"Most returned to society rehabilitated to their former state. The thief returned as a thief. The clerk returned to his desk. The blackbirder for European companies went on kidnapping Javanese. As he walked home from the hospital that day, the old doctor had reached the following conclusion -- even with decades of service as a doctor, he had made no meaningful contribution to the advancement of his people. It was true that medicine was a humanitarian profession. But what a waste it would all be if all it amounted to was patching things up so that things could go on without ever changing. A doctor must not only cure the disease of the body, he must also awaken the spirit of the people, anesthetized by their own ignorance.

So he didn't go straight home. He turned right and set off for the bank. He withdrew all his thirty years of savings. And he used that money to travel throughout Java. Everywhere he urged the Native leaders to set up organizations that could advance the people.

"That's how the young doctors in our movement also talk," said Mei. 'I think it's no accident that it's always the doctors who are the first to think this way."

In the modern world, everything is specialization. People will become alienated from each other. People will have cause to meet only because of business or they will meet only by accident. You will never be able to tell if the person you're treating is a good person or not. "