Huo Yuanjia (Chinese: 霍元甲; pinyin: Huò Yuánjiǎ) [Cantonese: Fok Yuen Gap] (c.1868-1910) was a Chinese martial artist and co-founder of the Chin Woo Athletic Association, a martial arts school in Shanghai. A practitioner of the martial art Mízōngyì, he is considered a hero in China for challenging foreign fighters in highly publicized matches at a time when Chinese sovereignty was being eroded by foreign concessions and spheres of influence. Due to his heroic status, legends and myths about events in his life are difficult to discern from the facts.
Huo Yuanjia died on August 9, 1910 at 42 years of age from arsenic poisoning. Some accuse the Japanese of being responsible while others speculate that the European colonists may have been responsible.[citation needed]
In 1989, the tomb of Huo Yuanjia and his wife was relocated. Black spots were discovered in the pelvic bones, in which Tianjin Municipality Police Laboratory confirmed that they contained arsenic.[citation needed] Consequently, it is difficult to ascertain whether his death was caused by malicious poisoning or wrong prescription of medicine. This was because arsenic trioxide has been used therapeutically for approximately 2,400 years as a part of Chinese medicine.
Historian Chen Gongzhe, who was also one of Huo's students, believed that the cause of his teacher's death was hemoptysis disease. Chen wrote that as Huo Yuanjia was introduced to a Japanese doctor by the Judo instructor as his health declined. The doctor prescribed some medicine for his condition, but Huo Yuanjia's health continued to deteriorate. Huo was admitted to Shanghai Red Cross Hospital where he died two weeks later. Although Chen Gongzhe did not mention that the medicine prescribed by the Japanese doctor contained arsenic or any other poison, some leaders of the Chin Woo Athletic Association speculate that Huo was poisoned around the time of his death.
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