Top Secret Chinese Medicine - Yunnan Baiyao

It is a lifesaving Chinese medicine for soldiers on the battlefield in the modern history of China. We call it the best effective medicine "Qu Huan Zhang Wan Ying Bai Bao Dan - 曲焕章万应百宝丹", later people call it "Yunnan Baiyao - 云南白药".

 

It has more than 100 years of history since its creation. Thanks to its miraculous curative effect, it has sold well at home and abroad, and its prescription is still the top-secret of economic intellectual property in China. Yunnan Baiyao, around its founder -- Qu Huan Zhang, launched an intricate story, also created an unprecedented Baiyao empire.

 

 

What is Yunnan Baiyao exactly? It was successfully developed in 1902 by Qu Huan-zhang, a folk doctor in Yunnan province, China. The original medicine name was "Qu Huan-Zhang Baibao Dan – 曲焕章百宝丹". It is a patent medicine made from highland plants and precious herbs in Yunnan province. It can remove blood stasis, stopping bleeding and relieving pain, detoxifying and detaching swelling. It has been known as "The Treasure of China and The Holy Medicine of Traumatology" for its unique and magical efficacy and has become famous at home and abroad.

 

 

Nowadays when we talk about "Yunnan Baiyao", the first thing comes to mind is the Baiyao spray for treating sprain and the commonly used Baiyao toothpaste, which are actually a derivative of Yunnan Baiyao.

 

But in the past or during the war period, what we called Yunnan Baiyao was a gray-yellow to brownish-yellow powder with a specific aroma, a slightly cool taste, and a tongue-tingling sensation. Each bottle with a mall red pill called the “Bao Xian Zi – 保险子. The section of Bao Xian Zi shows tan, taste a little bitter, can be used for the treatment of injury, blood stasis, swelling pain, vomiting blood, hemoptysis, surgical bleeding, and soft tissue contusion, closed fracture, bronchiectasis, and tuberculosis hemoptysis, ulcer disease bleeding, and skin infectious diseases. Of course, pharmacy still sold the traditional powder Yunnan Baiyao.

 

 

In 1937, Japan launched an all-out war of aggression against China, Qu Huan-zhang gave the Yunnan armies "Qu Huan-zhang Wan Ying Baibao Dan" (former Yunnan Baiyao) and manual one bottle per person. The witnesses said: after sprinkled a little Baiyao and bind up the wound, it will healing in two days. Almost everyone regarded Baiyao as the treasure of life during the war period. Through a series of operations, Qu Huan-zhang's Wan Ying Baibao Dan reached its rapid development period. Horses carried loads of Yunnan Baiyao across the country, and the production reached a record 400,000 bottles for the war of resistance.

 

After that, he invested another 100,000 local currency to build Qu Huanzhang's Pharmacy in Jinbi road (nearby Jinma Biji archway), Kunming city. Qu Huanzhang's Yunnan Baiyao empire gradually began to shape, he handled a variety of drugs to the pharmacy as the center then sell everywhere, formed a considerable scale of distribution network. In order to make Baibao Dan sales more convenient and quick, Qu also set up distribution stores and outlets in some big cities at home and abroad. At the age of 58, Qu reached the pinnacle of his medical career.

Unfortunately, in August 1938, two months after Qu Huanzhang was invited to Chongqing, the news suddenly came, Qu Huanzhang died of illness. According to the rumors at that time, after he arrived in Chongqing, the chairman of the national medical center at that time asked him to work in the national medical center, but at the same time, Qu was required to hand over the prescription of Baibao Dan but Qu refused so he was put under house arrest, and eventually died of hunger.

 

 

Some people said it worthless to lose a life just because of a so-called secret prescription. I think we cannot judge whether worth it or not because we are not living at that time and we are not the person.

In 1955, Qu's wife Miao Lanying presented the Baibao Dan prescription to the central government of the People's Republic of China, and it has been kept in top-secret by the ministry of health ever since. After that, some books and magazines have shown the formulation of Yunnan Baiyao, but the producers claimed that "none of them is correct".

 

In 1956, the Kunming pharmaceutical factory formally received the Prescription of Baibaodan by Miao Lanying and renamed it "Yunnan Baiyao", then put it into mass production. Classified as the country's highest level of secrecy, the Yunnan Bai Yao is strictly protected until now. On June 1, 1971, the Yunnan Baiyao factory was formally built and put into operation. Since then, the annual output of Yunnan Baiyao reached about 10 million bottles and entered the modernization stage. Now its products from traditional medicine to daily necessities, from facial masks to feminine products.

 

In the early 1990s, a woman who worked in a Yunnan Baiyao pharmaceutical factory meets a 20 years old foreign student. After a brief contact, they fell in love and want abroad to get married. But the woman was likely to have access to the country's top-secret - Yunnan Baiyao prescription. After investigation, the authorities finally refused her request to go abroad. A few years later, through other channels, we finally found out the true identity of the student -- an economic spy. Yunnan Baiyao once again passed a bullet.

 

 

Since Baiyao's birth, it has been widely read for its magical effects and legends, founders experience also added its mystery. Like the enigmatic and ancient Yunnan province of China, it appeals people from all over the world with its unique scenic view, colorful minority culture, abundant plants and animal causes.

 

 

After the coronavirus, we sincerely invite you to here enjoy Yunnan’s nice view.