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Across the state, Chinese herbalists offered their traditional
medicines and treatments.Advertisements and word of mouth brought
local residents, Chinese and non-Chinese, to seek their remedies.
Some herbalists remained in a particular place; others provided
a visiting service. Their contributions are recorded through advertisements
in local newspapers, local memories, family histories, and surviving
herbal medicines, equipment, prescriptions and textbooks.
 Chinese
herbalist, Jan Hin, and visitors, Deepwater, about 1920. (Private
collection)
Jan Hin is remembered as a skilled herbalist. There are local stories
about the effectiveness of his cures and about how he sent to China
for many of his herbs.
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 A
book of Chinese herbal remedies and instructions which was owned
and used by herbalist, Fah Sue Tet Fong in Tingha, late nineteenth/early
twentieth centuries. (Tet Fong Collection)
This 1848 book has three sections. The first details remedies and
prescriptions for specific ailments. The second section has illustrations
and explanations of substances used in remedies. Examples include
elephant's skin, mother's milk, and the gall of a boar.
The third section explains the characteristics of particular herbs.
For example, gin seng is described as having a bitter-sweet and
slightly tingling taste, and as being particularly good for people
who are short of breath. |
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 Packets
of Yu Yee Yau, 1930s. (Oxley Museum, Wellington)
Yu Yee Yau is a herbal medicine which is used as a cure all and
especially for headaches. The Chinese characters at the bottom of
the box tell us that inside are large bottles of Yu Yee Yau. Yu
Yee literally means ‘everything goes away’ and Yau refers
to oil. The label also tells us that the creator of the medicine
was a Wong Cheong Wah and that the manufacturer or distributor is
Tai War Tong.These packets of Yu Yee Yau were among goods packed
away by the Ling family in Wellington in the 1930s and unpacked
in the mid 1990s.
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