Who is the best known contemporary Vietnamese doctor in traditional medicine?
Pharmacist Đỗ Tất Lợi
Following Việt Nam's Declaration of Independence in 1945, the public talked about a newspaper article suggesting the overhaul of Vietnamese medicine as part of Việt Nam's reconstruction. The writer, who advocated training medical doctors and pharmacists in both Western and Vietnamese medicine, was pharmacist Đỗ Tất Lợi, then only 27 years old.
Even though ordinary people had been treating themselves with plants from gardens and forests for thousands of years, the ruling class before August 1945 did not promote traditional Vietnamese medicine. Chinese medicine had been the standard during the thousand years of Chinese rule between the first and 10th centuries and the subsequent reign of Vietnamese dynasties up through the 19th century. Knowledge of traditional Vietnamese medicine was in danger of disappearing.
The situation grew worse during French domination from the late 19th century until the August Revolution of 1945. The French promoted only Western medicine at the express of both Chinese and Vietnamese practice. The College of Medicine and Pharmacy taught only Western French names of medicinal plants, even though some of those very plants also grow in Việt Nam. Thus, remedies such as corn silk, pomegranate skin, tea, wormwood, and mã tiền were imported from France and considered Western medicine, even though they were widely used in Việt Nam's countryside. Several local ingredients were exported to France and package there to be imported back into Việt Nam. Because the French insisted on teaching only Western medicine, Vietnamese pharmacists knew only Strychnos nux vomica Linn and were unaware of its local existence as mã tiền.
In 1946, when the First Indochina War broke out, Đỗ Tất Lợi joined the patriotic army in the Việt Bắc Resistance Zone. Despite the difficult conditions, his passion for Vietnamese medicine remained strong. He talked traditional Tày and Mường healers about their remedies, visited local markets, and made friends with sellers of medicinal herbs. He took notes of their accounts of plants and trees and their medical uses.
From this careful study, Đỗ Tất Lợi prepared effective medicines from the herbs and plants villagers used to treat themselves. He made use of the properties of guava buds, eucalyptus oil, datura leaves, orixa japonica, and tangerine for the Resistance forces, who had no access to imported Western drugs. In 1948, while still in the Resistance Zone, Đỗ Tất Lợi extracted chlorophyll from the leaves of bamboo and wild jujube (ziziphus jujuba) to make medicine for ulcers and wounds. Chlorophyll was then the most effective antibiotic known in Việt Nam. He also extracted strychnine, an alkaloid for facilitating digestion, from the seeds of mã tiền plants in Bắc Cạn Province, even though French publications stated that mã tiền did not grow in northern Việt Nam.
Đỗ Tất Lợi discovered mã tiền through a series of fortunate accidents. He had heard that President Hồ Chí Minh advised his staff to collect the vine, leaves, and roots of a plant called mã lìn ón, dry them in the sun, and keep the dried herbs as a medicament. Đỗ Tất Lợi asked an old man of the Tày ethnic minority about this plant.
Mã lìn ón is mã liên an, which means "the saddled horse," the old man said.
Legend has it that a general rode his horse through a forest. Unexpectedly, he fell seriously ill. A traditional healer cured the general with a medicine made from a plant the local people called mã liên an. The general thanked the healer by giving him his horse and saddle. And so the plant is called "the saddle horse". Over time he word "mã liên an" was mispronounced as "mã lìn ón".
Đỗ Tất Lợi was determined to find the mã lìn ón, but whenever he asked, he heard the same answer: "I've never heard of it. There's no such plant."
His luck changed, though, when an old woman said, "I've never seen the mã lìn ón, but I know a plant called "mã tiền"". She could see Lợi was eager to know more. "If a dog eats this plant", she continued, "it will die, but if a horse eats the same plant, it will gain weight"
The old woman took Lợi to the forest and showed him a vine with button-sized seeds. Here was Strychnos nux vomica Linn, which Lợi had seen in the collection of dry plant specimens at college. The mã tiền seed is poisonous but can stimulate digestion. Thus, a horse may gain weight. If a dogs dies after eating the plant, Lợi reasoned, it may be that the dosage is too high. Lợi had found the plant the French assumed did not exist in northern Việt Nam.
Instead of mã lìn ón, Lợi had found mã tiền. He continued his search for mã lìn ón and later found it in other provinces of northern Việt Nam.
Throughout his life, Lợi has researched one pharmaceutical topic after another. During the French War, he published four important research works. Since the end of the French War in 1954, he has published more than 200 research studies. Among his major works are the three volumes of Pharmacology and Vietnamese Medicinal Remedies (600 pages) and the six volumes of Vietnamese Medicinal Plants and Remedies (2.000 pages). This is a colossal achivement by any standard. International scientists have recognised Lợi's work and have translated many of his publications into Russian, German, French, and Romanian.
