By Chen Ziyan (chinadaily.com.cn)

Just like they say Rome wasn't built in one day, producing a three-gram pill with 100-percent accuracy would not have been easy when Zhang Dongmei started learning the traditional skill.

Like most of the hand-down craftsman, Zhang Dongmei took over her mother's job at Tongrentang at the age of 17 years old, as an apprentice.

It took her a long time to practice rolling the medicine strips, as it is a crucial step in creating the best produced pill.

"I was not satisfied with the medicine strips I was making, so I started practicing rolling noodles after work, and my family ate noodles almost every day,” said Zhang as she recalled her memories and laughed.

After one year's work, Zhang felt she could move on to the next important step: make pills.

Compared to the "rolling" step, making pills is more skillful and rigorous. According to Zhang, when making the pills, she has to straighten her arms and waist, in order to balance the power. "I have to find the right way to move the board properly, so the medicine strips could be well rolled with the board," Zhang said.

Now Zhang suffers from lumbar disc herniation, an occupational disease, and has constant backache.

"I try to persuade her to go to the hospital, but she always says she has so much work. She doesn't take a break on weekends, and works from 8 am to 8 pm," said Zhang's husband to CCTV. When the pain becomes unbearable, she simply takes painkillers instead of visiting a doctor or resting.

Apart from rolling and making pills, coating, waxing and stamping on the pill, all these procedures are handmade crafts. "Although machines can make pills, but the high quality pills still require the magic of hands."

Meticulous attention

Among the whole process, there's one tedious and boring step - picking out the many tiny fluffy from the musk - one of the ingredients of the pills, to ensure purity of the medicine.

"When I first tried this work, I cleared the musk seven times. But it still failed my teacher's standard after she examined it. I was really disappointed," said Zhang Na, apprentice of Zhang Dongmei.

According to Zhang, there's no criterion how many fluff should be taken out, all depends on the strict standard in the technicians' heart.

"People will never know whether all the fluff would be taken out, but doing the work with conscious is a rule that we medical technicians must pass down by generations," Zhang said.

Paying meticulous attention and keep improving to make it better, that what Zhang has been insisting on during the past 34 years.

Her laborious work also got her rewards. "This is a life-saving medicine, my friend in Nanjing specially asked me to buy it," a customer in Beijing told Zhang Dongmei.

"I admire your work so much, you inherited the traditional Chinese medicine prescription," a customer from Taiwan said.

After more than three decades of experience, Zhang Dongmei has mastered the skill with precision.

Zhang said her mother must be proud of her inheritance, and she has determined to devote her whole life in making the small pills.