Published: 27 January, 2014
By TOM FOOT

TRIBUTES have been paid to a Chinese professor who founded the first Chinese medicinal clinic in the country after he died from sudden heart failure.

Professor Man Fong Mei, 67 – also known as Benny Mei – was determined to bring Eastern and Western medicine together. Those who admired his work included Princess Diana.

Professor Mei opened the Acu Medic centre in Euston, which then moved to its prominent site in Camden Town, with this ambition in mind.

He held many influential roles in his field and wrote dozens of published papers while also finding time for poetry, physics and philosophy.

His son, Don, 39, said he lived by the mantra of “positivity, positivity, positivity”, adding: “He was a man who loved to be inspired and loved to inspire other people – that was his great passion. East and West integration was his big vision – not only in medicine, but in culture and ideas. 

“He was all about integrating and doing it with a smile.”

Don said his father had told him how a tragedy he witnessed as a boy had inspired him to live his life to a full. “He once told me that he was playing football in China and he saw one of his friends go and get a ball and was electrocuted [on a fence] and died. 

“He said that was a pivotal moment in his life. He decided he needed to live his life with as much positivity.” 

Professor Mei, who lived with his wife Monica in Golders Green, died of on January 8 in Bangkok while introducing Western doctors to the East.

Born in a small village in Taishan, Guangdong, in China in 1946, Professor Mei moved to London to study physics aged 16.

In 1972, he founded a health centre and bookshop in Eversholt Street. The business moved in 1982 to its place in Camden High Street, where it has grown into one of Europe premier establishments for integrated medicine. 

Acu Medic, the first integrative Chinese medicine clinic in this country, has treated more than 50,000 patients. 

Professor Mei is credited with revolutionising modern Chinese medicine through his invention of the world’s first disposable acupuncture needle and designing the first range of micro-processors for electro-acupuncture.

Together with Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, he established the Chinese Medical Institute and Register (CMIR) in 1994 and served as chairman of the Chinese Medical Council (CMC). 

He later worked on a steering group for the Department of Health, reporting on the regulation of Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbal medicine in this country. 

In an interview in the New Journal in 2005, he said: “The NHS and the CMC can work together. The only way to move forward is if Western safety standards are kept, but the Chinese expertise and philosophy must be maintained.”

Don said: “The amount that people’s perception of Chinese medicine has changed, and how the public demand has grown, is testament to his success. There has been a paradigm shift – people understand that Chinese medicine is not just an alternative. 

“So many Western doctors trained by us and him are moving forward with their own clinics and practices. He died quite young, but he felt like his life’s ambition had been achieved.”

Among his many poems, available online, is one about Hampstead Heath. It goes: “Time stood still on Hampstead Heath. This moment of pure magic. No tension. No stress.”

Don will be making a speech about his father at a special celebration of his life in the Acu Medic clinic on February 1.

The speech will be followed by a traditional Chinese lion dance, which aims to sweep away bad fortune and unpleasant things from previous year.