Tan Yunxian

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Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Tan is the family name here, Yunxian is the first name.

Tan Yunxian ( Chinese  谈 允 贤 , Pinyin Tán yŭn xián ; 1461–1554) was a doctor in China during the Ming Dynasty .

Life

Tan's grandmother was a doctor's daughter. Her grandfather married her to learn about medicine himself. Two of the grandparents' sons passed the jinshi exam and became civil servants. One of them was Tan's father. Because of their grandparents' affection for Yunxian, they passed on their medical knowledge to the wise granddaughter. Tan Yunxian married, had four children, and continued to practice medicine for women. Tan lived to the old age of 93 years.

Medical activities

Tan Yunxian's medical treatments were tailored almost entirely to women. Initially, she treated her own children with diagnosis under the guidance of her grandmother. 31 patients are described in the records. Usually it was a chronic disease. In the Ming period, there were obviously many gynecological disorders ( menstrual pain , irregular bleeding , abdominal pain , miscarriage , infertility , postpartum mood crises ). Other diseases were partly communicable through sexual intercourse or common diseases ( headache and migraine , menopausal symptoms , diarrhea, cough).

Tan, like many literary doctors, often wrote herbal recipes and practiced moxibustion . The treatment should mainly stimulate the circulation of Qi . Since moxibustion requires contact between doctor and patient, male doctors were not allowed to perform this treatment on respectable women. Numerous anamneses written by Tan suggest that the women often suffered mainly from exhaustion (overwork).

Although Tan trained in gynecology , pediatrics, and obstetrics , her experience in other areas was very limited. In addition, she was only able to apply her knowledge in a very limited environment, in the country and with friends. She was unable to publish her book Sayings of a Female Doctor . Your son had to cut the blocks for the block printing himself.

Female doctors in the Ming period

In contrast to the male doctors in ancient China, women were not able to learn their skills from masters or to open their own practice after completing their training. For women, family training was the standard of training. While women were often very well educated in reality, they rarely made theoretical contributions. They have been trained to provide “support work” (medical care) to the women in their families.

In popular culture

In the Chinese history series The Imperial Doctor (女 医 · 明 妃 传, nǚ yī · míng feī zhuàn, Cecilia Liu 2016), a doctor is portrayed who combines the characteristics of Tan with the wife Empress Hang of Emperor Jingtai . In the series, the name of the person was changed from the actual Chinese  談 to the homophonic family name Chinese  譚 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patricia B. Ebrey, Anne Walthall, James B. Palais: Pre-Modern East Asia: To 1800. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company 2006: 279.
  2. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th Ed. USA: Merriam-Webster 2004: 813.
  3. ↑ Zheng Jin-Sheng: Female Medical Workers in Ancient China .
  4. ^ Translation: Lorraine Wilcox: Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor. Portland, OR: The Chinese Medicine Database, 2015. ISBN 978-0990-60-2903
  5. ↑ Ebrey: 280.
  6. ↑ Zheng Jin-Sheng: "Female Medical Workers in Ancient China."
personal data
SURNAME Tan Yunxian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese doctor in the Ming period
DATE OF BIRTH 1461
PLACE OF BIRTH Wuxi , Jiangsu
DATE OF DEATH 1554