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Hu Qing Yu Tang

traditional Chinese medicine museum and drugstore

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 18, 2025
Entity authorityQ5924742
Source-derived summary

Hu Qing Yu Tang was an important center of traditional Chinese medicine in the late 19th and early 20th century. Its site at 95 Dajing Lane (大井巷95号) in central Hangzhou, China, is now a TCM museum and drugstore with a prestigious reputation at the same level as the Tongrentang in Beijing.

Site

The Hu Qing Yu Tang was established by Hu Xueyan in 1874. Its main buildings were designed in the Jiangnan architectural style. Its drugstore opened in 1878 at a cost of more than 200,000 taels—twice the amount he spent on his own nearby mansion—and operated on the principle of Taiping Huimin and the Bureau agents (太平惠民和剂局方). It made more than four hundred types of drug by collecting secret prescriptions, proved recipes and combining clinical practice.

Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicines

Hu Qing Yu Tang is now the site of Hangzhou's Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicines. In 1988, its site became a national key cultural relics protection unit. There are five parts:

The exhibition hall, which introduces celebrities in Chinese medicine history, the origin of medicine, the development of pharmaceutics, the exchanges of China and foreign countries in medicine and the contributions of Zhejiang Province in the development of medicine.

Chinese medicine manual mill hall, where experienced pharmaceutical workers show visitors traditional pharmaceutical process and visitors can experience by themselves.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Hu Qing Yu Tang” as traditional Chinese medicine museum and drugstore. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Qing, Tang and traditional.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1874, 1878, 1988—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Qing, Tang and traditional providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hu Qing Yu Tang”, the useful work is to connect “traditional Chinese medicine museum and drugstore” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5924742. Authority coordinates are 30.242, 120.164. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1878 and 1988.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hu Qing Yu Tang”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hu Qing Yu Tang primary sources, Hu Qing Yu Tang archive and Qing research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hu Qing Yu Tang”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hu Qing Yu Tang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.