Li Shizhen (about 1518 ~ 1593), the word Dongbi, in his later years, called himself a native of Hushan, a native of Qizhou, Huangzhou, Huguang (now Qichun County, Hubei Province), and a famous medical scientist in the Ming Dynasty.
He is as famous as the "medical saint" Wan Mizhai, and his works include "Examination of the Eight Veins of the Strange Classics", "The Study of the Pulse of the Lake", "Compendium of Materia Medica" and so on. He was revered as the "Saint of Medicine" by later generations.
01, smart and good since childhood, helped Ma Gongzi tie the knot
On July 3, 1518, Li Shizhen was born in a family of world doctors in the east of Qizhou Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province.
Li Shizhen has been smart and good since she was a child, and she has learned a lot of words with her father before she goes to school. When I first entered the school, Mr. Private School looked at the distant mountains surrounded by trees, and said, "The distant sound is quiet in the forest." ”
Although Li Shizhen was only eight years old at the time, he saw that the morning glow was very bright, and the passing passengers had already boarded, so he blurted out: "Mingxia flies to passengers." ”
There was a pharmacy owner who had a daughter under his knees, who was intelligent and beautiful, and in order to choose a talented man for his daughter to marry.
It was decided to use the name of medicine to make a joint marriage: "A root of jade leaves and golden flowers." Many suitors sighed.
Among them, there was a young man surnamed Ma who was loyal, but he was slightly lacking in literary talent, and he had to ask Li Shizhen for help.
The young Li Shizhen was happy to help others, and blurted out: "Cordyceps sinensis nine-fold skin." The shopkeeper was very happy after seeing it, and then came out of the "Pulsatilla Morning Glory Farming", which was limited to half a day.
Ma Gongzi had no choice but to beg Li Shizhen. In order to fulfill this marriage, Li Shizhen thought about it for a while, and used "Heavenly Fairy Acacia with Matchmaker" as the next couplet. The shopkeeper was very satisfied and immediately agreed to the engagement.
02. When I was young, I tried to prescribe medicine, and I first showed my edge
When Li Shizhen was still a teenager, Li Yanwen often brought his two sons to the Taoist temple "Xuan Miaoguan" where he served as a clinic, practicing medicine and teaching his sons to study at the same time.
Li Shizhen is more and more familiar with the knowledge and skills of practicing medicine, and his interest is getting stronger and stronger.
One day, Li Yanwen was invited by the patient to take his eldest son to the clinic, and Li Shizhen was the only one left in the mystical view.
At this time, a patient came and vomited. Li Shizhen told his father that he would not be able to return until the evening. Why don't you try a prescription first?
The sick man was so uncomfortable that he agreed. Li Shizhen decisively prescribed a prescription to take medicine, beat the patient and left.
Li Yanwen returned home and found that his youngest son had prescribed medicine, and his heart suddenly rose to his throat.
He asked Li Shizhen what prescription he prescribed, and Li Shizhen replied in a whisper. Li Yanwen listened and nodded incessantly.
03, studied medicine with his father, became famous as a doctor, and entered the palace of Chu as a doctor
When Li Shizhen was 14 years old, he went to Huangzhou Mansion with his father to take the examination, and returned from the show, he was not keen on the imperial examination, and then went to Wuchang three times to take the examination, but he did not rank, so he decided to abandon Confucianism to study medicine and study medicine.
Li was erudite and versatile, and after failing the township test, he learned scriptures from the physicist Gu Riyan. From the classics, down and the history of hundreds of schools, I don't read it, and I have a deep knowledge of science.
Li Shizhen studied medicine with his father at the age of 23, and his reading of medical books became more and more famous. After hard study and practice, at the age of 30, he became famous for curing the illness of the son of Zhu Houkun, the king of Fushun.
In 1551, when Li Shizhen was 33 years old, Zhu Ying, the royal family of Wuchang, had a son who suffered from qi syncope.
Zhu Ying heard the news that Li Shizhen had cured the intractable illness of the grandson of King Fushun in Qizhou, so he went to hire Li Shizhen.
