Dr. Lian Zhu: A Founder of Contemporary Acupuncture Medicine

As an inseparable part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture has been used in more than 196 countries or regions and has played an increasingly important role in health care. This article introduces Dr. Lian Zhu, MD, who made great contributions to acupuncture development. Dr. Zhu was a medical doctor, a military physician in her early life, and a high-ranking officer in the health care system of the Chinese government. She became famous as an acupuncturist after learning acupuncture in 1945. She was highly influenced by Zhijun Lu, MD, who learned acupuncture from Zuotian Ren, a TCM doctor in Yan'an, who had cured Chairman Mao Zedong's intractable shoulder pain. Dr. Zhu was one of the 2 earliest acupuncture trainers in the Chinese military health system, helping the Chinese communist military overcome resource shortages during the Chinese Civil War. She was one of China's most-influential acupuncture educators, having taught many acupuncture classes that trained many acupuncturists from 1945 to 1955. She was also an officer and policy maker in the Health Department of the central government, where she established such policy initiatives as training content for TCM doctors' reeducation schools. Dr. Zhu was ones of the earliest acupuncture researchers and administrators with a government-endorsed background. She created the first public acupuncture university in history in 1976 as well as 2 key acupuncture institutes in China and was director of both. She played a crucial role in promoting acupuncture research through TCM and biomedical methods, and was the first scholar in China to publish a thorough book on medical acupuncture using Western-biomedical language, which was highly praised by Chairman Mao. Dr. Zhu's acupuncture theory objectively promoted acceptance of medical acupuncture by the general public, medical doctors, government officials, and international medical societies.