After its first branch in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, a second Fito Museum of Traditional Pharmacy opened in the Southern Province of Binh Duong, 30 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City.
The museum showcases 5,000 historical documents and paintings of herbs and medicinal plants, as well as tools for weighing, grinding and making herbal medicine. Tours are available wherein visitors will be introduced to how oriental medicine began a century ago until it revolutionized to state-of-the-art manufacturing today.
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Vietnam’s hot and humid tropical weather is conducive to the rapid growth of herbs. There are 1,300 medicinal plant species that have been discovered in the country, based on the records of the Health Ministry. Since more than 2,000 years ago, hundreds of these herbs have been used for medical remedies that have been later used in health care, disease prevention and treatment.
Herbal medicine is so abundant in Vietnam that it’s currently manufactured under World Health Organization. There is an abundance of medicine shops and clinic all over the country. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, they have even become a tourist destination wherein visitors buy herbal medicine either for medical purposes or souvenir, or both.