Do you know Compendium of Materia Medica? Compendium of Materia Medica is a wonderful book that affects the progress of science and technology in the world. It is not only a monograph on pharmacology, but also involves botany, zoology, mineralogy, metallurgy, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology and other fields.
This book has been translated into Japanese, French, English, German, Russian and other languages, and spread all over the world, which has had a far-reaching impact. Actually, I didn't know much about it before, but I watched a cultural program called China in Classics this week, and learned about China's famous classics such as Compendium of Materia Medica, Songs of the South, Historical Records and The Analects of Confucius.
The author of Compendium of Materia Medica is Li Shizhen, whose father is a famous doctor. Li Shizhen also wanted to treat people like his father, but his father wanted him to study, so he said to him, "It is difficult to practice medicine. Don't sail against the current like me. You should study hard and get ahead! "
However, Li Shizhen did not stop. He asked his father three times and promised him to practice medicine. His father was finally moved by Li Shizhen's spirit and asked him, "Why do you want to practice medicine?" Li Shizhen said: "I want to benefit the people and cure diseases." Li Shizhen's father finally agreed.
Li Shizhen followed his father to practice medicine everywhere, but later found that there were many mistakes in cursive scripts of past dynasties. He made up his mind to modify a new cursive script to prevent people from grasping the wrong medicine when seeing a doctor. Li Shizhen practiced medicine everywhere and accumulated medical knowledge, looking for prescriptions among the people. Many years later, he finally wrote a 52-volume Compendium of Materia Medica, which classified Materia Medica for the first time.
When he wanted to print, the biggest local bookseller said to him, "This book needs a lot of energy and manpower. Although I want to help my husband, I really can't! " Li Shizhen said, "Is there no other way?" The bookseller thought for a moment and said, "If we can get the preface made by Mr. Wang Shizhen, the most influential scholar of our time, our colleagues will certainly compete for printing."
Hearing this, Li Shizhen went all the way to find Wang Shizhen who had never met before. He went to Wang Shizhen's house and met Wang Shizhen successfully after many times. After reading the book, Wang Shizhen was surprised and promised to preface him. But Li Shizhen was worried about the book's flaws, so he took it back for ten years, corrected some flaws, and then asked Wang Shizhen to make a preface.
Finally, bookseller Hu Chenglong is willing to print the book. Unfortunately, however, Li Shizhen died shortly after the book was published. It was difficult to write Compendium of Materia Medica at that time. But Li Shizhen braved difficulties and went upstream, and finally published it. It is this indomitable will and the spirit of not being afraid of difficulties that is worth learning.
If he didn't have such a strong will, we might not have seen such a book as Compendium of Materia Medica. I didn't know what persistence meant before, but Li Shizhen's story taught me that persistence means not being afraid of difficulties and not giving up! Persistence is always doing what you like!