???Li Shizhen (1518-93) Li Shizhen (Pinyin romanization) Li Shih-chen (Wade-Giles romanization) The World Famous Great Pharmacologist Li Shihzhen Li Shizhen ???, the author of the world famous pharmacology classic - Bencao Gang Mu (????, Schematic Listing of Herbs and Drugs), is also known as "Dong Bi" (??, Jade of the East). He referred to himself as "Bin hu lao ren" (????, Old Man at Lakeside) in his old age. He was born in Wa-xiao-ba (???) of Qi prefecture (??) in Hubei area (present Qi-zhou town ??? in Qi-chun county ???, Hubei province ???) in the thirteen year of Zhende (??) period in the Ming dynasty. His grandfather was a physician. His father Li Yanwen (???), also known as Ziyu (??) and Yuechi (??, Moon pond), was a well-respected rural doctor. He was also a knowledgeable Xiucai (??, Licentiate). However, owing to various obstacles in his life, he was not able to pass civil service examinations in several attempts. Since their family had been poor for generations, he longed for success through the civil service examination system. He did not want his young son Shizhen to carry on his medical career; instead, he hoped Shizhen could earn fame to glorify their forebears through civil service examinations. Therefore, in addition to teaching Shizhen his medical knowledge, he wanted Shizhen to emphasize on learning the eight-legged essays (a style of rigid literary writings) as a way to attain success. In the age of fourteen, Shizhen went with his father to take an examination in Huangzhou prefecture and attain the title of the Licentiate. However, in the age of seventeen, twenty, and twenty-three, he went to Wu-chang to take provincial examinations for three times and failed to enter the roll. When he was twenty years old, he was affected with a lung disease, but he managed to attend the examination with illness. After he returned home, his health condition gradually deteriorated. Fortunately his father treated him intensively, he finally recovered slowly, but was still in bad health. After Shizhen failed three times in the provincial examinations, he had lost interest in seeking any civil services. He made up his mind to continue the learning of medicine from his father; he also became the disciple of Gu Riyan ??? to study classics and writing. Before long, Shizhen's elder brother left home to make a living somewhere else. Shizhen started to follow his father to respond to summons from patients. He therefore accumulated rich knowledge and clinical experiences. When he started practicing medicine, he loved his career so much that no matter day or night, windy or rainy, far or near, poor or rich, he never rejected whoever asked for medical assistance. As the result of it, whenever someone mentioned Dr. Li of Wa-xiao-ba, every local people highly praised and deeply appreciated him. In 1539 B.C., after the flood of Qizhen, epidemics spreading all over. Shizhen and his father worked day and night to save the dying and treated the injured. Since he was so caring in treating people's pain and illness, he won a great reputation. Qizhou was the seat of the prefectural government, and Shizhen was often summoned by the magistrate's family to treat medical problems. At that time, the Crown Prince (the son born of the legal wife) of the Fu-shun King (???) was ill. Shizhen was summoned to treat his illness. Shizhen heard that the Fu-shun King planned to replace the Crown Prince with the son born of his concubine, so he submitted a prescription titled "Soup for soothing the Qi and agreeing with sons." ("Agreeing with Sons" is the name for a green flowered plant - Aconitum fischeri.) The King saw it, and was enlightened. He then changed his previous plan to replace the Crown Prince with the son born of his concubine. Zhu Yingjan the King of Chu heard of it, highly praised Shizhen's sense of righteousness, so he employed him as a Sacrificial Official to take charge of matters of Fine Physicians' Institution. The son of the King of Chu was attacked by shortness of breath. Several famous doctors were not able to offer any treatment, but Shizhen healed him. The King of Chu deeply appreciated his service, so he recommended him to the imperial court, and he was conferred the position of the Court Judge in the Court Physicians' Institution. Shizhen was indifferent to fame and wealth. To benefit the world and save lives were goals he was working toward, hence he served in the Court Physicians' Institution for merely one year before he resigned and returned to his homeland. Shizhen emphasized on serving the neighborhood with the four essential steps a doctor should take to diagnose a disease: to observe the symptoms, to listen to the patient's description of his ailment, to ask the patient relevant questions, and to feel the patient's pulse. He also built a residence for carrying out writing projects, and published consecutively the "Lakeside study of pulse," the "Research on the Eight Pulse Beats in the Rare Classics", and the "Schematic Listing of Herbs and Drugs." Included herein is the introduction to his great achievement - "Schematic Listing of Herbs and Drugs." Shizhen realized from clinical treatments that, as a physician, he must fully understand the effects of medicines in addition to mastering the knowledge for diagnose, so he could combine both to treat illness effectively. In order to carry out research in this field, he planted an herbal garden himself. He also followed his father to valley and wildness frequently to gather medicinal herbs in order to study the shapes, effects, and growing environments of the herbs. As the result of it, he gradually enriched his knowledge on medicines. Shizhen was aware that herbal study was an important component of the Chinese medical science. However, there were a lot of confusions and mistakes in the records of various herbal studies throughout the dynasties. Some entries were mixed together while they should have been separated; some entries were separated while they should have been combined. Sometimes, herbs were not distinguished from woods, fish and inserts were mixed together. In some cases, they were simply assumptions on papers, which did not go through thorough investigation. Therefore, he made up his mind to carry out a comprehensive study of herbal books throughout the dynasties. He was aware that, in order to accomplish this meaningful task, he must consult real experts - farmers, woodcutters, fishermen & hunters, to produce an herbal book that would match the reality. Based on this conception, he launched forth this project at the age of 34. And he would try his best to visit the growing area personally to carry out investigation whenever he encountered a questionable item. He didn't mind to travel over land and water to the wildness and valley to