Corporate museums lie somewhere in between the academic world of museums and the business world of companies. They also serve as organizations that help companies manage many aspects of their operations, including public relations, branding, advertising, and human resources. This article series will explore corporate museums, their roles and functions, and the opportunities they present, all with the help of PR professionals.
Mina Sakai
PR Consulting Dentsu Inc.
Tsumura Kampo Museum Communicates Kampo Traditions and Innovations
Kampo are created by combining various natural ingredients from plants, minerals and other sources. Its efficacy rests on the many millennia-long track record of its use in therapy. Recently, it has become more structured through a system of herbal medicine prescriptions. Tsumura operates Tsumura Kampo Museum, which aims to pass on to future generations the achievements of our predecessors, while also communicating how Kampo has continued to develop through the latest advances in medical and pharmaceutical science. In this article, we take a look at the message of Tsumura Kampo Museum, which is delivered under their philosophy of “The Best of Nature and Science.”
Tsumura Kampo Museum (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
The town of Ami lies in southern Ibaraki Prefecture, roughly one hour from Tokyo by train. The museum consists of a two-story building in the center of the plot hosting the company’s Ibaraki plant, as well as a pharmaceutical and herb garden at the rear of the building. The museum, which opened in 1992, is intended for visits by medical professionals. In 2008, as part of the celebrations marking the 115th anniversary of the company’s founding, the museum was revamped under the concept of “learning, understanding and enjoying Kampo.”
The museum contains a wide range of exhibits including valuable documents from the history of Kampo, displays of over 100 herbal medicine samples, and information on the process of manufacturing herbal medicine and ensuring its quality. The museum also contains a systematic explanation of Kampo’s origins.
A modern hub “The Best of Nature and Science”
The golden shop sign from Tsumura’s founding era (top floor) and herbal medicine samples (bottom floor) (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
With a total cumulative floor area of 1611 m², the museum makes ample use of the atrium in the center that allows all of the exhibits to be seen. After the museum was redesigned and re-opened in 2008, the new architecture won the Good Design Award (in the category of public facilities and spaces, civil engineering and landscapes).
As the museum, which welcomes around 4,000 people per year, is principally intended for medical professionals, the exhibits focus on education. Currently, all medical related departments in Japanese universities, including departments of medicine and departments of pharmacology, include opportunities for learning about Kampo and herbal medicine, and in 2023, approximately 1,200 students visited the facility, mainly students of medicine, pharmacology and nursing.
The exhibit aims to serve as “exhibits you can use rather than exhibits you simply look at.” Much of the specialist information and historical documentation surrounding Kampo can be difficult to understand so the museum works hard to provide easy to comprehend layouts, focusing not only on the history of Kampo, but also on the philosophy behind Kampo therapy and Tsumura’s efforts to manage product quality.
Tsumura employees on a study tour of the museum (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
Kampo evolved uniquely in Japan
Tsumura is well known in Japan as a purveyor of Kampo treatments. In East Asia, there are now three separate traditions: Traditional Chinese medicine, traditional South Korean medicine, and Kampo, respectively hailing from China, South Korea and Japan.
Kampo has its roots in the traditional Chinese medicine transmitted to Japan from China in around the 5th and 6th centuries. Later, in Japan’s Muromachi and Edo periods (feudal period), this medicine developed in unique ways. Kampo acquired its name, meaning the Chinese way, to distinguish it from Western medicine or Rampo, meaning the Dutch way, which entered Japan during the Edo period (late feudal period) from the Netherlands. The first floor of the museum notes the history of Kampo, while the second floor displays various medical tools used in the Edo period, allowing visitors to learn about the origins of various Kampo practices.
Exhibition explaining the history of Kampo (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
Good medicine is guaranteed to sell
Tsumura’s predecessor was Chujoto Hompo Tsumura Juntendo. The store, founded in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district in 1893, sold Chujoto, a product for female patients. With over 130 years of history, Tsumura is one of Japan’s remarkable centurion companies.
