The museum houses over 3,000 pieces of collection, among which include a statue of Shennong (a legendary ruler of ancient China who introduced agriculture and herbal medicine) in Ming Dynasty mottled color camouflages on rusty iron hooks, statue of the medical king on an old-style medicine-chest, and wooden medicine boxes on counters.

One can envision the bustling business of the drugstore with its golden and silver medical utensils, old account books as well as rare herbal medicines like fossil fragments with inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty arranged as they were in the past.

From the "nine needles" and stone needles in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty when the Classic of Internal Medicine was compiled, to the big black vat for producing medicine, you can trace Chinese medical science back to ancient times. The fossil fragments with inscribed characters of the Shang Dynasty, bamboo slips of the Han Dynasty, the prescriptions for Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, and herbal samples with a history of more than 100 years, indicate the countless ties between the Chinese herbal medicine and the traditional culture. The vicissitudes of the drugstore and the 6000-year-old history of ancient Chinese medicine have been reflected through these collections.

Further Information:

Address: No.69, Fengtai South Road, Sihe Manor, Beijing

Bus Route: Bus No.351,353,747,804 to the stop of Fengtai South Road.

Opening Hours: 9:00-16:00

Nearby Restaurants: Fenghexuan, Junzige Restaurant,Yufulin Restaurant

Admission Fee: 20 Yuan; 10 Yuan for students

Tel: 8610-63712176

(China.org.cn August 25, 2005)