TCM Master of Great Virtue

In April, 2009, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Health, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicines joined forces in evaluating the country’s candidates of TCM masters. It was the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China that the government decided to honor TCM masters through a nationwide procedure. After a few rounds of voting, thirty most respected TCM doctors were officially crowned with the title of TCM masters. Professor He Ren is the only person in Zhejiang who was elected a TCM master by a heavy majority.

He Ren is a key founder of the Zhejiang TCM Institute (the predecessor of today’s Zhejiang TCM University) and served as its president for a long while. He Ren is an emeritus professor and PhD student advisor. He is best known as a prominent scholar of “Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer” by Zhang Zhongjing (150-219), one of the finest TCM physicians in history of China.

The 90-year-old TCM master now still sees clinical patients every week, and writes every day. He has practiced TCM for more than 70 years. The books he has written on TCM are, if piled up one by one, as tall as he stands.

He Ren began to receive TCM lessons at home at a very early age. When he graduated from the Shanghai College of New Tradition China Medicine in the middle of World War II, acute and vicious epidemic diseases such as smallpox, plague and malaria could be seen everywhere. With solid foundation in TCM and clinical techniques of the He family, the young doctor worked successfully as a TCM doctor in Longquan, a rural county in southern Zhejiang.

TCM is a knowledge and practice that has been passed on from one generation to another for thousands of years. Teaching and learning from masters and experience always play a big part in TCM. He Ren started a correspondence TCM course in the 1940s and enrolled students from all over the country. He wrote textbooks, gave lectures and taught hands-on clinical techniques. After the founding of New China, he served as chairman of Hangzhou TCM Association, president of Zhejiang School of Continuation Education on TCM and president of Zhejiang TCM Institute. Many TCM talents grew up under his guidance. In 1993, the professor set up a foundation which has issued annual scholarships to TCM teachers and students. In recent years, he has given lectures at advanced TCM seminars sponsored by the Ministry of Health.

He Ren rose to international renown in 1982 when he spoke at the China-Japan forum, sponsored by the Ministry of Health, on specific subjects mentioned in the “Treatise on Cold Pathogenic and Miscellaneous Diseases”, another important theoretical masterpiece by Zhang Zhongjing. In 1985, he was invited to Japan and gave lectures in medical colleges in Tokyo. He was recognized there as China’s authority on “Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer”. In 2006, Professor He Ren was conferred upon with a special meritorious honor by China TCM Association for his contribution to the TCM education.