The famous Qing Dynasty novel Honglou Meng or The Dream of Red Mansions by Xao Xueqin provides a wonderful insight into the extraordinarily sophisticated political and social life led by upper class Chinese in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In one memorable sequence, as recorded in Chapter 51 of David Hawkes’s distinguished translation of the novel,1 a physician is called in to diagnose the malady of a maid-servant of Master Bao-Yu, who because of the cold weather, is ensconced in Master Bao-Yu’s bedroom. The physician, young and inexperienced, conducts the consultation with the patient concealed behind the bed curtain, and prescribes a decoction containing herbal constituentssperilla, kikio root, wind-shield, nepeta seed, thorny lime, ephedra, and others. However, Master Bao-Yu is not happy with the prescription, and in contrast to a prevailing acceptance of diagnosis and prescription today, is able to sum up sufficient courage to query the wisdom of the young physician in prescribing such harsh decongestants as thorny lime (Citrus spp.) and ephedra (Ephedra spp.) to a young lady. He calls for a re-examination by a physician of more established repute. The latter, of considerably greater age than the first, actually presents quite a similar prescription, although the thorny lime and ephedra are now replaced by the more gentle angelica (probably Angelica dahurica), bitter peel (Citrus spp.), and white peony root (probably Paeonia lactiflora). Bao-Yu thereupon orders the decoction to be prepared immediately within his household, “for the scent of boiling herbs is the finest in the world, far superior to the perfume of any flower...”. The knowledge which led Bao-Yu to question the prescription of the first physician is indicative of the sophistication of Chinese medicine at the time, and contrasts markedly with contemporaneous European practice. Knowledge was accessible to the wealthy household through detailed, carefully, and elegantly scripted pharmacopoeia. One herb which also was featured prominently in these pharmacopoeia, especially in relation to decoctions used to treat fever, was qinghao, the “bluegreen” herb (Artemisia annua). Recorded use of qinghao spans over 2000 years, with written descriptions first appearing in 168 B.C. in the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Wu Shi Er Bing Fang Lun (Treatments for 52 Sicknesses), and as late as 1798 in the Wen Bing Tiao Bian (Book of Fevers). The most detailed description appears in the mammoth Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica) compiled in 1596 by the great Ming Dynasty physician Li Shi-Zen, and which is still printed in China today.2 With this background of use, qinghao was a prominent target for investigation in a Chinese program, involving Chinese chemists, pharmacologists, and botanists, designed to isolate and identify possible new antimalarial drugs.3 In 1972, after activity-guided bioassay involving ether extracts, there was isolated a remarkable new compound which the Chinese called qinghaosu (compound 1), the “active principle of qinghao”. The compound was demonstrated to have substantial antimalarial activity. Chinese chemists then embarked on a major program which entailed both derivatization of qinghaosu to provide compounds with better formulation characteristics and clinical trials on qinghaosu and selected derivatives.3 Within this program, the Chinese prepared the oil-soluble artemether (2) and arteether (3) and the water-soluble artesunate (4). The program was noteworthy for its success in demonstrating to the world the advent of a new antimalarial drug and its derivatives, which structurally are entirely unrelated to the classical antimalarials based on quinine and synthetic analogues. Qinghaosu, artemether, and artesunate are now used for treatment of severe malaria, and with sanction and support from the World Health Organization, Geneva, it may be said that