Research
Articles
Yao, Wuyutong. “Making Modern Pharmaceuticals and Localizing Pharmacy Sciences in Sichuan, 1932–1945.” Twentieth-Century China 50, no. 3 (2025): 250–74.
Abstract
This article examines the localization of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences in Republican China, particularly during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). At the Department of Pharmacy at West China Union University in Sichuan, Chinese and missionary scientists collaborated to adapt scientific pharmacological methods for the study of local medicinal materials. Rather than representing simple knowledge transfer, this work embodied a complex localization process characterized by epistemic parallels, in which multiple systems of pharmaceutical knowledge coexisted and informed each other. Western-trained Chinese scientists adapted scientific methods to study Chinese medicinal ingredients while simultaneously leveraging these materials’ physical presence and local origins to align their work with wartime nationalism. This dual process created a distinctive Chinese scientific pharmacy that merged modern scientific methods with the cultural and political significance of indigenous medicinal materials. This article contributes to our understanding of knowledge transfer and scientific development in non-Western contexts during periods of national crisis.
Yao, Wuyutong. “Collecting Knowledge about Medicinal Ingredients in Northwestern Sichuan in the 1950s.” Chinese Medicine and Culture 6, no. 1 (March 2023): 88–99.
Abstract
This article explores China’s state-level knowledge production on medicinal ingredients in northwestern Sichuan in the 1950s. Drawing on county-level archives, published materials and interviews, this historical article traces how different levels of governments and state-owned trading companies produced knowledge about medicinal ingredients and its production. It argues that on one hand the state’s procurement standards codified the knowledge about medicinal ingredients from the marketplace and the local producers. On the other hand, direct extraction of knowledge from the medicine gatherers and cultivators verbalized and collected the previously tacit local knowledge about the production of medicinal ingredients, which would help to alleviate the shortage in the supply of traditional Chinese medicines throughout the 1950s.
Book Reviews
Review of The Global Circulation of Chinese Materia Medica, 1700–1949: A Microhistory of the Caterpillar Fungus, by Lu Di. Asian Medicine 20 (2025): 159–161.
“Wu Liande Xinlun: Nanyang Zhishi Fenzi Yu Jinxiandai Zhongguo Yiwei 伍連德新論: 南洋知識分子與近現代中國醫衛, Written by Wong Sin Kiong 黃賢強.” China and Asia 5, no. 2 (January 24, 2024): 257–60.
Public Writing
“凍飲加3蚊，點解？ 從百年前官司看製冰技術的重量” (“Why Does an Iced Drink Cost 3 More Dollars? Understanding the Weight of Ice-Making Technology through a Century-Old Lawsuit”). 明報 (Ming Pao), October 24, 2025.