中国民间尊敬名医，如著名的神农、春秋时期的扁鹊、三国时期的华佗、唐代的孙思邈等，都被世人奉为药王，并设庙祭祀，统称为药王庙。每年农历四月二十八日，附近十里八乡的人们就会来药王庙进香祈福。据《乾隆京城全图》记载，北京有大小药王庙十多座，主要有东西南北四座。这四座药王庙都建于明朝，最早的是位于旧鼓楼大街北部的北药王庙，但是规模甚小。南药王庙是北京城中四个药王庙中规模最大的，位于东城区东晓市街。

In ancient , Chinese ordinary people had paid high respect to famous doctors, such as Shen Nong , Bian Que in Spring and Autumn Dynasty, Hua Tuo in three kingdoms period, and Sun Simiao in Tang Dynasty, all of whom were called as medicine kings. Besides, people built special temple for worshiping them, and called as Yaowang Temple. On every lunar April 28th, the people from neighbor villages always visited Yaowang Temple for begging bless. As the painting《 Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu 》that there were more than ten Yaowang Temples. the largest four Yaowang temples distributed in East, West, South and North. The four Yaowang Temples were built in Ming Dynasty, the Northern Yaowang Temple was the earliest one , which was located in North of Old Gulou Street, but its scale was small. The Southern Yaowang Temple was the largest one, it was located in Dongxiaoshi Street of Dongcheng District.