Recognizing the Chinese pioneer of neuraxial labor analgesia: Dr Guang-bo Zhang and her unpublished manuscript from more than a half-century ago

Abstract

Dr Guang-Bo Zhang was the first anesthesiologist to administer and study the effects of labor epidural analgesia in China. Between September 1963 and March 1964, she conducted an observational study evaluating the effects of neuraxial analgesia for laboring women. She presented her research and prepared an article; however, due to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Cultural Revolution), which began in 1966, her work went unpublished. She successfully preserved her unpublished article, notes, and slides throughout the Cultural Revolution by hiding them in a countryside location near Beijing. These 54-year-old, previously unpublished documents represent the first known clinical trial of neuraxial labor analgesia conducted in China.