What Was It like to Be a Female Doctor during the Ming Dynasty?

Lisa See’s novel Lady Tan’s Circle of Women was inspired by a medical textbook published in 1511 by an eminent female doctor, Tan Yunxian. In this episode, we talk to See about how she came to write her novel and to Lorraine Wilcox, the scholar who translated the original Chinese text, about what the practice of medicine was like for a female doctor during the Ming Dynasty.

Tan was almost lost to history, but the chronicle of her cases was reprinted by a great nephew and, amazingly, one copy survived through the centuries. Through serendipitous scholarly connections, Wilcox translated it, and See used that translation as the inspiration for her novel.

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TRANSCRIPT

Lisa See: Shehe herself says in her introduction that one thing she wants is that, that women at home could use this like a cookbook. That you could actually look and see what are my symptoms, what could I make at home to treat them.

Carol Sutton Lewis: Welcome to the latest episode in our series, “Lost Women of Science Conversations,”where we talk with authors and artists who’ve discovered and celebrated female scientists in books, poetry, film, theater, and the visual arts.

I’m your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. Today, we’re exploring a fictionalized account of an actual lost woman of science from 15th-century China, Tan Yunxian. We’re joined today by the author, Lisa See, who brought Tan’s story to life, and professor Lorraine Wilcox, a scholar of Chinese medicine. who translated the original medical text, which included a chronicle of the recipes Tan successfully used to treat women.

Lorraine translated Tan Yunxian’s original book, “Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor,” and it was by pure chance that Lisa discovered it, got in contact with Lorraine, and decided to use Tan’s story as the inspiration for a novel about what the life of a female physician in Ming Dynasty China would have looked like.

Lisa’s book is called “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women.” The actual Tan Yunxian was an elite woman born into a family of doctors. Tan may not have been the only female doctor of her time, but she was unique because she was one of the few who wrote about her patients. In her original book of cases, Tan…