白求恩; pinyin: Bái Qiúēn) was a Canadian physician and surgeon who served with the Chinese Communists in 1938 against the Japanese invasion. Although he only spent two years in China before his death from blood-poisoning in 1939, his energy and humanitarian ethos (shown in this poster) led to the publication by Mao Zedong of an eloquent speech "In memory of Norman Bethune" (1939), which became known to all Chinese during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Thereafter Bethune became a national hero in China and more recently in his home states of Ontario and Montreal. There are several medical institutions in China named after him