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Traditional TCM Preparation Methods

Ⅸ-4Traditional MedicineZunyishihuichuan, GuizhouBatch 2 (2008)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Liao Yaoyin, the founder of the Liao family's Huafeng Dan, drawing on the rich medicinal resources of the Dalou Mountains in Guizhou and the convenient transport of the ancient town of Banqiao, inherited the family profession of practicing medicine to aid the world, and in the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty (1644) developed 'Huafeng Dan' (Wind-Transforming Elixir), which has the functions of subduing wind and unblocking the collaterals, calming fright and expelling phlegm, and opening the orifices and rousing the mind. In 1710, the Liao family formally named this medicine 'Liao Yuanhe Tang Huafeng Dan.'

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Traditional Chinese medicine preparation refers mainly to pills, powders, ointments, and elixirs (dan); in addition, there are wine preparations, lozenges (dingji), gelatins (jiaoji), and so on. Each dosage form has its own set of traditional preparation techniques, and in combination with certain products there are also some special methods of production. With the development of the times, the production of ready-made Chinese medicines (patent medicines) has undergone many reforms and innovations, greatly raising production efficiency; yet traditional preparation methods have not all been eliminated, and some of them remain the best choice in the production of patent medicines — especially famous-brand patent medicines, patent medicines with secret formulas, and patent medicines containing precious and rare medicinal ingredients, which are often still produced by traditional preparation methods in time-honored brand enterprises. Traditional Chinese medicine preparation methods retain certain features of ancient workshop production: materials are selected with precision, ingredients are fed in an orderly sequence, and the techniques are distinctive; the packaging and instruction slips are imbued with a traditional cultural atmosphere, and are deeply trusted by physicians and patients. In its process, the technique borrows from the fermentation and cellaring process of white liquor: the core drugs are processed into the 'medicine mother' (yaomu); the other fifteen medicinal materials are processed by different methods and then ground together with the medicine mother into powder, which is made into pills; a mixture of cinnabar water and ground musk is then applied evenly to the surface of the pills, and after it adheres the pills are dried, completing the process. Huafeng Dan is a vermilion-red pill; its cross-section is yellow-brown, and its taste is pungent. It has specific efficacy against the miasma of the four seasons, hemiplegia from wind-stroke, convulsions from high fever in children, epilepsy, and facial paralysis. Because its efficacy is definite, its reputation rose rapidly by the second and third generations of transmission, and it spread widely through Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, being praised as the 'sacred medicine indispensable for home and travel.' The production process of Huafeng Dan is an original creation in Chinese pharmaceutical production: its distinctive formula combination and its multiple types of drug-processing methods have scientific research value for pharmaceutical science; its philosophy of pharmaceutical production and its quality philosophy — treating disease by syndrome differentiation on the basis of pharmacology conforming to pathology — have considerable academic value; and in the course of the transmission of Huafeng Dan, it has upheld the medical principle of 'saving people regardless of wealth or poverty, giving medicine without distinction of high or low rank,' reflecting the lofty humanistic value of Huafeng Dan.

Cellaring the fermented mother drug

The core drugs are turned into a mother by the cellar method borrowed from liquor; length and temperature of the cellar are the least teachable part of the Liao family method.

Multiple processing methods in one formula

Fifteen herbs are treated by wine, frying, calcining and roasting according to their natures, then ground with the mother; several processing methods coexist in one old formula, which is the family's own invention.

The vermilion-and-musk coat

Vermilion water and musk are ground together, brushed evenly over the pill and dried; this step is both a process and the mark by which the drug is known to the people who use it.

The naming of Liao Yuanhe Tang

In 1710 the Liao family formally named the medicine; shop and remedy share a name, and thereafter every sale and consignment around Banqiao and Zheng'an used that name as its warrant.

Medicine given without regard to rank

The family's rule was to heal regardless of wealth and to dispense medicine without distinction of rank, which made Huofeng Dan in the northern Guizhou mountains a remedy the poor could actually afford.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In Zunyi, this medicine does not belong to a single family. Huichuan District and Honghuagang District both lie in the mountainous medicinal-material belt of northern Guizhou; the two places are not far apart, and the sources for gathering herbs, collecting musk, and collecting cinnabar were originally interconnected. The Liao family's Huafeng Dan production technique has therefore spread outward from Huichuan District as its center within the city's territory; along the way, many small workshops in the villages undertake the rolling and coating of the pills, and dedicated stalls are often set up along the roads on market days. This medicine also travels outward along the mountain roads of the southwest: eastward onto the Hunan-Guizhou thoroughfare, westward to eastern Yunnan, southward to Guangdong and Guangxi, and northward to southern Sichuan — wherever the mountains are high and the roads perilous and the miasma damp and hot, this is its field of use. In the early Qing, the Liao family began producing medicine under a firm name starting from Banqiao, and by 1710 the formal name was fixed, with the family rules of pharmaceutical production, the routes for gathering medicinal materials, and the rules of medical practice all established together. Today Zunyi still has several pharmaceutical enterprises and inheritors guarding this old method, connecting the traditional skills of refining medicine, watching the fire, and applying the coating to the modern quality system.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In the context of global economic integration, Huafeng Dan has continued the legacy of this remarkable and famous Liao family medicine through measures such as establishing databases and setting up training systems for inheritors; even so, to resist alone the overall decline of traditional Chinese medicine, these efforts are far from enough, and protection by the state is urgently needed.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Traditional TCM Preparation Methods (Zunyishihuichuan, Guizhou) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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