After Li Shizhen arrived at the palace, he found that the child's convulsions were caused by the stomach, so he prescribed a prescription to regulate the stomach, and it didn't take long for the son of the king of Chu to be cured.
The king of Chu was very satisfied and respected Li Shizhen, so he wanted to keep Li Shizhen in the palace as the "Fengcizheng" and be in charge of the medical affairs of the palace. Li Shizhen asked to read the books and classics collected by the palace.
The collection of books in the palace of the king of Chu is very rich, Li Shizhen stayed in the palace of the king of Chu for five years, and he read many medical classics, such as Tao Hongjing's "Famous Doctor's Records", Sun Simiao's "Thousand Golden Prescriptions", etc., and increased his knowledge.
04. Served in Tai Hospital, and the medical level increased greatly
In 1556, coinciding with the selection of famous doctors from all over the world by the imperial court, Li Shizhen was recommended to enter the palace as a imperial doctor.
In the Tai Hospital, Li Shizhen feasted on the rich classics of the royal collection, including the ancient medical book "The Essence of Materia Medica", saw rare medicinal materials, and gained great insight.
Li Shizhen was actively engaged in drug research, and often went in and out of the pharmacy and imperial medicine warehouse of Yutai Hospital, carefully comparing and identifying medicinal materials from various places, and collected a large amount of information.
At the same time, he obtained a large amount of information about the folk herbal medicine from the court at that time, and saw many drug specimens that are difficult to see in ordinary times, which broadened his horizons, enriched his knowledge, and greatly increased his medical level.
Li Shizhen, who was in the palace, presented a recital to the emperor, indicating the idea of rebuilding the Materia Medica, but it was not accepted by the emperor, and he was not interested in fame and fortune, so after serving for one year, Li Shizhen resigned and returned to his hometown.
05, Li Shizhen apprenticed thousands of miles away
Li Shizhen returned to his hometown to continue to see a doctor for his neighbors, and one morning, a Sichuan businessman with black circles under his eyes, white lips and coughing up blood came to see a doctor with his chest covered.
After Li Shizhen took his pulse, he found that he was terminally ill, so he hurriedly prescribed him a few pairs of medicines and urged him to go home to deal with the aftermath.
A year later, Li Shizhen reunited with the Sichuan businessman in Qizhou. The businessman was happy to greet Li Shizhen when he saw him.
It turned out that when he returned to Sichuan, a doctor known as "Sai Huatuo" decided to see him after learning that he had been sentenced to only a few days to live.
After careful inspection, "he asked the merchant to take out the prescription prescribed by Li Shizhen, picked up the pen after reading it, and added two flavors of medicine."
The merchant took the medicine according to the new prescription, and after a few days, he felt noticeably better, and after a month, he was basically recovered.
Li Shizhen asked the businessman for the address of "Saihuatuo", and immediately set off for Sichuan and found the place of residence of "Saihuatuo".
Li Shizhen came to visit and said that he hoped to learn medical skills from "Saihuatuo", but he was directly turned away.
Although Li Shizhen was not discouraged, he decided to live nearby. Every day, Li Shizhen cleans the pharmacy and grinds ink for "Saihuatuo".
When "Sai Huatuo" sat in the clinic to see a doctor, Li Shizhen stood beside him to observe and record his diagnosis process.
Seeing Li Shizhen's efforts and talents, he began to teach Li Shizhen some medical knowledge and skills, and shared his own experience and insights.
His ability to recognize and diagnose diseases has been greatly improved under the guidance of "Saihuatuo", and after several years of study and practice, Li Shizhen has finally become an excellent doctor.
06. Dongbitang practices medicine and has superb medical skills
Li Shizhen returned to his hometown and opened a medical center, named Dongbitang. Li Shizhen began to practice medicine and teach students.
As more and more patients are seen, his medical skills become more and more exquisite Li Shizhen, and he can save the dead.
