In traditional Chinese medicine, plants were first used and the largest number, so ancient Chinese medicine was called "Materia Medica". Animal medicine, in second place. Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" of the Ming Dynasty divided plant medicine into grass (11 categories), grain (4 categories), vegetable (5 categories), fruit (6 categories), wood (6 categories) 5 parts and 32 categories; animal medicine was divided into insects (3 categories), scales (4 categories), intermediate (2 categories), poultry (4 categories), animals (5 categories), and human (1 category) 6 parts and 19 categories. Animal medicine and plant medicine "department" are comparable, and the class is mostly plant medicine, and the difference in quantity is even greater. Its carrier medicine is 1892 (actually 1897), of which plant medicine accounts for more than 1000 kinds, and animal medicine has more than 460 flavors.
However, the number of animals in the world is far greater than that of plants, and their utilization as a drug is really low compared to plants.
Look at a set of data:
The earliest extant (Eastern Han Dynasty) monograph on Traditional Chinese medicine, Shennong Materia Medica, contains 365 flavors of medicine, of which 67 are animal medicines; the appendix of China Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources (China Medicinal Materials Company, 1995) contains 1574 species of medicinal animals; the Journal of Chinese Animal Medicine (Gao Shixian, 1996) contains 1546 species of animal medicines; the Chinese Animal Medicine Resources (2007) records 2215 species of animals available for medicine; and the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (2010 edition) contains 873 kinds of medicines. There are 96 species of animal medicines included.
This has to start from the principle of action of Traditional Chinese medicine.
Different Chinese medicines have several characteristics and effects, that is, the bias of the drug. Treating diseases with medicines is to correct the disease phenomenon of the human body's yin and yang prosperity and decline with the bias of the drug, and restore the health state of the human body's yin and yang secrets, that is, "to make up for the deviation and save the drawbacks, to reconcile the internal organs", referred to as "to correct the deviation".
Compared with plants, the difference between animals and humans is smaller, and the bias is relatively inferior, so the effect of curing diseases is limited.
Question: Medicine, insects, earth, stones, grass roots and bark, etc., are different from people, and those who can cure people's diseases, why not? Answer: Heaven and earth are only popular in this yin and yang, becoming five lucks (gold, wood, water, fire, and earth are five lucks), and treating them as six qi (wind, cold, wet, dry, and fiery are also). Life is born in heaven and earth, that is, to uphold the five fortunes and six qi of heaven and earth to give birth to five internal organs and six intestines. Although all things are different from people, they are born of one breath in the heavens and the earth, and the special things are biased by one breath, and people have the full ears of heaven and earth. If the qi of the human body is partial to the decline, it will give birth to disease, and if it borrows medicine to be biased, in order to adjust the prosperity and decline of my body, and if it is returned to peace, there is no disease! Cover the yin and yang of the fake to change the yin and yang of the human body, so Shennong treats the disease with medicine. (Qing Tang Rongchuan's "Materia Medica")
Moreover, animals are alive after all, and killing and taking medicine is the next strategy.
Flesh and blood sentient products: nourishment (tonic qi, blood nourishment, nourishing yin, yang)
Attacking the products of good deeds: Breaking through (breaking qi, breaking blood, attacking accumulation, attacking strong points)
Some animal special parts (skin, horns, shells, etc.) and secretions, pathological products, etc. have their own particularities, except in this case. It has the effect of dispelling wind, or dehumidification, or opening, or heavy town, or clearing heat and detoxification.
The attack of animals, especially those of plants, with their animal nature, instinctive action and aggression, is more powerful than those of plants that cannot walk. The turtle armor breaks through the liver qi and removes the fistula. Pangolin performance through the mountain, out of the ground, so it can attack the sores and pus to break, but also can attack the accumulation of water to make it scatter. Leeches are sharp and good at entering, and they can suck blood, so they mainly attack blood accumulation. Flying and eating blood, the Lord walks the blood of the upper and lower levels. However, animals are all products of flesh and blood, and there are many people who enter the blood, so the above medicines are mainly attacking blood. Only turtle armor, the one who has the nature of gold and water, can still attack the qi and divide the ears. (Qing Tang Rongchuan's "Materia Medica")
Sun Simiao's "Preparation for Emergencies, Volume 1: Great Doctor Jingcheng" said:
"Since ancient Times, Ming Xian has cured diseases, and has used his life to help the critical, although he knows that he is a lowly animal and a noble person, as for loving life, people and animals are also one." Harming others and benefiting oneself, suffering from the same things, and the situation is worse than others? Husbands kill to survive, and go farther to live. "
Sun Simiao, known as Sun Zhenren, was revered by later generations as the "Medicine King". According to legend, the Medicine King once collected medicine and practiced in Mount Emei, and then became a "corpse dissolving immortal".
Corpse immortals are a kind of immortals in Taoism. After attaining enlightenment, a person can abandon the form of a skeleton and go to heaven, or leave no body behind, but only pretend to be a thing (or a sword or sword, or bamboo or a staff) and ascend to heaven, this process is called corpse dissolution; the immortal who becomes an immortal is called a corpse dissolving immortal. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, Ge Hong said in the "Baopuzi Inner Chapter, On Immortals": "According to the Immortal Classics, the cloud: the sergeant lifts the form and ascends the void, which is called the heavenly immortal; the sergeant swims on the famous mountain, which is called the land immortal; the corporal degenerates after death first, which is called the corpse dissolving the immortal." "People always have to die, this is a fact that Taoism is also difficult to avoid, and the proposal of "corpse to dissolve immortals" and explain "immortals" to "die" seems to "solve" this problem.
Why can a generation of real people only do "corpse immortals"? In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang read the Xuanmu Zhi and said: "Taste the immortals descending, called Si Miao Yue: Er's "Dry Gold Fang", the merits of the people, have also been widely known, and with the life of things as medicine, there are many harmful things, and they will be immortals who are dissoluted, and they must not be taken lightly in the daytime." The gist is that Sun Simiao's "Qianjin Fang" uses some living drugs and kills harmful substances, so he cannot become a heavenly immortal and an earth immortal, but can only be a third-class corpse immortal.
Su Dongpo's "Title Sun Simiao Zhenren" said:
Sir has been gone for five hundred years, It is still in the Emei West Ridge; Since it is the Heavenly Immortal Foot Official, Sitters should not be disembodied.
Protected animals at the national level
Antelope Is a national first-class protected animal
National second-level protected animals
Many rare animals have been banned from medicine.
Those medicinal lives deserve to be cherished and used with a compassionate heart.
Citation data references:
Xu Hongfa, Jiang Zhigang, editors-in-chief, Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Medicinal Animal and Plant Resources in China. Shanghai:East China Normal University Press,2003:21.]
Deng Minglu, eds. Animal Medicine Resources in China[m]. Beijing:China Traditional Chinese Medicine Press, 2007.
Kang Tingguo, ed. , v. Identification of Chinese Medicines (9th Edition) Beijing: China Traditional Chinese Medicine Press, 2012:32.