"Compendium of Materia Medica" was written by Li Shizhen.
Li Shizhen (about 1518~1593) was an outstanding medical scientist in the Ming Dynasty. The courtesy name is Dongbi, and his late nickname is Binghushanren. A native of Qizhou (now Qichun, Hubei). He is a doctor in the world. He heard from his father that he has a medical reputation. He studied Confucianism at a young age and failed the provincial examination three times. He studied under Gu Riyan for ten years. Influenced by his family and good at medical books, he mastered medicine. Traveling thousands of miles away to seek medical advice is not worth living. When the King of Chu heard about it, he hired him to serve in the temple and be in charge of the work of good doctors. The prince suffered a violent seizure, and he was cured immediately. Upon recommendation, he will go to the Imperial Hospital of the Capital to work for one year, and may even be given the post of court judge of the Imperial Hospital.
In his later years, he became an official in Jianzhong and was granted the title of Wenlinlang and the magistrate of Pengxi County in Sichuan Province. There are many errors in the annotations of the book Materia Medica in the past, so I conducted archaeological research to prove the present, identified doubts and corrected errors, collected widely and widely, and worked hard to compile and revise it.
From the 31st year of Jiajing (1552) to the 6th year of Wanli (1578), it lasted for 27 years. He revised his manuscript three times and wrote 52 volumes of "Compendium of Materia Medica", which was first published in Jinling. Zijianzhong, Jianyuan, Jianmu and Zhusun all participated in drawing the medicinal map, and Sun Shuzong and Shusheng proofread it. As soon as it is carved, the treasure of time is gone. He also had deep research on pulse theory. The book "Binhu Pulseology" (1564) was able to integrate the essence of the pulse theory of the ancestors, cut out the redundant and unnecessary, and emphasized practicality. The discussion was relatively popular and concise, and it was written in rhyme style for easy memorization. This book summarizes the pulse conditions into twenty-seven categories, each of which is composed of poems about the form, similar poems, and poems about the disease. He also wrote "An Examination of the Eight Meridians of Strange Meridians" (1572), which especially elaborated on the routes of the strange meridians and the rules of syndrome and treatment. Lost medical works include "Three Jiao Guest Difficulties", "Mingmen Kao" (perhaps considered to be a book based on the truth), "The Theory of Five Internal Organs", "Binhu Medical Records", "Binhu Collection of Simple Prescriptions", etc. The second son, Jianyuan, followed his father's profession of medicine and had a medical name. After his father died, he presented "Compendium of Materia Medica" to the court. The fourth son Jianfang was an expert in medicine, and in his middle age he was selected as a medical doctor in Taiyuan Hospital. His disciple Pang Lumen taught him medicine; Qu Jiusi taught him Confucianism.