Embassy of India

For several thousand years, Vietnamese Traditional Medicine has evolved under the shadows of Chinese Traditional Medicine, culture, and rule. At this point in time, it is nearly impossible to separate out and delineate Traditional Vietnamese Medicine (TVM) from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) because their developments were so inter-twined. This is a brief history of the development of TVM and its influences particularly by Southern China. This area was very much connected to China and Chinese culture even before the 4 th or 5 th century B.C. During that time period, southern China, from the Yangtze River to the northern part of VN, was one large ecological region. There were a number of different ethnic groups living in this fertile region who were not considered Chinese by Northern Chinese. Among these groups was the ‘Yue,’ the Chinese word for Viet. Northern Vietnam and Southern China came under Chinese rule by the 4 th