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This paper discusses the establishment and function of a unique institution in the history of Chinese medicine – the Imperial Pharmacy (惠民藥局) and how it impacted medical practice. Established in 1076 during the great reforms of the Song dynasty, the Imperial Pharmacy was a remarkable institution that played different political, social, economical, and medical role over the centuries of its existence. Initially it was an economical institution designed to curb the power of plutocrats manipulating medicinal drug markets to their favor. A few decades later, the Imperial Pharmacy became a public health oriented institution focusing on selling ready-​made prescriptions in addition to simples. It seems, however, to have posed an unwelcome addition to the medical scene, since it enabled uninitiated practitioners, who relied on the Pharmacy's formulary to fit symptoms to prescriptions, to dispense medications at a relative ease.
* CEAS Humanities Colloquium Series