Chang Kuo Chou (; 1 February 1906 - 24 August 1975) was a scholar, calligrapher, and is widely considered to be the Father of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Taiwan.

Early life

Chang was born and grew up in Chiayi, near present day

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...

as the second child of LiuBian (劉邊) and JianWei (簡未). He was adopted by ChangWen (張文) and JianGe (江葛) for work in the agriculture fields. Although assigned to farm labor, during his free time Chang showed a keen interest for learning with activities such as writing Chinese characters on the ground.

Education and career

At a time when illiteracy and poverty were common, Chang convinced JiaYi (嘉義), the village elder to subsidize his education in Japan. In 1930, Chang graduated from Japan’s

Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences is a private university in Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan. The precursor of the school was founded in 1880 by Masataka Fujita, and it was chartered as a university in 1949. The school of Life sciences was established in 1994. Notable alumni * Jun Matsum ...

and returned to Taiwan to be the country’s first pharmacist. ��劑師執照通過考試由台灣省衛生局發照/ref> Over the next few years he used

compounding In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...

techniques and revolutionized medicine by creating a set of powdered formulas that incorporated elements of both western and eastern medicine. His products are still popular today
Stomachin
is Taiwan’s number one selling powdered medicine. His book
Essentials of Pharmacopia 藥典輯要
is still available today.

Calligraphy

Chang Kuo Chou's calligraphy works
won many awards including Japanese Calligraphy and Taiwanese Banner (參加「日本書道作振會」之兩件作品分別為楷書〈永成家之光〉條幅及行書〈趙孟頫題董元溪岸圖〉條幅皆獲得「入選」).

References

{{Reflist 1906 births 1975 deaths Taiwanese pharmacists Taiwanese calligraphers