Medical advice that will have you in stitches

Cartoon books Doctor Panda and Er Shixiong: Cartoons on Medicine and Health 1-3 are very popular among readers. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Miao Zhongrong says he will never forget the day when he and He Yizhou posted their first cartoon story on WeChat.

It was March 17, and since then they have posted more than 100 cartoon stories. Their WeChat account has become one of most popular among those who aim to promote learning about health and medicine.

It was Zhou Ning, an editor with People's Medical Publishing House, who brought the doctors together and suggested they publish cartoon books to disseminate medical information.

"The writer is a top medical expert who can explain complicated medical knowledge in interesting and simple words, and the illustrator has a doctorate in medicine and has been drawing cartoons for more than 15 years," Zhou says.

"They work so well together in making the books suitable for people of all ages."

In June the publishing house, China's most influential in the medical field, published three cartoon books. Each comprises about seven cartoon stories on the WeChat account each week.

Fifteen thousand copies of each of the three books, titled Doctor Panda and Er Shixiong: Cartoons on Medicine and Health 1-3, have been printed.

"Many diseases and tragedies are preventable if patients know how to prevent them," Zhou says.

"But most health books often cover just one particular disease, and the books are very long and difficult to understand. Healthy people don't read these kinds of books."

Comics are an ideal solution, she says.