Tombstone of Late TCM Doctor Draws Hundreds Seeking Her Remedies

A tombstone inscribed with 100 traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions by a late rural doctor has become a popular attraction in a farm field in Xiping County, Henan Province, drawing an estimated 300 to 400 visitors a day, according to Dahe Daily.

The grave belongs to Yuan Shufang, and the prescriptions are ones she used in her practice. Since the paper first wrote about the stone in Panlongqiao village on November 3, visitors have come from across China, her grandson Wang Kezhong said.

Fruit and flowers now cover the ground in front of the stone. The muddy soil around it has been packed hard by visitors' feet, and a footpath has formed. Some visitors bow with their palms pressed together. Others photograph every prescription, and some copy them out by hand, line by line.

They have come from Shandong, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Guizhou. Xiao Sa, who has practiced TCM in Xuchang for 20 years, came with her husband and bowed at the grave. She said the remedies were concise and could help patients avoid unnecessary costs. One man from Guiyang spent nearly three days changing between trains and buses four or five times. He set out without knowing exactly where the grave was.

A woman surnamed Jiang flew in from Zhejiang with her daughter. "At first I simply didn't believe there could be someone so selfless, willing to publish a family's inherited remedies for those who come after," she said. Her daughter is a third-year medical student. Some of the remedies deal with gynecological conditions, so she brought a notebook and wrote them down.

Wang gave a warning. "The prescriptions on the tombstone can't cure every illness," he said. "Practitioners can use them to learn together, but patients must never blindly make up medicine from them."

He also said the stone shows only part of his grandmother's work. She left a handwritten manuscript that he estimates holds more than 200 prescriptions. "Once we find the original manuscript, we will publish all of it," he said.

He also corrected a mistake that has spread online. "Many media outlets posted a photo of an old woman with white hair, saying it's my grandmother. That photo is fake," Wang said. He then showed reporters the only color photo of Yuan that the family has been able to find.

"So many people coming specially to copy the prescriptions – I believe my grandmother would be very happy in the afterlife," he said.