In the past ten years, Li Shizhen has read a lot of ancient medical books and discovered ancient herbal books through clinical practice. "The number of products is annoying, and the names are miscellaneous. Or one thing is divided into two or three products, or two things are mixed with one product "(Biography of Foreign History in Ming Dynasty). In particular, many toxic drugs are considered to be "long-lasting", which leads to endless disasters. So he decided to rewrite a herbal book. At the age of thirty-one, I started making wine. In order to "search for the poor and learn from the rich", I read many reference books. After reading the books collected at home, I took the opportunity of practicing medicine and borrowed some from rich and powerful families in my hometown. Later, he entered the Chu Palace in Wuchang and the Beijing Imperial Hospital. He read many books and became a "book fan". He described himself as "a long-time lover of classics and fond of chewing sugar cane" (the original preface of Compendium of Materia Medica). Gu Jingxing also praised him for "studying for ten years, staying at home, and learning without worry" in Biography of Li Shizhen. Indeed, he not only read more than 800 kinds of tens of thousands of medical books, but also read many historical, geographical and literary masterpieces, including Dunhuang classics and historical masterpieces. The complete works of several great ancient poets have also been carefully studied. He also extracted many poems about medicine. These poems gave him a lot of real and useful medical knowledge and helped him correct many fallacies of his predecessors in medicine. For example, "Fuxi" often appeared in ancient medical books. What do they mean? What's the difference? Pharmacologists in past dynasties have different opinions and debates. Li Shizhen quoted two sentences from Qu Yuan's Lisao, namely, "I will compete with a chicken for food" and "I will be like a duck to water", pointing out that the poet's juxtaposition of "I" and "I" proves that they are not a kind of bird. According to the description of their different living environments in the poem, he proved that "Fu" is a domestic duck and "Fu" is a wild duck with different medicinal properties. Qu Yuan's poetry and prose fu became the eloquent basis for Li Shizhen to research the name and reality of drugs.
In the process of compiling Compendium of Materia Medica, the biggest headache for Li Shizhen is that the shape and growth of drugs are often confused because of the mixed names of drugs. Although the cursive script in the past has been repeatedly explained, some authors copied it from books instead of in-depth investigation and study, so the more they explained, the more confused they became, and the contradictions multiplied, which made people unable to agree. For example, Tao Hongjing, a famous medical scientist in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, said it was grass, like ephedra, but it was blue in color and had white flowers. Ma Su in Song Dynasty thought it was like Qing Dynasty, and accused Tao Hongjing of not knowing it at all. Another example is a medicine for treating the dog's spine. Some people say it looks like a weed, some people say it looks like a weed, and some people say it looks like a flower. Opinions are very different. There are many similar situations, and Li Shizhen has to write them down again and again. How to solve these problems? 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 and took up his medicine basket. Accompanied by his disciple Pang Xian and his son Jian Yuan, he walked far and wide 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. Later, he went out for interviews many times. Besides Huguang, I have been to many places in Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Anhui. Taihe Mountain in Zhou Jun has also been there. Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi, which is rich in medicinal materials, Sheshan Mountain, Maoshan Mountain and Niushou Mountain in Nanjing are also estimated to have his footprints. 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 all kinds of people for advice. Among them are herb gatherers, farmers, fishermen, wood cutters and hunters. Enthusiastically help him understand all kinds of drugs.
For example, Brassica is a commonly used medicine to treat diseases. But what is this? 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. So his Compendium of Materia Medica clearly notes this medicine.
Li Shizhen pays great attention to observing the morphology and growth of drugs during interviews in various places or in his own medicine nursery. Agkistrodon acutus, a white snake from qi zhou. The medicine has the effects of treating wind arthralgia, convulsion and tinea. Li Shizhen studied it for a long time. But at first, I just 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 consulted the snake catcher. The man told him that the fangs of Agkistrodon acutus were highly toxic. People who have been bitten should amputate their limbs 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. If you hang it with a rope and take out the intestinal material with a knife, wash the abdomen, turn the tail around, cover the wound, protect it, support it with a bamboo pole, bend it and tie it to the kang. "At the same time, the difference between Agkistrodon halys and Agkistrodon halys in other places is clarified:" Those who leave the ground will not be trapped by dry eyes, and those who are elsewhere will not be trapped. "This clear description of various situations of the Viper 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, quite true" and "list all the products and look at them again and again"
At that time, the "Langmei" produced by Wulong Palace in Taihe Mountain was described by Taoist as eating "immortal fruit". They pick them back every year and pay tribute to the emperor. The government forbids others to pick them. Li Shizhen doesn't believe the story of Taoist priest, so he should try it himself and see how the attack works. So, regardless of the opposition of the Taoist priests, he took the risk of picking one. It is found that it has the same efficacy as ordinary peaches and apricots, and can produce fluid to quench thirst. It is a deformed elm fruit, which has no special attack effect.
Koi fish, or pangolin today, is a commonly used Chinese medicine. Tao Hongjing said that it can be amphibious, climb rocks during the day, open its scales to play dead, lure ants into the armor, then close the scales, dive into the water, and then open the armor to let ants float out and swallow. In order to know whether Tao Hongjing's statement is correct, Li Shizhen personally went up the mountain to observe. With the help of woodcutter and hunter, he caught a pangolin. About a liter of ants were dissected from its stomach, which proved that Tao Hongjing was right. However, he found from his observation that when pangolins eat ants, they scratch and lick their nests instead of luring ants into their armor and swallowing them in the water. Li Shizhen affirmed Tao Hongjing's right side and corrected his mistakes.
In this way, after a long and arduous on-the-spot investigation, Li Shizhen found out many difficult problems of drugs, and completed the compilation of Compendium of Materia Medica in the Five India Years of Wanli (AD 1578). The book is about 6.5438+0.9 million words, 52 volumes, 1892 kinds of drugs, 374 kinds of new drugs, more than 10,000 exhibitors 1 000 pictures, which 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".