In today's society, publishing books is a very fashionable thing, the threshold for publishing books is gradually declining, and bookstores have long been filled with a variety of books, and it is already an easy thing to publish books. But the publication of books in ancient times is different from modern times, and it is an extremely laborious, time-consuming, and costly thing.
In this regard, "Medicine Saint" Li Shizhen silently pulled out his manuscript of "Compendium of Materia Medica", which was very interesting!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > writing a book is not an easy task</h1>
Li Shizhen, a famous doctor of the Ming Dynasty, his family has been practicing medicine for three generations, and is a very enterprising medical family! Li Shizhen's grandfather is a wandering doctor who walks the streets and shakes the bell, his father is already a local famous doctor in Payzhou, Hubei Province, after practicing medicine, his biggest hobby is to write medical books, but unfortunately there is no money to publish, this love is finally inherited to Li Shizhen.
The luckiest thing in the history of ancient medicine is that Li Shizhen's three times failed the list, and Li Xiucai was discouraged and began to strive to become a doctor Li. Under the blessing of the family's inherited medical talent aura, Li Shizhen's medical skills have improved by leaps and bounds, and he has practiced medicine alone at the age of twenty-six. With superb technology, Li Shizhen quickly gained popularity in Hubei Province, and was recommended to serve in the Tai Hospital as an outstanding young doctor in the country. Li Shizhen became a polite and elegant Li Tai doctor after serving in the -—— Tai Hospital, the highest medical center of the country. But soon Li Shizhen voluntarily resigned and began his family's dream of writing books.
During his medical practice, Li Shizhen found that the ancient Chinese medicine dictionary "Materia Medica" had many errors, repetitions and omissions in the record of drugs. This is a historical problem, everyone in the past generations of medicine has discovered this problem, but can only keep patching, but Li Shizhen is a good doctor with a pursuit, determined to re-cultivate Materia Medica. In 1552, The 34-year-old young doctor Li Shizhen, carrying the dual sense of responsibility of a reader and a doctor, began this arduous work.
Li Shizhen began to exhaustively search for medical books circulating in the pre-Qin era, reading all the medical books and pharmacopoeias that could be found in the world, and the theoretical knowledge value had been brushed up. Subsequently, Li Shizhen visited famous doctors and traveling doctors in various places, constantly exchanged medical techniques, collected ancient recipes, folk remedies, and rare recipes, and extensively collected first-hand materials. Li Shizhen went further, personally went to the deep mountains and old forests to collect medicines, made precious medicinal specimens, drew images of medicinal materials, and traveled all over most of China.
What is even more valuable is that Li Shizhen, who has gray sideburns, persuades her family to join the difficult work of re-cultivation of Materia Medica. In the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar (1578), which lasted 27 years, through the painstaking efforts of three generations of grandchildren, Li Shizhen finally wrote the first great work of ancient pharmacology in China - "Compendium of Materia Medica". This book includes a total of 1892 kinds of ancient and modern medicines, 1109 illustrations, 11096 prescriptions, a total of 1.9 million words, and pushes the ancient Chinese medicine physics to the highest peak!
Li Shizhen, the old doctor who has passed the age of flower armor, is what Mr. Lu Xun called "the backbone of China"!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Li Taiyi's Nanjing trip: "Compendium of Materia Medica", just this? </h1>
Li Shizhen happily carried the manuscript to Nanjing, thinking that the "Compendium of Materia Medica" must shine in Nanjing, thus shocking the whole Daming. As a result, this tome of medical professional books is not popular at all, and the cost of the engraving is prohibitive, and no bookseller is willing to publish his painstaking works.
That's because in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the state mainly relied on official publishing agencies such as guozijian to print official books such as the Yongle Canon and the History of Scripture. At this time, the publication of books was under the management of the imperial court, and the difficulty coefficient of private books was so high that people scratched their scalps! By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, private collections of books had become the "outlet" at that time, private publishing houses had become extremely developed, and Nanjing had become the center of book publishing in the country. There are countless bookstores and bookstores in Nanjing, especially the folk publishing houses such as Fuchun Hall, Wenlin Pavilion, Guangqing Hall and Shide Hall are the most famous. High in the bookstore bestseller C position is definitely a novel, mainly "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West" and other classic novels, many Ming Dynasty people have long been a full-fledged fan of novels! The most unexpected thing is that the best-selling opera books such as "The Tale of the West Chamber" and "Peony Pavilion" are the most unexpected, after all, the love story of the talented and beautiful people has been passed down to modern times.
