History & Exhibitions in Museum of Traditional Medicine    

On 15th March 2019, Museum of Traditional Medicine was opened, to commemorate the 44th Hoi An revolution day and the 20th anniversary of Hoi An Unesco world heritage site. It became the fifth government-owned museum in Hoi An.

The Museum of Traditional Medicine aims to remind about the traditional medicine of Vietnamese people and Chinese people in Hoi An. It has a collection of more than 200 artifacts, exhibited on two floors of an old house at 46 Nguyen Thai Hoc St. In Vietnam, traditional Chinese medicine is called ‘Thuoc Bac’, meaning ‘north medicine’ or ‘nothern herbology’, and traditional Vietnamese medicine is known as ‘Thuoc Nam’, meaning ‘south medicine’ or ‘southern herbology’. These practices have similarities and differences.

Back in history, in the 17th and 18th centuries, there were lots of medicine shops and consulting rooms opened along the main roads of Hoi An. Duc An Old House and Diep Dong Nguyen House are two of them. Many good doctors from elsewhere in Vietnam and China, also came to the town to have their own business, to cure locals and foreigners (merchants, seafarers, missionaries, etc). However, because of losing its role as center of commerce and introduction of western medicine in the 19th-20th centuries, there were fewer and fewer medicine shops that still survive in Hoi An. Nowadays, a very small number of places and people continue traditional medicine.

The ground floor of Hoi An’s Museum of Traditional Medicine is designed to be like a classic Chinese medicine shop. Visitors can see a doctor at work, and a big wooden cabinet behind him, with lots of cupboards, bottles, and vases. Each cupboard contains a different kind of medicine (total number can be up to 108). Next to where the doctor takes the medicine, guests can have a seat and drink tea, to wait for the next turn.

In some spaces, patients can see the doctor, to let him check pulses and diagnose what is happening to them. After that, he will give advice and write the prescription.

Around the courtyard inside the ground floor, it’s possible to see bamboo trays on which people sun dry medical plants and seeds. In the nearby room, there are medicine bags and photos showing different medical plants with their names in both Vietnamese and English. Much of them are grown in Vietnamese gardens or easily bought at local markets.

On the second floor of Hoi An’s Museum of Traditional Medicine, visitors will learn about another medical practice, traditional Vietnamese medicine. Doctors from this practice use plants originating from Vietnam, to replace or mix with the ones imported from China.

In history, the ancestor of Vietnamese medicine was Tue Tinh (1330-1400), a Buddhist monk, physician and writer. He lost biological parents at age of 6, and was then adopted in a pagoda. When he was 22, he passed the imperial examination but didn’t choose to work for the government and became a monk instead. Tue Tinh used his time to grow different medical plants, collect knowledge about folk medicine, cure diseases, save people, and write books (such as the Miraculous Drugs from the South). He described more than 500 medicine tastes.

In 1835, due to his master of medicine, Tue Tinh was sent to China as a ‘living tributary present’ of the Vietnamese king. At that time, he was 55 years old. In Nanjing, he still continued researching and curing people, and was honored as the Great Doctor. He passed away and was buried in this city. In homeland Vietnam, temples were built to worship him, and lots of places are named after him. In Hoi An, Tue Tinh street is in Tan An ward.