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Traditional TCM Preparation Methods

Ⅸ-4Traditional MedicineTianjinBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill (Niuhuang Qingxin Wan) is a traditional precious ready-made Chinese medicine. It originates from the Song dynasty 'Formulary of the Pharmacy Service for Benefiting the People' (Taiping Huimin Heji Jufang); based on the 'Dioscorea Pill' (Shuyu Wan) in the 'Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet' (Jingui Yaolüe), it was formed by adding bezoar (niuhuang), musk (shexiang), borneol (bingpian), and antelope horn (lingyangjiao), among other medicinals, and has the effects of 'clearing heart fire, dispelling damp-heat, strengthening the spleen and benefiting the kidney, activating blood and resolving stasis, calming the spirit and stabilizing the mind, and preserving health and prolonging life.' Later, through modification by famous physicians of the Song dynasty, it became the 'Bezoar Heart-Clearing Round' (Niuhuang Qingxin Yuan), recorded in the 'Formulary of the Pharmacy Service for Benefiting the People,' becoming a time-honored and proven famous formula. Transmitted to the Qing dynasty, it was further adjusted by the Imperial Medical Academy (Taiyi Yuan), officially named the Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill, and became a court secret formula. In 1913, Mr. Yue Daren, founder of Darentang, printed the 'Darentang Medicine Catalogue,' listing the Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill at the head of the 'Ten Ace Products.' Beginning in 1917, Darentang successively opened 18 branch shops, selling more than a thousand kinds of medicines.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Darentang Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill preparation technique refers to the traditional knowledge and practice concerning this medicine. The 'Dioscorea Pill' was first recorded in Zhang Zhongjing's 'Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet'; it is used to treat 'all kinds of deficiency in consumptive disease, with wind pathogens causing a hundred ailments,' focusing on tonifying deficiency. The Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill performs excellently in safety and effectiveness and is highly reliable; it has become an essential good medicine for clearing the heart and calming the spirit and for preventing stroke. Darentang emerged from the 'Yue Family Old Shop,' which has a history of more than 300 years and had supplied medicine to the imperial court since the Yongzheng reign. Darentang abides by the Yue family's ancestral precepts, insisting on medicines with 'genuine goods and proven efficacy.' In the processing of medicinal materials, the addition of fine ingredients, the refining of honey, grinding techniques, and the mixing of medicinal powders, the Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill achieves ancient-formula secret preparation, authentic sourcing of raw materials, refinement of processing techniques, and self-discipline in compounding standards. Darentang's Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill follows ancient methods in both material selection and processing and throughout the preparation process, continuing to use the ancient formula to ensure medicinal efficacy. During preparation, cinnabar (zhusha) and realgar (xionghuang) are first separately ground into powder by the water-elutriation method, then sieved and mixed evenly; afterward, several medicinals such as bitter apricot seed (kuixingren) and medicated leaven (liushenqu) are one by one processed according to ancient methods and ground, then blended evenly with the evenly mixed fine medicinal powders above; the white honey is then refined to maturity in a pharmaceutical pot, the mixture is manually kneaded into a mass, and pills are made using manual rolling-board techniques. The transmission of the Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill preparation technique is accompanied by a distinctive theory of syndrome differentiation and treatment, and the ready-made medicine has remarkable efficacy. In modern and contemporary times, it continues to be promoted and spread among professionally trained personnel with higher education.

Levigating the mineral powders

Cinnabar and realgar are levigated separately to a fine powder, sieved and blended, a step that both refines and detoxifies the minerals.

Cooking and kneading with white honey

The blended powder is cooked to maturity in white honey in the pharmacy cauldron and then kneaded by hand without a break in the timing.

Rolling pills on the shaping board

The kneaded mass is rolled into pills by hand on a shaping board, the slope of the board and the hands deciding their roundness.

From the yam pill to the bezoar pill

The formula grew out of the yam pill of the Jin Gui Yao Lue, was revised into a bezoar pill in the Song formulary and renamed by the Qing imperial academy.

Heading the list of ten flagship remedies

The 1913 drug catalogue placed this pill first among ten flagship remedies, reflecting the family's rule of honest goods and real effect.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Darentang Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill preparation technique has Tianjin as its sole place of practice, and its distribution unfolded along the branch-shop network of the Yue Family Old Shop and Darentang: in 1913 Yue Daren published the 'Darentang Medicine Catalogue,' listing this formula at the head of the ten ace products, and from 1917 onward he successively opened 18 branch shops, selling more than a thousand kinds of medicines, carrying the technique into various parts of North China along with the shops. The process steps of water elutriation, kneading the mass, and using the rolling board demand almost exacting standards of equipment and feel; Tianjin's pharmaceutical workers carried it from the era of court medicine into the era of modern commercial shops, and today it is promoted and spread among professionally trained personnel with higher education, its survival no longer depending on family secrecy.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Darentang has inherited and carried forward the processing techniques secretly prepared and passed down within the Yue family's old pharmacy for more than 300 years, always adhering to the traditional transmission model of masters leading apprentices and teaching by word and example. The Bezoar Heart-Clearing Pill preparation technique is a witness to Darentang's century-long history of transmission; it carries forward China's millennia-old honey-pill preparation technique, benefits the inheritance and development of Chinese medicine and the meeting of clinical medication needs, and also embodies and promotes the ideas, values, and orientation of China's outstanding traditional culture.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Traditional TCM Preparation Methods (Tianjin) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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