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The Most Famous

PHYSICIANS from China

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This page contains a list of the greatest Chinese Physicians. The pantheon dataset contains 502 Physicians, 8 of which were born in China. This makes China the birth place of the 20th most number of Physicians behind Czechia and Sweden.

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Physicians of all time. This list of famous Chinese Physicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Li Ching-Yuen

1. Li Ching-Yuen (1677 - 1933)

With an HPI of 74.30, Li Ching-Yuen is the most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 38 different languages on wikipedia.

Li Ching-Yuen or Li Ching-Yun (simplified Chinese: 李清云; traditional Chinese: 李清雲; pinyin: Lǐ Qīngyún, died May 6, 1933) was a Chinese herbalist, martial artist and tactical advisor, known for his supposed extreme longevity.His true date of birth has never been determined. Gerontologists consider his claims to be a myth.

Photo of Hua Tuo

2. Hua Tuo (200 - 208)

With an HPI of 67.31, Hua Tuo is the 2nd most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Hua Tuo (c. 140–208), courtesy name Yuanhua, was a Chinese physician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty. The historical texts Records of the Three Kingdoms and Book of the Later Han record Hua Tuo as the first person in China to use anaesthesia during surgery. He used a general anaesthetic combining wine with a herbal concoction called mafeisan (麻沸散; literally "cannabis boil powder"). Besides being respected for his expertise in surgery and anaesthesia, Hua Tuo was famous for his abilities in acupuncture, moxibustion, herbal medicine and medical daoyin exercises. He developed the Wuqinxi (五禽戲; literally "Exercise of the Five Animals") from studying movements of the tiger, deer, bear, ape and crane.

Photo of Li Shizhen

3. Li Shizhen (1517 - 1593)

With an HPI of 58.33, Li Shizhen is the 3rd most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Li Shizhen (July 3, 1518 – 1593), courtesy name Dongbi, was a Chinese acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician, and writer of the Ming dynasty. He is the author of a 27-year work, the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu; Chinese: 本草綱目). He developed several methods for classifying herb components and medications for treating diseases.The Compendium is a pharmacology text with 1,892 entries, with details about more than 1,800 traditional Chinese medicines, including 1,100 illustrations and 11,000 prescriptions. It also described the type, form, flavor, nature and application in disease treatments of 1,094 herbs. The book has been translated into several languages. The treatise included various related subjects such as botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy. Five original editions still exist.

Photo of Zhang Zhongjing

4. Zhang Zhongjing (150 - 219)

With an HPI of 57.85, Zhang Zhongjing is the 4th most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Zhang Zhongjing (Chinese: 張仲景; 150–219), formal name Zhang Ji (張機), was a Chinese pharmacologist, physician, inventor, and writer of the Eastern Han dynasty and one of the most eminent Chinese physicians during the later years of the Han dynasty. He established medication principles and summed up the medicinal experience until that time, thus making a considerable contribution to the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Photo of Sun Simiao

5. Sun Simiao (581 - 682)

With an HPI of 54.68, Sun Simiao is the 5th most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Sun Simiao (traditional Chinese: 孫思邈; simplified Chinese: 孙思邈; pinyin: Sūn Sīmiǎo; Wade–Giles: Sun Ssu-miao; died 682) was a Chinese physician and writer of the Sui and Tang dynasty. He was titled as China's King of Medicine (藥王; 药王, Yaowang) for his significant contributions to Chinese medicine and tremendous care to his patients.

Photo of Zhong Nanshan

6. Zhong Nanshan (1936 - )

With an HPI of 51.80, Zhong Nanshan is the 6th most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Zhong Nanshan (born 20 October 1936) is a Chinese pulmonologist. He was president of the Chinese Medical Association from 2005 to 2009 and is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic Disease. He is a recipient of Medal of the Republic, the highest honour of China. Zhong earned international fame for managing the SARS outbreak and was renowned for refuting the official line which downplayed the severity of the crisis. He was voted one of China's top 10 scientists in 2010.During the COVID-19 pandemic which was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, Zhong was a leading advisor in managing the crisis, suggesting evidence-based control measures to contain the disease and sharing the successful treatment plan with the international community. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.

Photo of Andrew Yao

7. Andrew Yao (1946 - )

With an HPI of 50.22, Andrew Yao is the 7th most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (Chinese: 姚期智; pinyin: Yáo Qīzhì; born December 24, 1946) is a Chinese computer scientist and computational theorist. He is currently a professor and the dean of Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) at Tsinghua University. Yao used the minimax theorem to prove what is now known as Yao's Principle. Yao was a naturalized U.S. citizen, and worked for many years in the U.S. In 2015, together with Yang Chen-Ning, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Photo of Liang Wudong

8. Liang Wudong (1959 - 2020)

With an HPI of 39.34, Liang Wudong is the 8th most famous Chinese Physician.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Liang Wudong (Chinese: 梁武东; pinyin: Liáng Wǔdōng; 14 March 1959 – 25 January 2020) was a physician at Xinhua Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei, notable for being the first doctor to die from COVID-19 due to a nosocomial infection.

Pantheon has 8 people classified as physicians born between 150 and 1959. Of these 8, 2 (25.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living physicians include Zhong Nanshan and Andrew Yao. The most famous deceased physicians include Li Ching-Yuen, Hua Tuo, and Li Shizhen. As of April 2022, 1 new physicians have been added to Pantheon including Zhong Nanshan.

Living Physicians

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Deceased Physicians

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Newly Added Physicians (2022)

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