Li Shizhen, the author of Compendium of Materia Medica, was born in Zhou Qi, Hubei Province in the Ming Dynasty. He was born in a family of traditional Chinese medicine, and his father was a hospital official. He took part in the imperial examination in his early years, and was a scholar at the age of 14. After that, he took part in three provincial examinations and failed in Sun Shan, so he inherited his family business and took medicine as his career. In the process of seeking medical advice, treating diseases and saving lives, we found that there were many mistakes in the medical books such as Materia Medica handed down by predecessors, which could not meet the needs of medical treatment. We have sprouted the ambition of studying materia medica, paid attention to collecting materials, conducted field visits and humbly consulted in medical practice, and gained a lot of useful information and experience. After 27 years of writing and three drafts, I completed the Compendium of Materia Medica with 1.9 million words. There are also innovations in the compilation system, and the scientific classification of ancient drugs has been established.
Compendium of Materia Medica collected more than 800 kinds of drug materials in literature, supplemented 374 kinds of drugs, enriched the content of traditional Chinese medicine, and completed the task of synthesizing drugs in Ming Dynasty.
The publishing industry of Compendium of Materia Medica is also full of twists and turns, which is quite legendary. Li Shizhen came to Jinling from Wuchang at the age of 70 to find a bookseller to print. Because of its huge volume, huge investment, labor and time-consuming, no bookseller dares to take it. It was not until the 18th year of Wanli (1590) that Hu Chenglong, a bookseller in Jinling, decided to invest in engraving Compendium of Materia Medica, which lasted for four years. In the 21st year of Wanli (1593), Jinling engraved Compendium of Materia Medica. At this point, Li Shizhen has been dead for three years and failed to see the publication of this masterpiece.
For hundreds of years, Compendium of Materia Medica has been printed and published in more than 80 editions, and has been translated into Japanese, English, German, French, Russian, Latin, Korean and other foreign languages, and spread all over the world. Darwin called it "the encyclopedia of ancient China" and Needham called it "the greatest scientific achievement of Ming Dynasty".