How great is Li Shizhen s Compendium of Materia Medica ?

The Compendium of Materia Medica is a classic work in the treasure house of the world's medical science. It systematically summarizes all the achievements of medicine before the Ming Dynasty, with a total of nearly two million words and a total of fifty-two volumes. A total of 1,892 kinds of medicines are recorded, volume 1 and volume 2 are the sequence of materia medica, volume 3 and volume 4 are the main drugs for 100 diseases, from volume 5 to volume 52, the collection of 1,892 kinds of drugs are classified into 16 parts, 60 categories are described, more than 11,000 prescriptions are attached to the book, and more than 1,100 drug form diagrams.

Each drug is divided into interpretation, interpretation, correctness and error, treatment, smell, indication, invention, prescription and other items, which can be described as clear and complete.

Li Shizhen's obsession and loyalty to medicine has surpassed many people, later generations in order to commemorate Li Shizhen, his statue stood at the entrance of the hospital, "Compendium of Materia Medica" has a very important significance to the inheritance of medicine, Li Shizhen and his "Compendium of Materia Medica" has become a bright pearl in the history of medicine, guiding medical practitioners. <>

1593 Compendium of Materia Medica

Officially released in Nanjing, Li Shizhen.

The original intention of compiling the "Compendium of Materia Medica" was because in the course of his long-term medical practice, he found that there were many mistakes in the previous Materia Medica, and some of the experience in medicine was no longer practical, so he wanted to write a new medical book. In order to compile the "Compendium of Materia Medica", Li Shizhen studied 925 kinds of medical books and related materials, and traveled more than 10,000 miles in order to collect drug specimens. Li Shizhen devoted his life's energy and painstaking efforts, traveled all over the country, and completed the masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica" with a rigorous scientific attitude and the spirit of seeking truth from facts.

Li Shizhen is quite dedicated to science, at that time, in order to conduct in-depth research and obtain first-hand information, Li Shizhen risked his life and swallowed a mandala.

Experience the narcotic effects of this medicine until the point of mental trance, loss of pain sensation. After many personal attempts, he found that soybeans should be added with licorice, and the detoxification effect was revealed. <>

Written by Li ShizhenCompendium of Materia MedicaThe arduous journey

Since the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (1565), Li Shizhen has been practicing medicine and writing books at the same time. Li Shizhen knew that angelica had the effect of stopping bleeding, but the angelica he saw was all sun-dried and didn't know what it looked like. Li Shizhen felt that his knowledge was too shallow, so he traveled all over the land of China.

went out and traveled all over the country, Li Shizhen was 47 years old at this time, and he had traveled almost half of China. Pangolin.

It has the effect of medicine, but how do pangolins eat ants, he only saw it in books, so he went to observe it himself. Therefore, in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", there are zoology, botany, mineralogy, etc., which is not only a medical book, but an encyclopedia.

At the age of 65, the "Compendium of Materia Medica" was written, but it could not be published. First, to Wanli.

During this year, the Wanli Emperor killed many Confucian students and did not allow Confucian scholars to publish books. Second, peasant uprisings broke out in various places later, and the publication of the book was put on hold.

Li Shizhen died at the age of 76, and it was not until three years after his death that his family printed and published the "Compendium of Materia Medica". The "Compendium of Materia Medica" was circulated among the people, and Li Shizhen was immortalized and made great contributions to medicine, zoology, botany, and mineralogy.

Li Shizhen's main achievements

Li Shizhen broke the self-study "Shennong's Materia Medica".

Since then, it has followed the classification method of upper, middle and lower grades for more than 1,000 years, and divided the medicine into 16 parts, including 60 categories, including water, fire, earth, gold and stone, grass, grain, lai, fruit, wood, utensils, insects, scales, media, birds, beasts and humans. The name of each drug label is the outline, and the following items of the outline are clear.

The book also systematically describes the knowledge of various medicines. Including correction, interpretation, interpretation, correctness and error, treatment, smell, indications, inventions, appendices, prescriptions, etc., from the history, morphology to function, prescription, etc., the description is very detailed, enriching the knowledge of materia medica.

The main reason why Li Shizhen wrote the "Compendium of Materia Medica" was that he found that there were some errors in many classical medical books he had read before, and gave many people some wrong instructions.

Li Shizhen is a native of Hubei and has lived 75 years old, which is a relatively long-lived person. Li Shizhen is regarded as a son inheriting his father's business, and his father is a master herbalist, but doctors at that time were not as popular as they are now, so his father didn't want Li Shizhen to be a doctor anymore. When Li Shizhen was 14 years old, his father once took him to the exam, and he was admitted to Xiucai, but this seems to be Li Shizhen's imperial examination career.

Li Shizhen loves medical skills, and is not keen on exams, and then he took the exam three times, but he did not win, so his father had to accept his fate and let Li Shizhen specialize in medical skills, and Li Shizhen was already a famous doctor in his 20s.

In order to compile the "Compendium of Materia Medica", Li Shizhen read a lot of books, and also traveled through many places to personally observe and understand various medicines. Through his unremitting efforts, he finally completed the compilation of the "Compendium of Materia Medica". The Compendium of Materia Medica is an unprecedented masterpiece of pharmacology in China.

Darwin praised it as "the encyclopedia of ancient China".

1. In the process of writing the "Compendium of Materia Medica", in order to understand the living habits of pangolins, Li Shizhen followed the hunters into the deep mountains and old forests, followed the traces of pangolins, conducted field investigations, and also caught pangolins to dissect them personally.

2. In order to study the detailed characteristics of the mandala, Li Shizhen drank the wine soaked in the mandala and wanted to experience the effect of the mandala. So that in the end, after being poured antidote into the coma, he quickly wrote down the origin, shape, habits, and growth period of the mandala as soon as he woke up, and wrote down how to soak the wine and the effect, dosage, efficacy, reaction process, etc. In this way, another drug that can be used as a clinical anesthetic has been introduced.

3. Li Shizhen is not afraid of high mountains and long roads, not afraid of severe cold and heat, and has traveled all over the famous mountains that produce medicinal materials. He sometimes did not go down for several days, ate dry food when he was hungry, and spent the night in the mountains when it was dark. He tasted many medicinal herbs with his own mouth and judged the medicinal properties and efficacy.

In this way, he went through a lot of hardships and accumulated a large amount of medical medicine information. Li Shizhen started writing in his 30s and wrote the first draft of the "Compendium of Materia Medica" at the age of 54.

The Compendium of Materia Medica has not only made significant contributions to the development of pharmacology in China, but also had a profound impact on the development of medicine, botany, zoology, mineralogy and chemistry in the world.

After the book was published, it soon spread to Japan, and later to Europe and the United States, and was successively translated into more than ten languages such as Japanese, French, German, English, Latin, Russian, and Korean, and published abroad, and spread to five continents. As early as 1951, at the World Peace Council held in Vienna, Li Shizhen was listed as a celebrity in the ancient world.

His marble statue stands in the gallery of Moscow University. It not only has a great contribution to traditional Chinese medicine, but also plays a huge role in promoting the development of natural science in the world, and is known as the "Great Book of Oriental Medicine", and the famous British biologist Charles Darwin has also benefited from the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and called it "the ancient Chinese encyclopedia".

Joseph Needham, a well-known British expert on the history of Chinese science and technology, wrote in The History of Science and Technology in China: "In the 16th century, there were two great works on natural medicine in China, one was the Essence of Materia Medica at the beginning of the century (1505), and the other was the Compendium of Materia Medica, which was published at the end of the century (1595), both of which were very great. ”