Li Shizhen, a native of qi zhou, Hubei Province (now Qichun County, Hubei Province), was born into a family that has been practicing medicine for generations. In feudal times, "ten doctors and nine beggars" had a low social status and were looked down upon. So my father hoped that Li Shizhen could be an official and honor his ancestors, but Li Shizhen learned a lot of medical knowledge from his father and fell in love with medicine. After repeated requests, he officially went to see a doctor and followed his father to practice medicine. Li Shizhen liked to go to nature to collect specimens of various plants and animals since he was a child, and noticed the efficacy of some medicines. He also read many medical books and studied everything he could find carefully. Soon, he was recommended to work in Imperial Hospital in Beijing, which gave him the opportunity to read more books about medicine. He found many mistakes and omissions in Materia Medica written by the ancients, sometimes mistaking one medicine for two, and sometimes confusing the two medicines. If you take this medicine, a major medical accident will occur. For example, anti-sunflower and stellera chamaejasme, Polygonatum sibiricum and Gelsemium elegans are confused in medical books. Stellera chamaejasme and Goukiss are highly toxic drugs. If they are used as tonics, they will kill people. Ancient books say that soybeans can detoxify. He poisoned the puppy, then detoxified it with soybeans, and the puppy died. Later, he found that the detoxification effect was obvious only when licorice was added to soybeans. Therefore, he made up his mind to comprehensively sort out ancient materia medica and compile new materia medica.
Li Shizhen collects herbs. So, he left Imperial Hospital, practicing medicine, reading and taking notes. By the age of 35, he had read more than 800 kinds of medical books, and the notes he took were millions of words, which could hold several cabinets. On one occasion, Li Shizhen saw in a book that there were 24 diamond patterns under the skin of the viper. In order to prove the truth, he climbed the mountain alone and caught a white snake. Sure enough, there are 24 oblique square patterns under his stomach. This further inspired him to grow his talents in practice and prepare more scientific material conditions for the reconstruction of materia medica.
He left his hometown with problems in his medical practice and a bag on his back. In order to find drug samples and distinguish the authenticity, he traveled all over the mountains and rivers in Henan, Hebei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and other places, humbly asking the working people and worshiping them as teachers. Learn from fishermen, hunters, woodcutters, farmers and travel doctors about aquatic plants, birds and beasts, Chinese herbal medicines, whole grains, folk remedies and so on.
1578, Li Shizhen 6 1 year. From 34 to 6 1 year-old, after 27 years of hard work, I read nearly a thousand books, traveled thousands of miles, listened to the opinions of millions of people, and finally wrote the Compendium of Materia Medica with my own personal practice. The book * * * 65438+900,000 words, 52 volumes, 16, 62 categories. Among them, there are 1 195 species of plants, 340 species of animals and 357 species of minerals. * * * Collect 1892 herbs. In addition, there is a drug chart of110 in front of the book. Each drug is accompanied by usage and prescription, including 1 1096 prescriptions. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, entitled Looking at the Deep Sea from the Core, systematically summarized the rich experience of ancient medicine in China. It is "vibration outline, clear outline, broad but not complicated, detailed and important", which makes people clear at a glance.