Miriam Lee

Who was Miriam Lee?

Miriam Lee was one of the pioneering acupuncturists in the United States and was responsible for acupuncture being legalized in California.

Miriam Lee was born in China in 1926 but left the mainland in 1949. In China, she was a nurse-midwife before becoming an acupuncturist. Lee lived through the Second Sino-Japanese War. After leaving China, she lived in Singapore for 17 years before coming to the United States. When she arrived in California, acupuncture was illegal. So Lee worked on a factory assembly line and gave treatments quietly out of her home. Later, she shared a space with a supportive medical doctor. In 1974, Lee was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. At her trial, her patients filled the courtroom to protest her arrest, claiming their right to the only medicine that had truly helped them. Within a few days, acupuncture was legally made an experimental procedure by Governor Ronald Reagan. In 1976, Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislation that legalized acupuncture in California. This made Lee one of California's first licensed acupuncturists.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Lee was the acupuncture teacher of probably 70% of practitioners working in Northern California. She was famous for using a special set of points based on the work of one of her teachers, Dr. Tung Ching Chang, known as the "Master Tung Magic Points." These are published in a book by Blue Poppy Press. She remained inventive and innovative throughout her career. During the height of her practice, she would see up to 10 patients an hour and worked 80 hours a week.