Tan Yunxian

Who was Tan Yunxian?

Tan Yunxian was a female doctor during the Ming Dynasty in China.

Tan’s grandmother was actually the daughter of a physician. One reason for Tan’s grandfather to marry her grandmother was to learn medicine himself. Two of her grandparent’s sons were able to pass the examinations and they became officials, one of these sons was Tan’s father. Due to the fondness her grandparents had for her, which evidence shows was directly related to her intellect, her grandparents passed on their medical knowledge to her. Tan Yunxian later married and raised four children, and practiced medicine on women. Tan lived a longer life than most, she died at the hearty age of 93.