His father Li Yanwen is a local famous doctor. Li Shizhen inherited family studies, attached importance to materia medica, was full of practical learning spirit, and was willing to learn from working people.
At the age of 38, Li Shizhen was summoned by the King of Chu in Wuchang, where he served as a "temple official" and was in charge of the affairs of the good doctor's office.
Three years later, he was recommended by his wife's hospital to go to Beijing for sentencing.
Thai Hospital is a medical institution specially serving the imperial court. It was messed up by some quacks at that time.
Li Shizhen worked here for only one year, then resigned and returned to China.
Li Shizhen consulted more than 800 books on medicine and its academic research in past dynasties, combined with his own experience and investigation, and compiled Compendium of Materia Medica for 27 years, which is a summary masterpiece of pharmacology in Ming Dynasty.
It has been highly praised at home and abroad. There have been several translated versions or abridged versions, and the other is Hu Ling Pulse.
The Li family has been a doctor for generations, and his grandfather is "Dr. Zhong"; The father of Li Yanwen, the first person in yuechi county, is a local famous doctor.
At that time, the status of folk doctors was very low.
The Li family is often bullied by officials and gentry.
Therefore, the father decided to let his second son, Li Shizhen, go to school and take exams, so that he could succeed once and get ahead.
Li Shizhen was sickly since childhood, but his personality was straightforward and pure, and he disdained learning boring eight-part essay.
In the nine years since 14 was admitted to the Jinshi, he went to Wuchang three times, with an average name of Sun Shan.
So, he gave up his plan to be an official in the imperial examination and concentrated on studying medicine, so he asked his father for instructions and showed his determination: "Sailing against the current, my heart is stronger than stone.
I hope my father will aim high and not be afraid of difficulties until he dies. "
Li Yuechi finally woke up in front of the cold facts, agreed to his son's request and taught him carefully.
Within a few years, Li Shizhen really became111the famous doctor of hope.
Inspired by his father, Li Shizhen realized that it was necessary to "read thousands of books", but it was more necessary to "take the Wan Li road".
Therefore, he not only "accepted" but also "visited the four sides" to conduct in-depth investigations.
Li Shizhen put on straw sandals, took up his medicine basket, and accompanied by his apprentice Pang Xian and his son Jian Yuan, walked a long way in Shan Ye, visiting famous doctors and scholars, looking for folk prescriptions, observing and collecting medicinal specimens.
He first interviewed in his hometown of qi zhou, and then went abroad for many times.
Besides Huguang, I have been to Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui and other places, and I have also been to Tai 1 Heshan.
Later generations wrote a poem for this purpose, "A secluded place, exploring the flowers at the foot of the mountain", which reflected his life of trekking and interviewing everywhere.
Everywhere Li Shizhen went, he humbly asked the local people, including herbalists, farmers, fishermen, lumberjacks and hunters, and enthusiastically helped him understand various local medicines.
Brassica, for example, is a commonly used medicine to treat diseases, but what is it? Shennong's herbal classics are unclear, and the annotations are also unclear.
Li Shizhen asked an old man who grew vegetables. Under his guidance, he inspected the real thing and realized that Brassica was actually rape.
This kind of plant, planted in the first year, blooms in the second year, and its seeds can be used to extract oil.
Therefore, this medicine is clearly explained in his Compendium of Materia Medica.
Li Shizhen paid great attention to observing the morphology and growth of drugs, both in interviews and in his own medicine nursery.
Agkistrodon acutus, that is, Agkistrodon acutus produced by Zhou Qi, has the function of treating wind arthralgia, convulsion and tinea.
Li Shizhen studied it for a long time, but at first he only observed it from the snakehead.
The insider reminded him that it was caught from the mountains of Xingguo House in the south of the Yangtze River, and it was not a real viper.
So what does a real viper look like? He asked a snake catcher, and the snake catcher told him that the tip of Agkistrodon acutus is highly toxic, and people who are bitten should amputate immediately, otherwise they will die of poisoning.
It is very valuable because it has special effects on the treatment of the above diseases.
State officials forced the masses to risk their lives to catch them in order to pay tribute to the emperor.
Qi zhou is so big, in fact, only Longfeng Mountain in the north of the city has real vipers.
Li Shizhen got to the bottom of it. He wanted to observe the viper with his own eyes, so he asked the snake catcher to take him to Longfeng Mountain.
There is a cave, surrounded by rocks and shrubs.
Heather, wrapped around shrubs, can be seen everywhere.
Agkistrodon likes to eat heather leaves, so it lives in this area.
Li Shizhen looked everywhere regardless of the danger.
With the help of the snake catcher, I finally saw the viper with my own eyes and saw the whole process of catching and making snakes.
Because of this in-depth practical investigation, he later wrote a discussion about Agkistrodon halys in Compendium of Materia Medica, which was handy, concise and accurate.
It is said that the shape of the Agkistrodon is: "The dragon's head is in the tiger's mouth, with black and white flowers on the side, twenty-four Fang Shengwen, rosary spots on the abdomen, four fangs on the mouth, a Buddha's armor on the tail, one or two points long, and the intestines are like beads"; It is said that the process of catching and making Agkistrodon acutus is: "People eat its flowers and leaves on heather, so that people can find it."
Sprinkle a handful of sand first, then hold it flat with a fork.
Hang it with a rope, cut the abdomen with a knife to take out the intestinal material, then wash the abdomen backwards, and protect the wound with a cover. It is supported by bamboo, bent and coiled, and tied to the kang. At the same time, the difference between Agkistrodon halys and foreign Agkistrodon halys is clarified: "Those who go out of the field do not have dry eyes, and those who go out of the field do not have eyes." This clear description of various situations of Agkistrodon halys is of course due to careful field investigation.
Li Shizhen's understanding of drugs is not satisfied with a cursory investigation, but one by one, and compared with the real thing.
This clarifies many specious and ambiguous drugs.
In his words, it is "one by one, it is quite real" and "list all kinds of products and observe them repeatedly". In this way, after a long-term on-the-spot investigation, Li Shizhen found out many difficult problems of drugs, and completed the compilation of Compendium of Materia Medica in the fifth year of Wanli (AD 1578).
The book contains about 2 million words and 52 volumes, including 1892 kinds of drugs, 374 kinds of new drugs, more than 10000 kinds of carriers and more than 1000 pictures. It is an unprecedented pharmacological masterpiece in China.
Among them, many mistakes have been corrected, and outstanding achievements have been made in many aspects such as animal and plant taxonomy, and contributions have also been made to other related disciplines (biology, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, astronomy, etc.). ); Darwin praised it as "an encyclopedia of ancient China".
Li Shizhen died in 1593 at the age of 75 (nominally 76); After his death, his body was buried in Zhulinhu Village, qi zhou Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province. Li Shizhen wrote many books in his life, including Compendium of Materia Medica, Eight Books, Hu Ling Pulse, and Graph Theory of Five Zang Organs. People all over the world will always miss this great scientist.
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