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A person wearing glasses and a white suit and red blouse.
Dr. Miriam Lee. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Frank He at HeCares.org).

Miriam Lee, a Chinese acupuncturist, is arrested for practicing out of her home in California.

1974

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Dr. Miriam Lee. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Frank He at HeCares.org).

Acupuncture is illegal, so Lee works in a factory during the day and provides treatments at night and on weekends.

At her trial, her patients fill the courtroom in protest, "claiming their right to the only medicine that had truly helped them" (Abacus Chinese Medicine).

Within a few days of the trial and the publicity it attracts, acupuncture is authorized as an "experimental procedure" in California.

In 1976, it will finally be made fully legal.