[The campaign dedicated to collecting prescriptions in the 1950s]

On November 17,1958, the National TCM Working Meeting was held in Baoding of Hebei province; at the same time, the "Exhibition of TCM of Hebei" was organized to coincide with the meeting. The exhibition displayed a collection of folk, empirical and secret prescriptions excavated and collected in Hebei province. The meeting decided to carry out a mass campaign of gathering secret and empirical prescriptions. In 1959 the "People's Daily" published an editorial on "collecting folk empirical prescriptions to explore the treasure of TCM". In June 1959, the Ministry of Health issued a special notification of "compiling, studying and popularizing the secret and empirical prescriptions". From then on, a campaign of collecting folk, empirical and secret prescriptions was held throughout the country. Research work, including compiling, analyzing and testing, was also carried out during the process of collection.