One day, Li Shizhen and his eldest apprentice Wang Guanghe came to Hukou and saw a group of people carrying a coffin for the funeral, and the coffin was bleeding straight out.
Li Shizhen hurriedly stopped the crowd and asked to open the coffin to treat the people in the coffin. Li Shizhen persuaded repeatedly, and finally made the owner agree to open the coffin. It turned out to be a pregnant woman who passed out in a difficult place, looking like a dead person.
After a massage, and then a needle in his heart, after a while, the woman in the coffin woke up with a soft snort.
Li Shizhen asked her family to carry her home, Li Shizhen helped her deliver the baby, and soon after, the woman gave birth to a son, and the family was grateful.
Li Shizhen can also "cut off the dead from the living". One day, after eating and drinking, the son of the owner of a pharmacy climbed over the counter and asked Li Shizhen to check his pulse.
Li Shizhen told him that he would not live for three hours, and told him to hurry home. Everyone didn't believe it, and the son of the pharmacy owner scolded him even more.
Sure enough, within three hours, the man was dead. It turned out that this person had eaten too much, jumped over, broke his intestines, and damaged his internal organs. Since then, Li Shizhen has made a great statement, and there has been an endless stream of people who come to see the doctor.
07. Go to various places to collect herbs, practice medicine, and ask people from all walks of life for advice
In the course of practicing medicine and reading classical medical books for decades, Li Shizhen found that there were many errors in the ancient Materia Medica, and decided to recompile a Materia Medica.
In 1552, Li Shizhen began to compile the "Compendium of Materia Medica", in the process of compiling the "Compendium of Materia Medica", the most headache for Li Shizhen was that due to the mixed names of medicines, he often could not figure out the shape and growth of the medicines.
In the past, because some authors did not go deep into the actual investigation and research, but copied back and forth in the book, the more they explained, the more confused they became, and there were many contradictions, which made people feel inconsistent.
Li Shizhen decided to pick herbs himself and figure out the properties of these herbs. Since 1565, Li Shizhen wore straw sandals and carried a medicine basket, and took his students and son Jianyuan to cross the mountains and mountains to visit doctors and collect medicines.
Their footprints cover Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and other vast areas, as well as Niushou Mountain, Setshan, Maoshan Mountain, Taihe Mountain and other mountains and rivers.
They traveled tens of thousands of miles, and he also studied under the guidance of fishermen, woodcutters, farmers, coachmen, pharmacists, and snake catchers, and solved many difficult problems.
Li Shizhen inspected all the way, all the way to treat his parents and fellow villagers, there was an old woman who suffered from habitual constipation for 30 years, although many treatments were made, but it was ineffective.
Li Shizhen used the home remedies learned from the folk and prepared the medicine with an appropriate amount of morning glory, and quickly cured her illness.
08. Finally, it was compiled into the "Compendium of Materia Medica", which has been passed down through the ages
Li Shizhen traveled all over the country to collect herbs, taste herbs and write down the shape and performance characteristics of herbs, and accumulated a wealth of information.
He listened to the opinions of tens of millions of people, consulted more than 800 kinds of books, and spent 27 years finally writing the first draft of the "Compendium of Materia Medica" in 1578. He was 61 years old.
After that, it was revised three times in 10 years, for a total of 40 years. In 1596, three years after Li Shizhen's death, the Compendium of Materia Medica was officially published in Jinling (present-day Nanjing).
The Compendium of Materia Medica consists of 52 volumes, with a total of more than 1.9 million words, containing 1,892 kinds of medicines and collecting 11,096 medical prescriptions.
He also painted 1,160 exquisite illustrations, divided into 16 parts and 60 categories, and was the culmination of classical Chinese medicine Known as the "Great Book of Oriental Medicine", the famous British biologist Charles Darwin called it "the ancient Chinese encyclopedia".
Li Shizhen was revered as the "medicine saint" by later generations. Li Shizhen is also the author of medical books such as "Examination of the Eight Veins of the Strange Classics", "The Study of the Pulse of the Lake", and "The Theory of the Five Organs".