When it comes to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", many people know that this is a systematic, complete and scientific medical work in ancient China, with a total of 52 volumes and about 1.9 million words, which was written from the thirty-first year of Jiajing, and it was not until the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar that the three drafts had to be completed.
Since its publication, it has been widely circulated in the folk and is still one of the essential tools in Traditional Chinese medicine. So do you know what kind of person the author Li Shizhen is? How did he devote himself to writing for many years and complete this famous "Great Canon of Oriental Medicine" on his own?
Li Shizhen (李時珍), courtesy name Dongbi , was a native of Puchun County, Hubei Province. He grew up in a family of medicine, his grandfather was a folk barefoot doctor, by walking the streets and alleys to ring the bell for people to treat diseases, father Li Yanwen inherited his father's business, after practicing medicine for many years, he gradually became a famous doctor, Li Shizhen was affected by the family environment from childhood, naturally soon liked the pharmaceutical industry, and when he grew up, he often followed his father to go to the clinic, help copy prescriptions, and grasp herbs.
The social status of the Ming Dynasty doctor was very low, and when his father saw That Li Shizhen was flexible and diligent, he did not want to delay his future, hoping that he would be able to take the imperial examination in the future, embark on a career path, and light the lintel.
Li Shizhen obeyed his father's orders and began to study The Confucian classics, and at the age of 14, he was admitted to Xiucai, and the whole family was very happy, but later failed to pass the three township examinations. Li Shizhen was indignant and determined to give up his meritorious name and follow his father to study medicine and see a doctor.
Because of the long-term ear and eye and physical practice, Li Shizhen soon became a qualified doctor, can also practice medicine independently, he is very serious in diagnosis, people are smart, good at thinking, gradually cured many people's difficult diseases, began to be famous in the township, respected by the people.
In the process of practicing medicine, Li Shizhen found that many medical books he had read in the past, many of which were actually wrong, including the traditional set of "Materia Medica", which started from the Shennong clan and went through the supplementary arrangement of Tao Hongjing of the Liang Dynasty, Su Gong of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Han of the Song Dynasty, and so on.
In view of this, Li Shizhen made up his mind to re-compile a brand new Materia Medica (a book of Chinese medicine) for the benefit of others and future generations.
Since then, Li Shizhen has read a lot of books as soon as he has free time, and he not only read medical monographs meticulously, but also read the scriptures, histories, sub-books, collections, traditions, farms, divination, astrology, and lefu hundreds of families one by one, and read about 800 books before and after.
In addition to reading, Li Shizhen more time is to go to the field to observe and practice, he often takes his son and apprentice away from his hometown, hikes to Jiangxi, Nanzhili, Anhui and other medicinal production areas to carefully investigate, his footprints are all over the lofty mountains, primitive forests, heard where the medicinal materials are abundant, he rushed there, collected specimens on the spot, drew images, marked them one by one, at the same time, he also asked local farmers, woodcutters, fishermen, hunters for advice, and collected a lot of folk remedies and experiences.
In the thirtieth year of Jiajing, Li Shizhen became famous for curing the son of Zhu Houkun, the king of Fushun, and was soon hired by Zhu Yingli, the king of Chu in Wuchang, as the "FengciZheng" of the royal palace, and also in charge of medical affairs.
Five years later, Li Shizhen was recommended to serve in the Beijing Tai Hospital, and as a result, he saw the emperor in the palace to seek immortals, the demon road was rampant, the powerful ministers were corrupt, the alchemists were refining, and the whole forbidden city was a miasma of black smoke, so he did not want to join the flow, so he resigned from the illness and returned to his hometown to devote himself to writing books.
Fortunately, Li Shizhen, because of his position in the Royal Palace and the Tai Hospital, had the opportunity to read a large number of rare folk medical books, which also provided great help for him to compile new Materia Medica.
Li Shizhen began to compile a new book from the thirty-first year of Jiajing (1552 AD), based on the "Evidence Class Materia Medica", referred to more than 800 books, returned to his hometown and went out to investigate many times, traveled through huguang, Jiangxi and other famous mountains and rivers, and gradually understood a lot of difficult problems, interestingly, he once collected medicine in the Wudang Mountains, and was mistaken by the Taoist priests on the mountain to think that he was a herbalist.
"Although it is hard work, blowing out the wild sand begins to reach gold." Li Shizhen's unremitting efforts all day long, time has passed silently for more than twenty years, in this long period of time, Li Shizhen does not know how many famous mountains and rivers he has traveled, until his old age he turned back home, began to accumulate materials, compiled this exhaustion of his life's painstaking work "Compendium of Materia Medica"!
In this huge work, he elaborated on the origin, shape, color and main prescription of the drug in detail, with the name of the drug and other appendices, which was loaded with 11,096 prescriptions and 1,160 pictures, totaling more than 1.9 million words.
After twenty-seven years of study, Li Shizhen finally completed the first draft of the Compendium of Materia Medica in the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar (1578), when he was 61 years old, and later finally completed the work after three revisions over ten years, a total of 40 years.
Unfortunately, in the twenty-first year of the Wanli Calendar, Li Shizhen, who was seventy-five years old, did not wait for the book to be printed and died and was buried in his hometown of Puzhou.
Three years after his death, because of Emperor Shenzong's edict to compile the history of the country and strive to buy folk strange books, Li Jianyuan, the son of Li Shizhen, presented the "Compendium of Materia Medica" to the imperial court, and Emperor Shenzong was greatly surprised to see it, so that it was published in Nanjing, and since then Li Shizhen and his book "Compendium of Materia Medica" have been famous all over the world and have been passed down to this day! (More exciting, pay attention to the public number: Li Guangyuan)
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