Born in London, 28 May 1878, third child and second son of Paul Balme, surveyor, and his wife née Kirkness, he was educated at Cooper's Grammar School and King's College, London, where he was Worsley scholar 1898, and won the Warneford, Leathes, and Todd prizes in medicine and the Berry Prize in divinity and later became an Associate. He took his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but interrupted it to serve with the Imperial Yeomanry field hospital in the South African war (1900-01), and won the medal and clasps. After qualifying in 1903 he served as house surgeon to Alfred Carless at King's College Hospital, and as clinical assistant at the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark, and took the Fellowship at the end of 1905. He had been resident medical officer to the London Medical Mission, and now entered the medical missionary field in China. He worked at first at the Memorial Mission Hospital at Tai Yuan Fu in Shansi, and soon proved himself a good surgeon, a competent ophthalmologist and an excellent teacher equally fluent in English and Chinese. He realised that the teaching given to Chinese medical students must be of the highest standard. He was appointed professor of surgery at Cheeloo Shantung Christian University and superintendent of the University Hospital at Tsi Nan Fu, the capital of Shantung province, in 1913. He was subsequently Dean of the Medical Faculty, and became President of the University in 1921. He organised the first Council on Medical Education in China and acted for a time as its chairman, and was elected President of the Council on Higher Education. He recorded his work in his interesting book China and modern medicine, 1921. The Cheeloo University's degrees were recognised by McGill University, Montreal. Balme organised a translating department to produce Chinese versions of new scientific texts. His enterprise was firmly supported by Drs Samuel Cochrane and Roger Green of the China Medical Board. He retired in 1927 and went into general practice at Dormansland, Surrey, taking the Durham MD in 1928 after 20 years as a teacher and administrator in the east. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he was appointed medical superintendent of Haymeads Hospital, Bishops Stortford, and out of an old and ill-equipped infirmary created an efficient hospital of 800 beds. He was created OBE in 1942, and gave similar useful service as medical superintendent of the Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. He became, through this war-work, keenly interested in the wider aspects of rehabilitation. Before the war, while a member of council of the Royal College of Nursing, he had published a book criticising nursing education and proposing reform. His book on *Relief of pain*, 1936, reached a second edition in 1939. The British Council commissioned a pamphlet on rehabilitation in 1944, and he was appointed medical officer in charge of rehabilitation under the Ministry of Health till 1951. He also served as director of welfare services to the British Red Cross Society, which elected him an honorary life member. His last years were devoted to international welfare work as a consultant on rehabilitation to the United Nations from 1950 and to the World Health Organisation, the World Veterans Federation, and the UN International Children's Emergency Fund. He was a member of the UN working-party on Rehabilitation, which co-ordinated the activities of the special agencies. This work entailed constant travelling in Europe, North Africa, and the United States. He carried it out with his customary energy but it took toll of his health, for he had suffered a long illness before the war, which left some disability. During 1952 he was at work in Austria in the spring and in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark in the autumn, among other arduous commitments. He was responsible for drafting a *Report on a co-ordinated international programme for the rehabilitation of the handicapped* presented to the UN Social Commission in 1952. Balme's cheerful, confident nature was inspired by humanitarian goodwill based on profound Christian faith. He was an invigorating teacher and colleague. His zeal, impatient of bureaucratic restrictions, was modified by personal charm and tact. He married in 1910 Hilda Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas William Carr of Carlisle, who survived him with two sons and two married daughters. One son, David Mowbray Balme, DSO, DFC was principal of the University College of the Gold Coast. Balme died after a major operation at 64 Copers Cope Road, Beckenham, Kent, on 13 February 1953, aged 74. Publications: *China and modern medicine, a study in medical missionary development*. London, United Council for Missionary Education, 1921. 224 pages. *The relief of pain, a handbook of modern analgesia*. London, Churchill 1936, 408 pages; 2nd edition 1939, 399 pages. *A criticism of nursing education, with suggestions for constructive reform*. Oxford University Press, 1937. 73 pages. *The unfit made fit*. British Council, "British advances" series. London, 1944. Disability and disablement, the medical aspect. *Lancet* 1946, 1, 620 and 717. A model rehabilitation and training centre, at Tobelbad, near Graz, Austria. *Brit med J* 1952, 2, 1092.