Why Did Bethune Fight Tuberculosis?

After Bethune got better he immediately wrote to his wife and proposed marriage again. At first she refused but eventually they were remarried in 1929. They were divorced again in 1933. However, though they were unable to live together, they always stayed in contact and remained genuinely fond of each other.

After surviving tuberculosis, he was convinced he should devote his life to helping people with tuberculosis and the conditions that caused it. Doctor Smith later said that Norman learned more about bacteriology in 3 months, which most graduate students learned in 3 years.

He drank heavily and socialized with artists. In 1964 CBC a journalist interviewed doctors and nurses who knew him at the Royal Victoria Hospital, who recalled his impatience in the

“Tuberculosis was not just a disease but rather a problem arising from the socioeconomic system. The rich recovers and the poor man dies. Lack of time and money kills more cases of pulmonary tuberculosis than lack of resistance to that disease."

Bethune was greatly troubled by the suffering among the poor, he opened a free clinic for any man, woman or child sent to him by the Montreal Unemployment Association.

In August 1935, Bethune traveled to Russia. While he was there he visited Russian hospitals, and observed first-hand medical system. He was deeply impressed by it, and by the methods used to fight tuberculosis there. Bethune began to believe in the necessity of free medical care for all members. When he returned he reported to a medical-surgical society in Montreal that “Russia presents today the most exciting spectacle of the evolutionary emergent and heroic spirit of man".

In mid-July 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out.

Bethune set off for Spain on 24 October 1936, taking medical supplies with him. He was strongly motivated to fight, and wrote a friend: "It is in Spain that the real issues of our time are going to be decided. It is there that democracy will live or