Birdwood Van Someren Taylor was born in 1852 in Borsad, India.[1][better source needed] His parents, J. V. S. Taylor, and Eliza Sarah Pritchard Taylor[1] were Christian missionaries and worked primarily in Gujarat, India. They served as missionaries until Eliza fell sick, causing them to move back to Scotland with their children. Eliza died in June 26, 1858[1] when Taylor was 6 years old. He grew up primarily in Scotland with a Protestant upbringing.[citation needed]
Later, he attended the University of Edinburgh where he received his M. B and C.M,[1] becoming both a medical doctor and an ordained member of the clergy.
Shortly after his marriage to Downing, Taylor left for Fuh-Chow, China, arriving on 30 November 1878[4] to work as the second medical missionary for the Church Missionary Society in China. He followed William Welton, who helped the Chinese Medical Society establish the first dispensary hospital in Fuh-Chow in 1850. He opened the first hospital in Funing in 1883.[3]
John Wolfe assigned Taylor to develop more hospitals and dispensaries in Fukien after the destruction of the Black Stone Hill mission by anti-religious actors. The belief was that the community would respond better to medical missionaries than religious missionaries.[3]
Taylor established his reputation as a medical provider, through the curing of opium addiction of a senior military officer. Upon his cure, the officer held a public ceremony and hung an official military banner outside the Funing Hospital declaring the ability of the foreign Taylor to provide cures.[3]
Taylor oversaw the CMS mission in Fuh-Chow and trained medical catechists to assist him in the proceedings of the hospital. Taylor pressed the mission leadership to start a physician training program to increase the clinical services. With these newly trained assistants, Taylor [2][3] built classrooms for clinical education into the hospital at Funing and translated medical textbooks into the local language.[3]
Taylor and his team primarily treated opium addicts and leprosy. It was estimated that up to two-thirds of patients were addicted to opium and seeking treatment for this.[3] Through Taylor's work, China had the largest number of dispensary hospitals serving the area by the 1880s. They were primarily run by CMS missionaries and volunteers.[5]
Taylor worked in both Fuh-Chow and Fuh-Ning, serving Fuh-Chow from 1878 to 1882.[4] In 1882,[4] Taylor started working primarily in the prefectures of Fuh-ning and led the medical mission established in the area with the Chinese men he had trained. He also assisted Dr. Rigg, a medical missionary who had similar duties in Kieng-ning, a nearby town in Fuh-kien.[citation needed]
In 1894, Taylor transferred to Hinghwa,[4] where he opened the largest hospital in Fukien with a dispensary.[6] In 1929, the China Medical Journal covered the Hinghwa hospital, highlighting that it had eight separate departments and at least 260 beds.[7]
In 1911, Taylor was called back to Fuh-Chow. Due to his experience teaching medicine, he was appointed Founding Principal of Union Medical College when it opened in 1911.[2] Union Medical College was a collaboration between Americans (Congregationalists), Anglicists and Methodist Episcopalians.[8] Taylor served as the principal until 1918.[citation needed]