Li Shizhen was born in Waxieba, Dongchang Street, qi zhou, Qichun County, Hubei Province on the 26th of the 13th lunar month. At the age of 23, he studied medicine with his father, and his medical name became increasingly prosperous. During decades of practicing medicine and reading classic medical books, Li Shizhen found many mistakes in ancient herbal books and decided to rewrite a herbal book.
In the thirty-first year of Jiajing reign of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty (1552), Li Shizhen set out to compile Compendium of Materia Medica, which was based on Zheng Materia Medica and referred to more than 800 books. During this period, from the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (1565), he left home for many inspections, covering many famous mountains and rivers in Huguang, Jiangxi, Zhili and other places.
After 27 years of long-term efforts, Li Shizhen completed the first draft of Compendium of Materia Medica in the sixth year of Wanli in Ming Shenzong at the age of 6 1. Later, it was revised three times during the period of 10, counting 40 years before and after. In the 25th year of Wanli, in the third year after Li Shizhen's death, Compendium of Materia Medica was officially published in Jinling.
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The influence of Compendium of Materia Medica on later generations;
Compendium of Materia Medica absorbed the essence of predecessors' materia medica works, corrected predecessors' mistakes as much as possible, supplemented the shortcomings and made many important discoveries and breakthroughs. It is the most systematic, complete and scientific medical work in China until the 6th century.
Compendium of Materia Medica has also had a far-reaching impact on the development of medicine, botany, zoology, mineralogy and chemistry in the world. This book creates a classification system of drugs step by step according to their natural properties. This classification method is one of the important methods of modern biological taxonomy, which is one and a half centuries earlier than the Natural System written by Linnai, the founder of modern plant taxonomy, and is known as the "Dictionary of Oriental Medicine".
Compendium of Materia Medica not only has medicinal value, but also shows the scientific spirit and effective methodology that Chinese traditional medicine attaches importance to argumentation and discrimination.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Li Shizhen
People's Network-Materialism in Compendium of Materia Medica (Taste Ancient Books)