Zenas Sanford Loftis (11 May 1881 - 12 August 1909) was an American physician who worked briefly as a medical missionary in Batang, a largely Tibetan town in Sichuan Province of West China.

[2][3] Albert Shelton, the head of the Batang mission, wrote that Loftis "was a man who loved all the beauties of nature and was able to see God on every hand."

[4] Upon arrival in June 1909, Loftis accepted the responsibility of the mission's dispensary until his death two months later from typhus fever and smallpox.

[11] Loftis's calling to the life of a medical missionary came about in St. Louis while performing slum mission work and teaching Chinese Sunday-school.

[12] In response to this calling, Loftis moved to Nashville, Tennessee to earn a medical degree within Vanderbilt University's Department of Medicine.

[14][15] Loftis's route from the United States to Tibet required that he make stops at San Francisco, Honolulu, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai, and Nanjing.

[18] As he traveled through China and eastern Tibet, Loftis recorded his observations of the cultural landscape, providing context to many of the customs and historical landmarks that he encountered.

On the way to Nanjing, he described the "thousands of graves" that covered the fields and detailed the cultural and historical context behind the "great stone statues" that lay along the road that he traveled.

[19] Along the Yangtze River, Loftis observed an "artificial cave" home to an ancient "aboriginal race" and entered one of them, concluding that they were "the first dwellings" of Tibetan ancestors.

"[30] Along the Yalong River, he described an inn which had "cracks in the walls" that were "filled with their eggs and larva" in addition to the presence of "bedbugs, fleas, and lice.

[35] While traveling up the Yangtze River, he diagnosed and remedied a case of malaria, allowing him the opportunity to "make a demonstration of the power of foreign medicine.

[40] Loftis treated patients around the area in whatever capacity was needed including attending to dislocations, opium overdose, tuberculosis, skin lacerations, pediatrics, and smallpox.

[46] Unable to obtain a vaccine, Shelton isolated himself with his colleague until Loftis perished at the age of 28 at four o' clock one afternoon.

In 1932, the missionaries abandoned Batang due to tensions and violence between Tibet and China, a lack of funds, and internal dissention in the mission.

[12] When Loftis reached Sanba en route to the Batang mission, he came across the grave of the Christian Missionary William Soutter.