Traditional TCM Preparation Methods

01 · Historical Records

Tongjunge was founded in 1908 (the thirty-fourth year of the Guangxu era of the Qing dynasty).

02 · Core Techniques & Process

For a hundred years, successive generations of Tongjunge people have upheld the professional ethics of "benevolent heart and benevolent skill" and "all plants and trees spring to life", regulating the words and deeds of employees with the shop's ancient motto: "The gentleman holds himself in esteem, treading to the compass and following the square; excellence in his craft comes from diligence; he takes the rites as his pattern and stands in awe of their majesty." Its distinctive Chinese patent medicine production craft is passed down from master to apprentice: medicinal materials are carefully selected, processing follows the ancient methods, medicines are made according to the formulas, efficacy is pursued, the medicines are genuine and the prices fair, and business is conducted with integrity. From the initial small workshop with "a shop at the front gate and medicine-making at the back gate", it has gradually developed into a Chinese patent medicine production and trading enterprise with a complete range of categories — internal and external alike — now able to produce 12 dosage forms and 250 varieties. The people praise it as "the old brand Tongjunge, maker of finely prepared Chinese patent medicines". With the development of society, the traditional Chinese patent medicine production craft is being tested by the tide of the market economy. The consummate pharmaceutical skills transmitted in person and by word of mouth by veteran pharmacists and veteran medicine workers are disappearing; young pharmaceutical workers are all the more needed to study hard and to inherit and develop them.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Tongjunge was established in 1908 (the thirty-fourth year of the Guangxu era of the Qing dynasty) in Nan'an, Chongqing, at a time when Chongqing had not yet become a city; medicinal materials in the Nan'an area had to be shipped up and down the Yangtze, and the mountain city's humidity and frequent fog were best suited to the long-term storage of medicinal materials, so medicines entering Chongqing first came to rest there. Looking at the medicines along this route, one can also see the shadow of folk usage in Sichuan and Chongqing: pills and powders were equally valued, with pills especially prized, since a single pill could be carried about and taken over long periods, so the local old shops mostly made pills their signature. Over the past hundred years, Tongjunge grew from a small workshop with a shop at the front and medicine-making at the back into an enterprise that today can produce twelve dosage forms and two hundred fifty varieties, internal and external alike; within its gates it kept its own shop rules, while beyond them it collected formulas and medicines widely — beneath the trade name lie three generations of master-apprentice transmission. In the past, veteran pharmacists taught by word of mouth and personal demonstration; today, successors who graduated from China Pharmaceutical University and joined the factory have taken up the baton, writing the arts of pill-making — seed-pill formation, pan-pilling, and size grading — into standard procedures, so that in this river city of Nan'an a body of pill-making skill has been left that can be consulted and learned.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Yin Shurong (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1967, a native of Chongqing. A representative inheritor of the Tongjunge traditional pill-making craft, a project under the fifth national-level batch of the national intangible cultural heritage item "Traditional Preparation Methods of Chinese Medicine". A fifth-generation inheritor of the Tongjunge traditional pill-making craft. In 1990, he graduated from China Pharmaceutical University with a major in Chinese pharmacy, entered the Tongjunge Pharmaceutical Factory, and took veteran pharmacist Mao Jixi as his teacher, devoting himself to learning pharmaceutical skills. He has mastered the process technology of products of every dosage form, from national standards to actual enterprise production; he can skillfully apply technical means to control the intrinsic quality of products; he handles well the prescription ingredients of pill products and the physicochemical properties of the active components of each medicine; and he accurately grasps the seed-pill specification and quantity, the binder-to-powder ratio in pan-pilling, the grading specifications of the small and large flat sieves, and the specification of qualified wet pills. He has successively led the production technical management work for the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification of twelve dosage forms.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Yan Zhenghua 01-0208
• Zhang Boli 01-0209
• Yang Jukui 03-1442
• Li Yingjie 03-1443
• Liu Huiwu 04-1941
• Laosanshen 04-1942
• Yang Fuan 04-1943
• Xia Xiaozhong 04-1944
• Guo Yufeng 05-2930
• Li Yanyu 05-2931
• Gao Qiang 05-2932
• Ma Weidong 05-2933
• Liu Wenwei 05-2934
• Wang Yanming 05-2936
• Liu Baisheng 05-2937
• Yu Baitang 05-2938
• Liao Zhizhong 05-2939
• Ke Shuquan 05-2940
• Yin Shurong 05-2941
• Zhang Yuankun 05-2942
• Ma Xubin 05-2943
• Ma Xianghai
• Song Shidun
• Wang Feng
• Gu Wanxia
• Du Xinlei

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Traditional TCM Preparation Methods (Nanan, Chongqing) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Yin Shurong · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