In contrast, the "Compendium of Materia Medica" is only a professional pharmacopoeia read by ancient doctors, and no one reads it normally; and it is a magnificent masterpiece, which costs a lot of engraving and printing, and is determined to lose money!
"Compendium of Materia Medica" hit a wall everywhere in Nanjing Bookstore, which is actually to blame Li Shizhen's lack of fame?! Yes, Li Shizhen was by no means a national treasure-level bullman like in "Daming Dynasty 1566", the Jiajing Emperor was sick and wanted to ask Li Taiyi to see a doctor, and it was necessary to ask Li Taiyi to ask for medical treatment after being asked by Yu Wang, Shoufu Xu Jie and others, and Li Taiyi, who had resigned, reluctantly went to see the emperor. Although Li Shizhen has been a doctor, he is only famous in Hubei, not a national divine doctor loved by everyone. Although Li Shizhen's contentious son became the county commander of Qipin, he could not stand Li Taiyi's frequent gifts of medicine and hanging pots to save the world, and indeed could not afford the expensive cost of publishing books.
Dr. Li Laotai, who was over the age of flower armor, worked hard in Nanjing for three years without accepting defeat, and only got a solution: if he was not famous enough, he would find a famous enough cattleman to write a preface to the "Compendium of Materia Medica".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > deleted? That's impossible! </h1>
In the eighth year of the Wanli Calendar (1580), Li Shizhen's father and son carried the manuscript of the Compendium of Materia Medica to the Taicang Yishan Garden in Jiangsu Province to visit Wang Shizhen, the most famous literary figure at that time, and asked him to write a preface.
Wang Shizhen is a famous literary scholar, opera theorist and historian of the Ming Dynasty, the boss of the "Last Seven Sons" of the Literary V, and more importantly, the literary alliance leader who has dominated the literary circle for more than 20 years. At the same time, Wang Shizhen is a very exaggerated cattle man, where is the cow? Master Wang is not only a literary ally, but also has a deep friendship with big celebrities such as Qi Jiguang and Gui Youguang, and has countless literary fan groups in Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan and other countries. As long as Wang Shizhen publishes a book, it must first be frantically purchased in China and then quickly spread overseas, so the number of people who asked Wang Shizhen to write a preface to the new book is innumerable.
Wang Shizhen casually flipped through the manuscript of the Compendium of Materia Medica and found that the book had a fatal problem. Li Shizhen once served in the Tai Hospital, the highest institution for ancient doctors, but then voluntarily resigned, mainly because he was dissatisfied with the Jiajing Emperor's refining of Dan and misleading the country. In the book "Compendium of Materia Medica", Dr. Li Taiyi vigorously criticized the use of women's menstrual blood or lead mercury to refine Dan for eternal life, which is the most absurd thing in the world, and whoever does this is a fool! And Jiajing and Wanli's grandfather and grandson are very strange, the emperor is a part-time job, the main business is actually an alchemist, especially enthusiastically pursuing the red pill, so Li Taiyi has the big suspicion of insulting the emperor!
Wang Shizhen was a celebrity, and a celebrity who did not understand politics had long been destroyed by Yan Song's father and son. Wang Shizhen then wrote a poem, rejecting Li Shizhen, who was full of expectations. Li Shizhen is worthy of being a medical saint and clearly recognizes this fatal problem, but with the pride of the author, he resolutely does not change his scientific criticism of alchemy!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > live streaming? The aura of the ancient masters is blessed</h1>
At the end of the Han Dynasty, during the Three Kingdoms period, there was a famous doctor Hua Tuo, who wrote the "Qingbao Jing" with all his heart and blood, but he was burned to the ground and forever closed the two doors of anesthesia and surgery in the field of Chinese medicine! Nowadays, Huanghuang Daming and Li Shizhen have written great works of pharmacy, is the ultimate fate also to be burned by hand? Li Shizhen wanted to save the world with the Compendium of Materia Medica, but he was abandoned by the world, how sad!