A group of foreign scientists assessed Đỗ Tất Lợi's role in studying Vietnamese medical plants: "Đỗ Tất Lợi is one of the best scientists of modern medicine. He has built the bridge between conventional medicine and one of the greatest medicines in Asia, Vietnamese medicine"
Following Việt Nam's Declaration of Independence in 1945, the public talked about a newspaper article suggesting the overhaul of Vietnamese medicine as part of Việt Nam's reconstruction. The writer, who advocated training medical doctors and pharmacists in both Western and Vietnamese medicine, was pharmacist Đỗ Tất Lợi, then only 27 years old.
Even though ordinary people had been treating themselves with plants from gardens and forests for thousands of years, the ruling class before August 1945 did not promote traditional Vietnamese medicine. Chinese medicine had been the standard during the thousand years of Chinese rule between the first and 10th centuries and the subsequent reign of Vietnamese dynasties up through the 19th century. Knowledge of traditional Vietnamese medicine was in danger of disappearing.
The situation grew worse during French domination from the late 19th century until the August Revolution of 1945. The French promoted only Western medicine at the express of both Chinese and Vietnamese practice. The College of Medicine and Pharmacy taught only Western French names of medicinal plants, even though some of those very plants also grow in Việt Nam. Thus, remedies such as corn silk, pomegranate skin, tea, wormwood, and mã tiền were imported from France and considered Western medicine, even though they were widely used in Việt Nam's countryside. Several local ingredients were exported to France and package there to be imported back into Việt Nam. Because the French insisted on teaching only Western medicine, Vietnamese pharmacists knew only Strychnos nux vomica Linn and were unaware of its local existence as mã tiền.
In 1946, when the First Indochina War broke out, Đỗ Tất Lợi joined the patriotic army in the Việt Bắc Resistance Zone. Despite the difficult conditions, his passion for Vietnamese medicine remained strong. He talked traditional Tày and Mường healers about their remedies, visited local markets, and made friends with sellers of medicinal herbs. He took notes of their accounts of plants and trees and their medical uses.
From this careful study, Đỗ Tất Lợi prepared effective medicines from the herbs and plants villagers used to treat themselves. He made use of the properties of guava buds, eucalyptus oil, datura leaves, orixa japonica, and tangerine for the Resistance forces, who had no access to imported Western drugs. In 1948, while still in the Resistance Zone, Đỗ Tất Lợi extracted chlorophyll from the leaves of bamboo and wild jujube (ziziphus jujuba) to make medicine for ulcers and wounds. Chlorophyll was then the most effective antibiotic known in Việt Nam. He also extracted strychnine, an alkaloid for facilitating digestion, from the seeds of mã tiền plants in Bắc Cạn Province, even though French publications stated that mã tiền did not grow in northern Việt Nam.
Đỗ Tất Lợi discovered mã tiền through a series of fortunate accidents. He had heard that President Hồ Chí Minh advised his staff to collect the vine, leaves, and roots of a plant called mã lìn ón, dry them in the sun, and keep the dried herbs as a medicament. Đỗ Tất Lợi asked an old man of the Tày ethnic minority about this plant.
Mã lìn ón is mã liên an, which means "the saddled horse," the old man said.
Legend has it that a general rode his horse through a forest. Unexpectedly, he fell seriously ill. A traditional healer cured the general with a medicine made from a plant the local people called mã liên an. The general thanked the healer by giving him his horse and saddle. And so the plant is called "the saddle horse". Over time he word "mã liên an" was mispronounced as "mã lìn ón".
Đỗ Tất Lợi was determined to find the mã lìn ón, but whenever he asked, he heard the same answer: "I've never heard of it. There's no such plant."
His luck changed, though, when an old woman said, "I've never seen the mã lìn ón, but I know a plant called "mã tiền"". She could see Lợi was eager to know more. "If a dog eats this plant", she continued, "it will die, but if a horse eats the same plant, it will gain weight"
The old woman took Lợi to the forest and showed him a vine with button-sized seeds. Here was Strychnos nux vomica Linn, which Lợi had seen in the collection of dry plant specimens at college. The mã tiền seed is poisonous but can stimulate digestion. Thus, a horse may gain weight. If a dogs dies after eating the plant, Lợi reasoned, it may be that the dosage is too high. Lợi had found the plant the French assumed did not exist in northern Việt Nam.
Instead of mã lìn ón, Lợi had found mã tiền. He continued his search for mã lìn ón and later found it in other provinces of northern Việt Nam.
Throughout his life, Lợi has researched one pharmaceutical topic after another. During the French War, he published four important research works. Since the end of the French War in 1954, he has published more than 200 research studies. Among his major works are the three volumes of Pharmacology and Vietnamese Medicinal Remedies (600 pages) and the six volumes of Vietnamese Medicinal Plants and Remedies (2.000 pages). This is a colossal achivement by any standard. International scientists have recognised Lợi's work and have translated many of his publications into Russian, German, French, and Romanian.
A group of foreign scientists assessed Đỗ Tất Lợi's role in studying Vietnamese medical plants: "Đỗ Tất Lợi is one of the best scientists of modern medicine. He has built the bridge between conventional medicine and one of the greatest medicines in Asia, Vietnamese medicine"
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