Page 7 - Pharmacy History 23 July 2004

Thomas Chong amongst others
had urged the introduction of a
bill to regulate Chinese herbalists
in 1925 as there were large variances in standards amongst the practising herbalists. This fact was also acknowledged by the Chinese Consul General in Sydney in 1930 and he announced that Chinese herbalists must register with him ‘so that only qualified men might call themselves herbalists and the public would be free “from imposition”’.68
After the Second World War and the changing political situation
in China in 1949, the cutting
off of herb supplies from China caused shortages and difficulties for survival of many practices while Australia’s restrictive immigration laws and decreased migration
from China after the advent of communist governments prevented their replacement.
By the end of the 1940s many of the older herbalists had retired
or died ... After some time the
so called ‘wonder drugs’ sulpha tablets and antibiotics and the practices of surgery increased the efficacy of European medicine, while rising living standards slowly did away with once common complaints such as boils. These developments cut into the business of some practices. The once familiar figure of the (Chinese) herbalist disappeared from towns.69
In the changing social, economic and political circumstances of the late 1960s and 1970s, popularity of other natural therapies, including traditional Chinese medicine, gained momentum and again the practice was co-existing with Western medicine practice. Still commonly seen as a fringe medicine in the 1970s and early 1980s, several clinics existed around Melbourne. Practitioners
in these clinics were mainly Australians of Western or European origin practising acupuncture, or homeopathy or naturopathy with Western herbs. In small clinics or Chinese grocery stores such as in Melbourne city or in Footscray,
Chinese practised Chinese herbal medicine and sometimes acupuncture.
It is in this era that Professor Lun Wong, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and a martial arts expert, arrived in Sydney, Australia in 1973 from Hong Kong. He was to adjudicate at an international karate competition. He returned the following year
as an immigrant. Initially in Sydney for several months where he taught acupuncture to a group of dentists and to some natural therapists, he later decided to move to Melbourne, establishing clinics and a teaching centre, which later became known as the Academy
of Traditional Chinese Medicine Australia. Patients and students of predominantly European origins and some Chinese came to the clinics and classes held at the Academy.70
Some patients visiting the
early clinics of the Academy in Brunswick and in Northcote, Melbourne in the 1970s and
1990s have mentioned that their grandparents or family members visited Chinese herbalists in inner Melbourne and near the Exhibition Buildings in the early decades of the 1990s. Others recalled family visits to the Chinese herbalists
in Ballarat, Bendigo, Bairnsdale
or districts.71 In a recent family history of Chinese in the King Valley region, one of the family is described as a Chinese immigrant, Shun Fook Yuen, known as Frank Sam Goon, who is said to have become ‘a wealthy herbalist in Victoria owning a business in Peel Street, Ballarat and another at 128 Exhibition Street.’72
Almost 75 years after the 1925
Bill proposing to restrict the dispensing of medicinal herbs
to pharmaceutical chemists and additional lobbying for a Bill for registration of herbalists, a new
Bill was put to the Victorian Parliament in the year 1999 for the registration by title of practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine,
including both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.
The new bill successfully passed three readings by May of the next year though, becoming the Chinese Medicine Registration Act 2000.
This is historic legislation which attracts international interest as Victoria is the first jurisdiction outside of China to legislate to register by title practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine.92
References
63 Loh, Morag, “An outpost of the Chinese Medical Tradition. The Practice of Thomas Chong, Bairnsdale.” Gippsland Heritage Journal, No. 18, June 1995, p. 4.
64 Loh p. 3.
65] Loh p. 3.
66 Loh pp. 3–7.
67 Loh p. 3. Also, Loh, M. “Victoria as
a Catalyst for Western and Chinese Medicine”, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, September 1983.
Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria, Herbalists and Herbal Treatment, 1925. Amendment to the Pharmaceutical Chemists Bill, O’Hoy collection, Bendigo.
68 Loh p. 4. Reference is made to the Argus newspaper, 9 July 1930.
69 Loh p. 7.
70 Administration records of the Academy
indicate a majority of students and patients had a Western or European name.
71 Discussion with patients in the Brunswick clinic.
72 Groom, J. 2001, Chinese Pioneers of the King Valley, The Centre for Continuing Education, Wangaratta, Victoria. (Section on Agnes Mary Mah Look & William Fosang, no page numbers used).
92 Press release by the then Premier,
Hon. Jeff Kennett, August 1998. Also mentioned in the reports carried by the Herald Sun and The Age newspapers, 13 August 1998.
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