Ng Che Hok: Pioneer Chinese Physician in El Paso (1858–unknown)
By: William V. Scott
Published: March 26, 2024
Updated: June 18, 2025
Ng Che Hok, Chinese physician and herbalist, was born in China in March 1858 and married in 1878, with no reference to a spouse’s name. Hok immigrated to the United States in 1879 and at some point moved to El Paso, Texas. When Hok advertised in the El Paso Daily Times in 1900, he used the title of “Graduate Chinese Physician,” referencing formal education and more than twenty years experience, and his advertisements credited him as the “most famous root and herb specialist of the age.”
Dr. Hok was recorded as married in the 1900 U. S. census, single in 1910, and married in the 1920 census, but no spouse was ever listed in the household, only lodgers. All records stated that Hok could read, write, and speak English. He was apparently a respected practitioner of naturopathic medicine for more than forty years, at least twenty-five or more in El Paso. He treated all diseases of men and women and used compounds based on Chinese herbalism and not surgical procedures. Hok often endorsed the use of a “Chinese Tonic” to cleanse the body systems and purify the blood. He guaranteed that his treatments could “cure Blood Poison, Lost Manhood, Skin Diseases, Dropsy, Hernia, Gonorrhea, Scrofula, Paralysis, Rheumatism, Diseases of the Brain, Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, Liver, Bladder and all Female Complaints.”
Hok, who offered free consultations, first advertised in local newspapers in April 1900, and his ads continued into the 1920s. The ads ran in the El Paso Daily Herald, El Paso International Daily Times, and El Paso Morning Times. Dr. Hok’s newspaper advertisement in the June 27, 1900, edition of the El Paso International Daily Times, for example, detailed that his office at 105 Myrtle Avenue was open eleven hours daily and six hours on Sunday. The ad continued with testimonials from three American patients, citing Hok as a last resort, with favorable reports for indigestion, paralysis, rheumatism, and quick consumption. Henry Hackney, a watchman for the El Paso Foundry & Machinery Company, gave his testimony of Dr. Hok: “After having been advised by very prominent physicians that I could NOT be cured, one calling my complaint Paralysis, Rheumatism and what not, am not prepared to say. However, the course of treatment which you gave me has not only given me long sought relief, but I believe a cure has been effected….”
Hok also guaranteed cures for cancer, coughs, colds, and consumption. In August 1908 Ng Che Hok, Anna Reum, Ira W. Collins, and Charles Reum were arrested for “unlawfully practicing medicine” for failing to register as a physician with the district court. All these defendants were released under $500 bond. In 1912 “Dr. Ng Che Hok, The Most Famous Root and Herb Specialist of the Age,” offered patients to be easily cured by “nature’s own remedies” compounded by him, instead of wasting time and money on “poisonous drugs and defective operations.” In February 1912 Hok lost $2,000 worth of medicines in a fire at the Normandie Hotel, where he officed in the building at 105 North Campbell Street. Hok’s twenty-nine-year-old guest, Ng Shun died in the fire from suffocation by smoke. Later in Hok’s career he operated the Che Hok Herb Company.
In 1920 Che Hok was listed in a member of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce. Chinese physician Che Hok was still listed in the 1922 El Paso City Directory, which listed his residence and business at 406 ½ East San Antonio in El Paso. Advertisements for the Che Hok Herb Company appeared as late as 1929 in the El Paso Times. The end of Hok's career is unknown as is any information related to his death.
Bibliography:
El Paso Herald, May 18, 1920. El Paso International Daily Times, June 27, 1900. El Paso Morning Times, February 21, 1912; August 31, 1912. El Paso Times, September 8, 1908; February 23, 1927; June 1, 1927; April 3, 1929. The Osteopathic Physician, September 1908.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
William V. Scott, “Hok, Ng Che,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hok-ng-che.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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- March 26, 2024
- June 18, 2025
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