청대 의약시장의 상업화와 ‘매약’

In the Ming- Qing cities in China, once doctors had examined and given prescriptions to patients, the patients went to the pharmacy to select and buy pre-made medicines. This kind of separation between the prescription and distribution of pharmaceuticals gradually settled during the Ming-Qing China. Since then, the public’s dependence on drugs has increased significantly. Hence, the pharmacy and medicine played important roles in the medical environment of the Ming-Qing Society. After the 18th and 19th centuries, merchants professionally carried medicinal herbs and sold patent drugs. The drugstore, run by merchants, manufactured drugs related to various diseases in daily life and tried to satisfy the societal demand for medicines at that time. While infectious diseases were prevalent and war was frequent in the late Qing society, the types of drugs related to infectious disease or surgical treatment were incorporated accordingly. In the Qing society, drugs were not only aimed at treating diseases, but also a kind of product, and drugstores used various methods to advertise products called drugs. Pharmacists emphasized that their patent medicines always used proven superb medicinal herbs and were manufactured according to rules based on reliable traditional methods. They also used means such as pamphlets and posters. Although newspapers became a new advertising means after the arrival of modern media, but traditional advertisement methods, such as traditional prescriptions and the use of provincial medicinal herbs, were still persuasive. Trust in patent drugs and traditional advertising elements seems to have continued for a considerable amount of time and to have still been influential in the late Qing’s society.