59 years ago today, on August 6, 1966 (June 20, 1966 in the lunar calendar), China medicinal chemist Zhao Chengyu passed away. He used to be named Zhao Shimin. China chemist. Academician of China Academy of Sciences. Born on December 11, 1885 in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, and died on August 6, 1966 in Shanghai. The young man was promoted to a scholar or a scholar, and later he was transferred to a new school. In 1906, he was admitted for official fees and stayed in England. In 1912, he received a master's degree from the University of Manchester, and in 1914, he received a doctorate from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In 1916, he served as technician and director of the research department of Roque Pharmaceutical Factory in France. He designed the production process of the local anesthetic procaine and obtained a patent. Returned to China in 1922. He has served as a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Nanjing Normal University, and a professor and acting director of the Department of Pharmacy at Union Medical College. In 1932, at the invitation of Li Shizeng, he founded the Institute of Medicine of the Peking Research Institute, serving as a researcher and director, and was elected as a commentator of the Academia Sinica. After 1949, he served successively as director of the Pharmaceutical Research Office of the Institute of Organic Chemistry, China Academy of Sciences, and director of the Institute of Medicine, China Academy of Sciences. He was a pioneer in applying scientific methods to research on Chinese herbal medicines in China. He was unique in plant chemistry research, especially the separation and crystallization of alkaloids. The separated hydromarine B has been officially included in the pharmacopoeia and is used as an analgesic and sedative in clinical practice; the separated hydromarine C has an antimalarial activity 148 times higher than that of quinine; the isolated hydromarine B can be used as physiological experimental reagent, etc. The chemical components of more than 30 Chinese herbal medicines have been systematically studied and many new alkaloid crystals have been obtained, some of which are recommended for clinical use. He established a set of scientific methods for systematically researching and sorting out the medicine of the motherland, and won the second prize in the 1982 National Natural Science Award. It also solved the problem of crystallization of penicillin potassium salt, allowing penicillin to be successfully put into production. Guided the design and testing of a set of synthetic processes for local anesthetic procaine. In 1955, he was elected as an academician of China Academy of Sciences. Zhao Chenggu's original separation and extraction method is very effective.