“There were thousands and thousands of political exiles who had been forced to leave their countries in history. But political exiles like her, an 83-year-old woman in poor health, frail and fragile, weeping bitter tears all the way to a distant land, were rare. Maybe, she was the eldest of all exiles in the world.
Professor Gao Yaojie, an octogenarian, has always been referred to as “China’s First Anti-AIDS Crusader” and is highly revered by the world. The memoir comprises two parts—Part I (The Gao Family and the Days before My Retirement) and Part II (Caught in the Storm of AIDS after My Retirement). In Part I, she guides the reader through different stages of her life: her childhood, her stay in Kaifeng during wartime, her student life in exile, her hospital life as a gynecologist, those days during the Cultural Revolution when she was subjected to humiliation at denunciation meetings… Tried by adversity, she simply got going when the going got tough. Such a portrayal of her life is suitably deemed a chapter in the contemporary history of China.
In Part II, she provides an overview of the AIDS epidemic in China with meticulous care: how she waged war against bogus doctors, how she met her first AIDS patient, how she made significant discoveries about the primary cause of the disaster, namely that people had fallen victim to plasma economy during the plasmapheresis campaign of China in which blood plasma were extracted in exchange for money, how she was harassed, kept under surveillance, and placed under house arrest, how she was forbidden to attend presentation ceremonies in overseas countries, and how she found out that the people around her had been spied on, or had been incited to sell her down the river. New chapters of her life in exile after her arrival in the United States at the age of 83, her will, etc., are also included.
“I had never for one moment imagined that I could become a heroine. I could have lived a quiet, uneventful, private life after I retired twenty years ago. I could have retreated from public life, and could have kept to myself, like thousands and thousands of senior citizens, if I did not go to see my very first AIDS patient, who sent me away on a journey of no return.
Was I destined to find my calling as a doctor? Was I destined to be a health care provider? Was I destined to grow up in a family where I was given a Confucian education? Was I destined to go soft on people who were in pain? And was I destined to tear my hair out when I encountered the unscrupulous and the evil?”
此書為《高潔的靈魂──高耀潔回憶錄（增訂版)》的英文版。
「民間防愛第一人」高耀潔教授親筆撰寫以八十三歲高齡踏上流亡路的種種酸苦！
「我從來就沒有想當個什麼英雄。但是，是誰把那第一個愛滋病患者送到了我的面前？
使我從那一天起就走上了一條不歸路？
誰讓我是個醫生，誰讓醫生的天職是治病救人，誰讓我從小就在聖賢的教育下長大，誰讓我見了受苦難折磨的人就難以心安，誰讓我見了黑暗和罪惡就怒髮衝冠……」
八十多歲的高耀潔教授，一直是中國抗擊愛滋病的勇士，贏得國內外的讚譽和敬仰。
這書分成兩部分，「上篇：高氏家族和我退休前後的生涯」是高教授的自傳，童年、戰亂、當流亡學生、當上婦科醫生、下鄉、文化大革命、被批鬥、自殺未遂、兒子冤獄、被勞改……透過閱讀她的身世與苦難，我們其實也在閱讀中國近代史。高教授的每段經歷，也是磨難，而且，磨練出她那不屈的人格。
此書第二部分，即「下篇：退休後遭遇的愛滋風雲」，則是中國愛滋病疫情的詳細總論。從打擊性病遊醫，到遇上第一個愛滋病人，繼而揭發中國內地因為人民賣血而引起的災難性愛滋疫情，一直描述至她因此而被打壓、監視、軟禁，有獎領不得，連帶其他跟她有聯繫的人均被監控或教唆出賣的等等情形。本書（增訂版）也交代了為什麼高教授以八十三歲高齡，最終也得踏上流亡之路，與及到達美國後至今的生活。”
