Miriam Lee

Miriam Lee (1926 to 2009) was a pioneering acupuncturist in the United States who played a central part in getting acupuncture legalized in California. Born in China, she worked there as a nurse-midwife before becoming an acupuncturist, left the mainland in 1949, lived in Singapore for seventeen years and then moved to California, where acupuncture was illegal and she first worked on a factory assembly line while treating patients quietly at home. She was arrested in 1974 for practicing medicine without a license, her patients protested at her trial, and within days acupuncture was made a legal experimental procedure; legislation legalizing it followed in 1976. She held California Acupuncture License Number 6, received her O.M.D. in 1984, taught a large share of Northern California practitioners, popularized a ten-point protocol and the Master Tung points, and led the Acupuncture Association of America until 1998. This entry records what she held and did, and is not medical advice.