search, gather samples, and consult with specialists. One time, he passed a courier station (where couriers rested in former times), and encountered a group of carters who were digging a lot of small trees with red blossoms. Shizhen Li walked toward them and asked: "Isn't this Hsuan-hua (??convolvlaceous plant)? What are you gathering them for?" They replied: "We carters, being outside on constant run for years in morning dews and evening snow, regardless of wind and rain, all of us have injured tendons and joints. We use the tendon-healing root of this kind of Chan chih mu tan (????, entwining peony) to stew for broth, and take it at bedtime. It is very effective in healing injury of tendon and joints. Hence he acquired from laborers a prescription with only one ingredient for healing injury of tendon and joints. In addition to intensive research and extensive gathering, he also planted and cultivated herbs, and carried out systematic investigation. He went through cultivation and research to discover the true effects of many medicines, acquire results which people had never learned, and rectify the mistakes made by reckless coping and distorted interpretations. Shizhen was brave in holding onto truth and fighting against superstitions and heretical theories. This is what we should learn from him. At that time, the Emperor was wishfully dreaming of becoming an immortal, so he fooled around with occultists all year round, and put aside affairs of the government, dreaming of extracting elixir for immortality for his own enjoyments. For this reason, occultists held very high ranking at that time. Court officials and commoners usually avoided them with awe, and never dare to criticize them. However, Shizhen was awe-inspiring righteous. He was strongly opposed to occultists' heretical theories of immortality. For instance, mercury is an extremely toxic ingredient, but occultists used it for extracting elixir, saying that people could attain immortality after taking it. For dynasties, quite a few herbalists simply followed the assumptions of occultists and said that mercury was not toxic. Therefore Shizhen commented in the "Schematic Listing of Herbs and Drugs" under the entry of mercury's "discovery" that "The saying of occultists is not accountable, how can herbalists speak recklessly without investigation." How righteous is his comment. In addition to that, Shizhen also introduced corrosive sublimate- sublimated mercury, and pointed out that it had the function of soothing urination and healing syphilis, etc. He got a good grasp of mercury's medical merit three hundred years ago, which was the earliest discovery of it. The project of compiling the "Schematic Listing of Herbs and Drugs"- Shizhen's epoch- making medical publication- started in the Renzi year of the Jiajing period (????1552 A.D.), and accomplished in the Wuyin year of the Wanli period (????1578 A.D.) - a span of twenty-six years. Participants included his four sons, four grandsons, and his advanced disciples. The process includes "gathering information from hundreds of experts, searching through areas cover all around," "repeated investigations and clinical experiments," "consulting more than eight hundred experts' publications, editing the manuscripts for three times to cut off repetitions, catch faults and rectify inaccurate entries." When he finally accomplished this difficult great mission at the age of sixty-one, the result was a publication that gathers the essence of Chinese herbal studies. The book has a total of 52 chapters, there are water, fire, earth, metal & rocks, grasses, grains, vegetables, fruits, woods, utensils, insects, scaly animals, shellfish, birds, animals, man as medicine - sixteen parts as its scheme. Every part is further divided into a few categories, for instance, grains part is divided into hemp, wheat & rice; millet; soybean; and spirits - four categories. Woods part is also divided into aromatic woods, tall trees, bushes, Yu trees, budding trees, miscellaneous woods - six different categories. There are fourteen parts divided into sixty-two categories that contain 1094 herbal medicines, 444 animal drugs, 275 mineral drugs, 79 other miscellaneous drugs- a total of 1892 entries. The book divides the medicines into categories. Following the schematic listing and a certain format, there are detailed information included under the accurate name for each medicine: there are "explaining the name," (list various names and select one as the title), "gathering details" (introduce growing areas, shapes, cultivation and gathering methods), "preparations" (methods of making), "flavor" (various qualities), "major functions," "discovery" (discussion or summary), "rectifying mistakes" (to rectify previous mistakes), "subordinate prescriptions," etc. There are 11096 entries of single ingredient prescriptions in the "subordinate prescriptions." The statements in the book cover a broad range, which include all sorts of information about the preparation of Chinese herbal medicine, prescriptions for medicines, identification of medicines, cultivation, etc. He was opposed to popular conjectures. In addition to following, compiling trustworthy statements and criticisms from predecessors, he also provided practical experiences he gained personally. This book combines clinical treatments to enhance scholars' practical knowledge on animals, plants, and minerals. It summarizes Chinese people's experiences on medical treatments before sixteenth century, inherits predecessors' knowledge and inspires followers' research on herbal studies. "How to publish, distribute, and introduce it to the world" was a critical problem after this book was finished. Li was not able to publish it, and people who understood and were concerned about the project were not able to support him. Moreover, he could not find an appropriate book shop to work together on publishing, hence the manuscript was held at home for more than ten years until Hu Chenglong ??? of Nanjing (Nanking) read the transcript of the "Bencao gang mu." He considered it a great book which was worth publishing, and was willing to take charge of publication, so the manuscript began to appear on printing plates around the year of 1590. Li passed away in the twenty-first year of the Wanli period (1593 A.D.) at the age of seventy-six. He was buried at the Crab Mountain near Bamboo Grove Lake???????, which was five li (Chinese mile, 1/3 English mile) east to Qi prefecture (??). After he passed away for three years (1596 A. D.), the first edition of "Bencao Gang Mu" started to distribute in Nanjing (Nanking). This is what we referred to as "the first edition of Jinling ?????" (Jinling, former name of Nanking).

Bencao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica)

Li Shi Zhen

2000.032.040