In the eighteenth year of the Wanli Calendar (1590), Li Shizhen, who was dying of old age, once again carried the manuscript of the Compendium of Materia Medica, which had been revised three times, and asked to see Wang Shizhen, who was seriously ill, and make a final effort.
An old doctor with white sideburns, an old patient who was seriously ill and dying, met again, and no one knew what they said. The two old men who were old and had been readers. No one knows why Wang Shizhen changed his attention, perhaps the world literary league mainly did an important thing in this life. Burning incense, bathing, changing clothes, Wang Shizhen respectfully wrote more than 500 words, this is the "Compendium of Materia Medica • Preface", but it is the most important text of Wang Shizhen's life! Unfortunately, shortly after the preface, Wang Shizhen died of illness.
In the "Compendium of Materia Medica, Wang Shizhen highly praised this Materia Medica masterpiece with a large and spicy and majestic brush, as if he was a die-hard fan of Li Taiyi, and in the Ming Dynasty more than four hundred years ago, enthusiastically brought goods for Li Shizhen live! After the literary tycoon Wang Shizhen wrote the preface to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", in 1590, the bookseller Hu Chenglong was willing to pay for the publication of the "Compendium of Materia Medica", but because the "Compendium of Materia Medica" was a tome of huanghuang masterpiece, through the unremitting efforts of countless skilled craftsmen, in the twenty-fourth year of the Ming Dynasty (1596), the first engraving of the "Compendium of Materia Medica" finally came out in Jinling, known as "Jinling Ben". However, Li Shizhen had already died of regret three years ago, and had not seen the present life of the Compendium of Materia Medica.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the glory of the medicinal saint and the Compendium of Materia Medica</h1>
Ancient monks and monks, who cultivated to the height of the miao, could predict the date of their own death, and Li Shizhen, who was skilled in medical skills, expected that the date of death was approaching and left a will, asking his son to present the "Compendium of Materia Medica" to the imperial court, which shows the heart of the medical saint fist to save the world. In 1596, Li Jianyuan complied with his father Li Shizhen's last wishes and presented the Wanli Emperor with a suicide note and the Jinling Ben "Compendium of Materia Medica", hoping that the imperial court would officially expand printing. However, the Wanli Emperor approved the Holy Decree and said: "The book is left in the book, and the Ministry of Rites knows it. After Jinling was collected in Wenyuan Pavilion, it sank into the sea.
But the cattle man is the cow man, and Wang Shizhen's five-hundred-word "Compendium of Materia Medica" with light and fluttering words shows the terrifying ability of the Literary Allies of the Wanli Dynasty to carry goods! Since its publication, the "Compendium of Materia Medica" has quickly become popular throughout the country, becoming a must-have collection for families from scholars to merchants and civilians, and by virtue of the international cultural influence of Wang Shizhen's terror, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan and other countries have spent a lot of money to buy the "Compendium of Materia Medica".
In the more than 400 years since its publication, the number of domestic typesets has reached more than 60, and the frequency of its publications, the number of published editions, and the wide range of circulation are the only ones in the history of medicine in China! Later generations of merchants, who sell traditional Chinese medicine drugs, must mention the "Compendium of Materia Medica" to catch the attention of customers. Moreover, the Jinling Ben, which has the original preface by Wang Shizhen, has also been recognized as the most valuable book by successive generations of medical practitioners. Jinling ben has become a rare and precious version, and there are currently 7 surviving ones, and only 2 in China.
After 27 years of hard work, Li Shizhen finally wrote the magnum opus "Compendium of Materia Medica", and 18 years after the book was completed, Jinling Ben was able to come out, which can be described as a series of twists and turns, and there are many difficulties. More than 300 years later, the British naturalist Darwin once rubbed the heat of the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and thus proposed the famous theory of evolution. The British historian of science and technology Dr. Joseph Needham further praised in his "History of Science and Technology in China" that "the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming Dynasty is Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica".
Author: Yao Youzhi, our special guest author