Finding old wisdom in new container

CHENGDU - When Yuan Wenqi, a salesman in the city, went to the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor on Friday to have his cold treated, he was expecting to be given packs of herbs. Instead he was given a plastic container of medicine and was told to drink it like instant coffee.

"I'm leaving home tomorrow for a trip in Guangzhou," Yuan said. "It will save the trouble of boiling up the herbs for hours when I'm traveling. I was told the effectiveness of the new way of TCM equals the old."

The science-fiction like machine that produces the new prescribed granules can be found at the Smart TCM Dispensary in Chengdu No 1 People's Hospital, where it has been in use for about a month.

Pharmacists and dispensers there have found that the new medicine appeals to urban people living at a fast pace and foreigners who don't know how to prepare TCM medicines.

"I got the medicine soon after I arrived at the dispensary," Yuan said.

The moment Yuan's doctor, Liao Zhili, prescribed the medicine, Liao's computer sent the prescription to the smart dispensary, where plastic bottles containing the prescribed TCM are stored.

Gong Li, a young pharmacist, took out the bottles, opening and putting them upside-down on a notch on a machine. After she scanned the barcode on each bottle, the bottle automatically released the prescribed amount of TCM into a plastic bowl, which is separated into six parts, each containing one dose of TCM.

"A dose consists of three drinks a day. The patient can cut open a part, pour out the granules of TCM into a cup and mix them with 100 milliliters of boiling water, then drink it," Gong said.

Yuan paid 51 yuan ($8) for the two doses.

"The 320 types of TCM prescribed through the machine have been specially treated and are in the shape of granules. They have every effective element extracted from medicinal herbs," Liu Huiru, chief of the hospital's dispensary department, said.

Although the cost is 30 to 40 percent higher than regular herbs, the new medicine is popular among students and businesspeople, Liu added.

Qiu Ling, a specialist in the hospital's department of pain treatment, said the prescribed granules help prevent people from preparing it the wrong way, which would reduce its effectiveness.

"Many patients often do not know how to control heat correctly when preparing the medicine," Qiu said.

The smart TCM dispensary is a revolutionary development in TCM's modernization and globalization, said Wei Wei, director of TCM technology and exchange center under the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

"We've noticed that TCM is being recognized and applied in more countries, and extended from the overseas Chinese into other groups," Wei said, adding that he can imagine the new device being accepted in foreign countries quite easily.

Working in Beijing's Guanganmen Hospital, where four such devices are being used, a pharmacist surnamed Li said that the medicine is increasingly popular among foreign patients who come to the hospital.

"Unlike the TCM infusions, the medicine is made purely from extracted herbs, without any added ingredients," Li said. "And they're prescribed individually, which maintains the basic principle of TCM that medicine is prescribed to cater to individual cases," she said.

The device's producer, Neo-green Pharmaceutical, based in Sichuan, said it has been promoting the Smart Dispensary without charge in hospitals in nine provinces.