These men aren’t gods; they’re doctors. The architecture of this museum not only provides a backdrop to the subject of medicine, it also shows the typical features of traditional buildings in various regions of Vietnam. One of the rooms is dedicated to the two greatest physicians in Vietnamese history: Tue Tinh (1300s) and Le Huu Trac (1700s) where they are not only remembered, but their work is also venerated.

With their partner institution, the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Pharmacy, the two museums chart this history of medical thought and practice in Vietnam, and in East Asia, up until the modern period. While ‘modern’ medicine is viewed as a different school of thought to ‘traditional’ medicine, it’s important to remember they’re not viewed as polar opposites of ‘historic’ and ‘modern’'; instead they are two different ways of treating the mind and body, many of which happen in tandem.