The history of Tan Yunxian

         Chinese Legendary Female

—— The Story of Tan Yunxian

Tan Yunxian, born in a medical family in Ming Dynasty, was one of the four famous female doctors in ancient Chinese history. Although she had strong interest in medical treatment, she struggled herself with her will and her father’s will.

       Deeply influenced by her grandfather, Tan was longed for curing disease and saving people. She believed that as long as she studies hard, one day she would realize her dream to become a doctor, just like her grandfather did. However, her father did not allow her to read any medical books or got in touch with anything about treatment or medical stuff. One of the most primary reasons was that a few years ago, her grandfather, Tan Fu who was a royal doctor in the court, was framed by courtier. And all evidence just proved that Tan Fu was the one who gave the poisonous medicine to one of the most important officials. So the emperor was so angry and he sentenced Fu and his family members at his age to death immediately. According to Ming Dynasty’s law, the punishment for murdering aristocracies’ family members is to kill every member in the murderer’s generation. Tan’s father really feared the same tragedy would happen to her beloved daughter, and that is why her father strongly disapproved her to study medicine. Fortunately, Tan was secretly supported by her grandmother, who is also an expert on medical treatment. Tan’s grandmother taught Tan medical knowledge and helped her to familiarize the names and effects of herbs. Tan, from my personal perspective, was a genius in learning medical treatments and she learned quickly. When she was at a very young age, she could recite hundreds of herbs and the ways to use them.

       Nevertheless, it was rare for women to open a clinic or look after patients by themselves at that time, so Tan just could not step out of her family and put her knowledge and what she learned from the books into practices. Tan wished that she could ever have an opportunity to be a doctor. Fortunately, at a birthday celebration feast that she attended, she got a chance which can help her to become a doctor or even a royal doctor in the future. During the feast, a senior woman fainted and no one was able to save her because at that time, doctors were rare and usually to become a doctor needs a lot of resources, but at this time, Tan gave a brave try by acupuncture, removed poisonous blood from the body, and her work miraculously saved the woman’s life. People stood around were amazed by Tan’s excellent skills in medical treatment at such a young age, and Tan was so pleased for herself and the elderly woman. However, after her father knew this case, he beat her hard with his palms and a wooden stick. Her father explained the reason why he beat her was that she rebelled his thoughts. But Tan’s will and determination of becoming a doctor seemed to be strengthened by her father; she read more documents about medical treatments, asked professional doctors about the methods of cure some diseases, and cured more people secretly. As a result, Tan was caught once or twice and whipped more and more severely, but she never gave up. Finally, her father softened his heart and finally agreed that Tan can study medical treatments with her grandmother.

       After her grandmother passed away, she collected all her legacy work. As a mother of four children, she diagnosed and cured some ailments on her own, and treated other people as much as possible. Despite the rigorous feudal restriction and regulations that women should stay at home and do some household work and should not be a doctor, Tan still insisted her dream. Fortunately, people respected her very much. Furthermore, because it was either unaffordable or unapproachable for ordinary people with no relationship with royal families to seek instant help from doctors who only accept reservation or extra payment, the ordinary people can hardly be cured by even the ailments. So Tan just regularly went to those people’s house and help them to cure the disease and gave some medicine for free.

  Based on numerous successful treatments and accumulated high reputation, Tan finally got an opportunity to became the only one female candidate for royal medical physician. However, the test was very challenging in many aspects. First of all, her task was more difficult than others, because the narrow-minded royal physicians regarded her as an impediment, and they wished to exclude her from further rounds. But surprisingly, Tan overcame all the difficulties by utilizing her strong memorization and hard work she accumulated when she was young. Second, she was embarrassed by male candidates. Those male physicians humiliated her through words, and even attempted to insult her physically. Gaining support from one of the most respectful physician, Tan successfully passed the test, and some of the male candidates were scolded fiercely and knocked out.

Tan passed all the examinations and became a royal medical physician. Worked with profound peers and mentors board her perspectives on treatments and she gained a lot of field experiences. She not only knew what kind of medicine should be used when cure a specific disease, but also learned various ways to alleviate symptoms with or without medicine.

Tan made progress every day, and gained abundant medical knowledge from those renowned professionals. She gradually earned reputation from all officials in court and later, in ancient China of Ming dynasty. In the late years of Tan’s life, she wrote a medical book about what she learnt, and how to offer medical treatment as a woman, her methodology was widely applied in general medical house and private clinic. Tan lived a long and beneficious life, curing and saving lives, contributing to medical care and herbal treatment. In the arena of ancient medical science, Tan did a lot of great job and brought some novel ideas to Chinese medical science.

(The portrait of Tan)