The ‘junten’ part of the company’s name means to “follow the will of heaven,” and expresses ideals including “those who follow the path of heaven will prosper while those who diverge from the path will perish” and “bow to the will of heaven, respond to the wishes of the people.” These philosophies no doubt reflect the company’s strong belief that good medicine is guaranteed to sell. The Tsumura Kampo Museum introduces the various company activities that took place under that banner.
The Chujoto packaging from the company’s early days (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
One such activity is the work undertaken by company founder Jusha Tsumura I to increase sales of Chujoto at the time of the company’s founding. When the company was founded, Japan was moving culturally away from Asia and towards Europe, and the government was therefore investing heavily in the introduction of western medicine, resulting in the accelerating adoption of Western medical practices. In 1895, two years after founding his company, a “request to continue the practice of Kampo” was rejected by the Imperial Diet, Japan’s parliament, which resulted in Western medical licenses becoming the only recognized medical license in Japan, leading an era during which the number of Kampo medical doctors and researchers fell continually.
However, because Japan was adopting a national policy of having a “rich country and strong military,” the medical industry centered around military doctors, leaving ordinary people, particularly women and children, unable to benefit from the fruits of Western medical knowledge. This lack of medical service is what prompted Jusha to dedicate his life to helping female patients through the production and sale of Chujoto, while also making an intense effort to re-establish the authority of Kampo. His initiatives, which include the then innovative practice of newspaper advertisements as well as golden signboards, can be see inside the museum.
The Princess Chujo legend
In the text above, we refer to Chujoto, but what raw ingredients did it contain? The secret to the product lies in a remarkable treatment for women’s health issues that have been passed down the generations of Jusha’s mother’s family, the Fujimura clan, who lived in Uda City, Nara Prefecture. The name of the drug has its origins in the legend of Princess Chujo, a story that features in artistic Noh and Joruri performances.
In Japan’s Nara Period (747), Fujiwara no Toyonari, the great grandson of Fujiwara no Kamatari, had a long-awaited daughter with his wife Murasaki no Mae, naming her Princess Chujo. However, the Princess’ mother died when the princess was five years old, and when Fujiwara no Toyonari remarried, the young girl’s stepmother took an intense dislike to her and began plotting to kill her. The stepmother ordered one of her retainers to kill the young Princess when she reached the age of 14, but the retainer, a kind man, refused to carry out the order, and instead hid the princess somewhere on Mt. Hibari.
The following year, the princess was discovered by her father and brought back to the city, but with no hope for her future, she was ordered to become a nun at the Taima Temple. While living at the temple, she reportedly acquired knowledge of medical herbs and treatments. When Princess Chujo was first hidden away on Mt. Hibara, it was the Fujimura family who took her in, starting the relationship between Princess Chujo and the Fujiwara family. The princess later told the family the secrets of the herbal products that are effective for the treatment of women’s health issues, and this led, in later years, to the Fujimura family passing down knowledge of Chujoto as a family heirloom.
Chujoto Hompo Tsumura Juntendo at the time of the company’s launch (Nihonbashi, Tokyo) (Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
Can Kampo achieve a resurgence?
Ever since the company’s foundation, Tsumura has focused on returning its corporate profits to society. The company is engaged not only in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals but is also heavily involved in research and the promotion of Kampo pharmaceuticals for medical use. The company’s founder, Tsumura Jusha I, visited Europe in 1923 and was impressed by the way in which local pharmaceutical companies founded research institutes and work to contribute to society. This experience led him, in 1924, to establish his own research institute in the Kami-Meguro district of Tokyo, as well as a herb garden for research purposes in the Chofu district of Tokyo. The herb garden would later to become one of the largest such locations in East Asia. Today, the company maintains a research institute inside the grounds of its Ibaraki factory, where research activities continue.
However, following the above efforts, Tsumura Jusha II, the founder’s son, struggled to maintain the company when the second world war broke out. It was sometime after the end of the war, in 1957, that Tsumura Juntendo opened a clinic in Nihonbashi, Tokyo to provide consultations and treatment using Kampo medicine. At the same time, the company also began collecting clinical data, a practice which represented a continuation and concrete embodiment of Tsumura Juntendo’s commitment to research. The research institute, herb garden, and clinic worked together in collaboration as Tsumura Juntendo sought to re-establish the foundations of Kampo medical practice.
