The story of Li Shizhen.

On the day when Li Shizhen was born, his father Li Yanwen was fishing in Yuhu. Usually, he is lucky, but this time, he got nothing from several nets, and Li Yanwen was very depressed. The last net felt heavy when pulled up, and my heart exulted. I thought it was a big fish, but it turned out to be a big stone Li Yanwen sighed: Stone, stone, I have nothing against you. Why did you play tricks on me today? This makes me more worried.

Stone suddenly spoke: stone, stone, don't worry if you come to congratulate. My husband and wife are about to fall into the moon. What do you want? So this stone is the Rain Lake God.

Li Yanwen arrived home just in time for Li Shizhen to give birth, so she named him Shizhen. That night, Li Yanwen had another dream that Tie Guai Li, a fairy, came to congratulate him and said, "When you are precious, you can diagnose all diseases. Be my apprentice and spread my reputation.

2. Cleverly distinguish the authenticity of medicinal properties

When Li Shizhen was 20 years old, there was a serious flood in qi zhou. After the flood, the plague began to spread.

One day, Li Shizhen was seeing a doctor. Suddenly, a group of people rushed into the clinic with a quack. The young man, led by him, told Li Shizhen angrily that his father had taken the medicine prescribed by a quack, but his condition did not improve, but worsened. He went to settle accounts with him, and the doctor insisted that the prescription was correct. Let Li Shizhen have a look.

Say that finish, he handed the pan of decocting medicine. Li Shizhen grabbed the residue, sniffed it carefully, chewed it in his mouth, and told him that it was a mistake in ancient medical books. The records of Japanese materia medica confuse the leaky basket with Tiger Claw. They lamented for a while and had to let the charlatan go.

Soon, another doctor prescribed medicine for a mental patient and blindly used a medicine called anti-sunflower. The patient died soon after taking the medicine. There is also a weak person who took a tonic called Polygonatum prescribed by the doctor and died inexplicably.

It turns out that in several ancient medical books, Fang Kui and Stellera chamaejasme, Polygonatum sibiricum and Gelsemium elegans are all described as the same medicine, while Stellera chamaejasme and Gelsemium elegans are very toxic. There is no doubt that ancient medical books contain rich knowledge and valuable experience, but there are also some omissions. If it is not revised as soon as possible, the medical profession will spread the truth based on them, delay treatment and endanger people's lives.

3. Verify the medicinal properties of animals.

Agkistrodon acutus, that is, Agkistrodon acutus produced by Zhou Qi, has the functions of treating wind arthralgia, convulsion and tinea furuncle. Li Shizhen had studied it for a long time, but at first it was only observed from the snakehead. The insider reminded him that it was caught in the mountains of Xingguo House (now Yangxin County) in the south of the Yangtze River, and it was not really a viper. In order to find the real viper, he consulted the snake catcher. He was told that the fangs of Agkistrodon halys were extremely poisonous. If a person is bitten, he should amputate his leg immediately, otherwise he will die of poisoning.

It has special effects on various diseases in treatment, so it is very valuable. 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 Suānní cave in Longfeng Mountain, which is surrounded by rugged rocks, shrubs and heather. Vipers like to eat heather leaves. With the help of the snake catcher, he finally saw the viper with his own eyes and saw the whole process of catching and making snakes. "Compendium of Materia Medica" is concise when it is written about vipers. ?

Koi fish, pangolin, 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.

4. Treat diseases with your mother-in-law.

Li Shizhen visited all the way, treated the villagers well, and was deeply respected and relied on by people. There is an old lady who has been habitually constipated for 30 years. Although she was treated in many ways, it didn't work. Li Shizhen used folk prescription and proper amount of morning glory as medicine, and soon cured her disease.

There is also a woman with a nosebleed, which can't stop all day long. No matter how to treat it, it doesn't work. Li Shizhen put garlic slices on the patient's feet, and soon the bleeding stopped. He also collected this recipe from the people.

Step 5 taste all the herbs

In the thirty-first year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1552), Li Shizhen, 34, started to rebuild his own herbs as planned. Due to full preparation, the beginning was smooth, but after writing here, the problem came: the so-called materia medica is synonymous with ancient pharmacology. It includes many plants, animals and mineral medicines, such as flowers, fruits and trees, birds, animals, fish and insects, lead, tin, sulfur and mercury.

Because most of them are plants, which can be said to be botanical, people directly call drugs "materia medica". Li Shizhen realized its weight, but he still didn't expect that drugs were so diverse that it was difficult to know their personalities, habits and growth like the back of his hand.

For example, Agkistrodon, together with bamboo leaves and mugwort leaves, is one of the three specialties in qi zhou, which can be used to treat diseases such as wind arthralgia, convulsion and tinea, and is a valuable medicinal material. Li Shizhen once followed the snake catcher up the mountain and caught a white snake. Take a closer look and it's exactly the same as what the book says.