颜正华14岁起随儒医戴雨三习医，1937年拜孟河医派第三代传人杨博良为师，白天随师侍诊、晚间研读医经方书，尽得孟河医派真传，为孟河医派第四代传人。1957年调任北京中医学院（现北京中医药大学），主持创建了中国高等教育中药学学科，主编新中国第一版《中药学》教材，从教53年、行医逾80载，2009年被授予首届「国医大师」称号，2025年6月于北京逝世，享年106岁。

Yan Zhenghua began studying medicine at age 14 under the Confucian physician Dai Yusan, and in 1937 became a disciple of Yang Boliang, the third-generation successor of the Menghe school of Chinese medicine — attending clinic by day and studying classical texts by night until he had mastered the school's methods in full, becoming its fourth-generation successor. In 1957 he joined the Beijing College of Chinese Medicine (now Beijing University of Chinese Medicine), where he founded China's first higher-education discipline in Chinese materia medica and edited the first national textbook of its kind. Over a 53-year teaching career and more than 80 years of clinical practice, he was named one of China's first "Guoyi Dashi" (Grand Masters of Chinese Medicine) in 2009, and died in Beijing in June 2025 at the age of 106.