It was later, in 1976, that 33 prescription Kampo products were listed in the National Health Insurance (NHI) list and designated as health insurance-covered drugs, allowing patients to use their insurance coverage to reimburse them for the cost of treatment with those products. By 1987, a total of 129 prescriptions were added to the NHI list. As of 2024, 148 different Kampo medical products are approved for treatment under the national health insurance system, and Tsumura maintains an approximate 83% share of the Kampo medical prescription market.
Today, Tsumura Kampo Museum contains exhibits which include the company’s pharmaceutical packaging from years past as well as samples of the raw ingredients that are used to prepare Kampo medical preparations. According to the museum staff, visiting pharmacology students can actually use these products for practical training.
The quality of herbal medicine rests in good agricultural practice
In 1998, the company changed its name from Tsumura Juntendo to simply Tsumura & Co.
Under its slogan of “The best of nature and science,” the company continues to thrive. One area in which the company still focuses its efforts is in the quality of raw pharmaceutical ingredients.
The raw ingredients used in Tsumura’s products are cultivated according to the regulations of Good Agriculture and Collection Practice, which were established by the World Health Organization and other organs and include detailed regulations over the handling of agriculture products used for pharmaceuticals at all stages from cultivation through to shipment. The museum contains a large section dedicated to the company’s commitment to traceability, which involves tracking the historical data associated with every product at all stages, as well as manufacturing quality control of the final product. Viewing the exhibits, it is clear that these quality control systems are the pride of Tsumura.
Tsumura’s ingredients are produced according to Good Agriculture and Collection Practice
(Photo courtesy of Tsumura)
Opening the Tsumura Virtual Kampo Museum
Tsumura Kampo Museum is intended for healthcare professionals but in 2020, the company launched an online experience entitled “Hello! Tsumura Virtual Kampo Museum,” which is designed to give online non-healthcare professional visitors who may have an interest in the topic, a virtual insight into the museum’s content.
In the virtual miniature museum, videos and animations are used to provide various information on topics including the company’s history, the history of Kampo, and the processes by which it is made. The museum also holds online Tsumura Kampo Museum tours, which are provided via Zoom in real time. Visitors, including local junior high school and high school students, local residents, and healthcare professionals regularly take part in online tours, which guides visitors through a tour of the museum that includes a history of Kampo and information on manufacturing processes. In addition, since 2022, during the summer holidays, the museum holds other enjoyable online learning events including quizzes for students outside Ibaraki, from the fifth year of elementary school through junior high school, providing a wide range of opportunities for children to learn about Kampo.
Katsuaki Yoshida
Director,Tsumura Kampo Museum（Photo taken by the writer）
Tradition and innovation
Tsumura was founded with a strong desire to contribute to women’s health. The company has sincerely provided Kampo over the past 130 years, dating back to area before the discovery of penicillin and x-rays. Today, the company is involved in various healthcare activities, aiming to promote the field of preventative care for pre-symptomatic patients, while also contributing to the next generation of healthcare.
Preventative care for pre-symptomatic patients, a field known in Japanese as mibyo, rejects the simple dichotomy of health and illness, instead taking all of the body’s changes into account on the assumption that an individual’s mental and physical state changes continually on a healthy/sick continuum. The importance of this concept is included in the health and medical care strategy that was finalized by a Cabinet Resolution in February 2017. As Japan has become an ultra-aged society, the role of advance, preventative care, and the role of Kampo in that field, will only grow larger.
One concept at the heart of Tsumura is “tradition and innovation.” Tsumura believes that traditions can only be built through continual innovation. As a company playing a significant role in one of Japan’s traditional fields of medicine, Tsumura places great weight on its role in both protecting and developing the traditions of Kampo in Japan, while also acting as an advocate for the industry. One way in which the company fulfills this role is through the Tsumura Virtual Kampo Museum. The museum is a record of the company’s traditions and innovations and will continue to play an important role in communicating the work of the company to society.