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.
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Influence of Compendium of Materia Medica
The publication of Compendium of Materia Medica has promoted the further development of Materia Medica. Ni's Compendium of Materia Medica, his Compendium of Materia Medica and Huang Gongxiu's Seeking Truth in Materia Medica are all herbal classics inspired by his theory. Chris robert darwin also cited the information of this book many times in his works, and called it "the ancient encyclopedia of China".
Needham of Britain praised Li Shizhen as "the prince in the field of pharmacy". This book is a masterpiece of materia medica. After its publication, it soon spread to Korea, Japan and other countries, and was later translated into Japanese, Korean, Latin, English, French, German and Russian.