Who is she?
The first person in Chinese history to dissect a diseased human body
Notable life events:
- Born in the Northern and Southern Dynasty period and rumoured to be born to a father who is a wandering village doctor
- Married to a wandering village doctor by the name Tang Ci
- In 450 AD, a plague occurred in her home after war which involved patients spitting out poisonous worms. Zhang Xiugu and her husband had wanted to see the inside of patients’ stomachs but could not because dissection of corpses was a capital offence at that time
- One day, Tang Ci had succumbed to the plague and knowing that he would die of it, he asked Zhang Xiugu to dissect him to find out the cause. She did and drew a diagram of his stomach, marking down the affected organs and main signs. This led to her being reported and eventually charged either with 5 years’ prison term or killed. Her son was also sentenced to death for not preventing her mother from committing such a heinous crime.
Moonlake’s thoughts on her:
The only thought I had is that to pursue knowledge, people from ancient times had made much personal sacrifice across different places and places due to human prejudice. And that is quite sad really, that such intelligent minds had been wasted rather than being left alone to further the pursuit of knowledge.
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