Someone who is persistent in doing things? Please give examples and tell their stories.

Li Shizhen, whose name is Dong Bi, was born in qi zhou, Hubei Province (now qi zhou Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province), male, and his height was about 1.63 meters. Born in the 13th year of Zheng De (AD 65,438+0,565,438+08), he died in the 21st year of Wanli (Zongshen). His father Li Yanwen is a famous local 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 called by the King of Chu to Wang Fu as a "temple official" in Wuchang to take 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 only worked here for a year, then resigned and went back to his hometown. Li Shizhen consulted more than 800 books on medicine and its academic research in past dynasties, and combined with his own experience and investigation, compiled a book "Compendium of Materia Medica", which lasted for 27 years and was a summary masterpiece of pharmacology before the Ming Dynasty in China. It has been highly praised at home and abroad, and translated or abridged versions have appeared in several languages. In addition, there are books such as "Lakeside Pulse" and "Strange Classics and Eight Veins".

The Li family has been doctors for generations, and grandpa is "Dr. Bell". 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 that 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. In a few years, Li Shizhen really became a famous doctor.

Compendium of Materia Medica consists of 52 volumes, divided into 16 parts and 60 categories. Written in the twenty-seventh year (1578). * * * contains 1892 kinds of drugs contained in herbal medicines of past dynasties, including 1094 kinds of plant drugs. There are 798 kinds of minerals, animals and other drugs, of which 374 kinds were added by Li Xin. First, every kind of medicine takes correcting the name as the key link and aims at explaining the name; Secondly, collect solutions, distinguish doubts, right and wrong, and elaborate on what happened; Smell, indications and side effects once again explain the use of the body. The content is extremely rich, which is a precious legacy of China's pharmacology and has made great contributions to the development of pharmacology in later generations.

The story of Compendium of Materia Medica Li Shizhen has read a lot of ancient medical books during his ten years of practicing medicine. Through clinical practice, it is found that the ancient books of Materia Medica are both troublesome in quantity and miscellaneous in name. 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" and have endless harm. So he decided to rewrite a herbal book. Starting from the age of thirty-one, Li Shizhen read a lot of reference books in order to "search the poor and learn the rich". 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. He not only read more than 800 kinds of medical books and more than 10,000 volumes, but also read many historical, geographical and literary classics and Dunhuang classics, and even carefully studied the complete works of several great poets of the previous generation.

He also extracted many poems about medicine. And these poems did give him a lot of real and useful medical knowledge, which helped him correct many medical fallacies of his predecessors. 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 very unknown 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. In Song Dynasty, Ma Su 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 is like a weed, some people say it is like a weed, and some people say it is like a flower, which is extremely inconsistent. There are many similar situations, and Li Shizhen has to put down his pen 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, 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. 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. To this end, later generations wrote a poem, "A secluded place, exploring the flowers at the foot of the mountain", which reflected his life of covering all sides on foot. 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 paid great attention to observing the morphology and growth of drugs, both in interviews and 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 extremely poisonous. 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 use a knife to break the abdomen to get intestinal material, you can wash the abdomen with the back end, cover the wound, support it with a bamboo pole, bend it and tie it up. "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, which is 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, was a commonly used Chinese medicine in the past. 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 was dissected from its stomach, which proved that pangolin animals ate ants. 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-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 (A.D. 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".

Second, Li Shizhen's hospital career.

155 1- 1556 During the period, the feudal emperor recruited medical officers and ordered all localities to select people with excellent medical skills to work in the imperial palace hospital, so Li Shizhen, who worked in Wuchang Chu Palace, was also recommended to Beijing.

There are many controversies about Li Shizhen's working experience in Imperial Hospital. Some people think that Li Shizhen once served as a court judge in Imperial Hospital (Grade Six), while others think that he only served as a doctor (Grade Eight). Regardless of his position, it is undeniable that Li Shizhen was recommended to North Korea. The working experience in Thai hospital may have brought great influence on his life and laid a good foundation for his creation of Compendium of Materia Medica.

During this period, Li Shizhen was very active in drug research. He often went in and out of the pharmacies and royal drug storerooms of Imperial Hospital, carefully compared and identified drug villages all over the country, and collected a lot of information. At the same time, he also had the opportunity to appreciate the rich classics collected by Wang Fu and the royal family. At the same time, he may have obtained a lot of information about folk materia medica from the imperial court at that time, and saw a lot of drug specimens that are difficult to see at ordinary times, which greatly broadened his horizons and enriched his knowledge field. Speaking of this, we must contact another famous cursive script compiled by Gong Xiu in the Ming Dynasty-Essence of Materia Medica.

In 2002, the Chinese Cultural Research Association photocopied and published Compendium of Materia Medica, which was compiled by Ming Xiaozong in Hongzhi 16 (1503) in August. Under the organization of prison eunuch Liu, there are nine editorial teams, including the governor, the chief judge, the vice president, the usurper and the procurator, including 49 copywriters and painters. After a year and a half of revision, the pharmacopoeia was compiled. According to the order of old cases in Zheng Ben Cao written by Tang Shenwei in Song Dynasty, the author divided the medicinal materials into 65,438+00 parts, including jade, grass, wood and fruit, and each part was written as top, middle and bottom products respectively. The book contains 65,438+0,865,438+05 kinds of drugs, written in Zhu Mo. There are as many as 1358 color sketches in front of the text, which is the first large-scale picture album in China. At the same time, the editor also abandoned the mature block printing technology at that time, 14 craftsmen wrote in color, and eight court painters were responsible for drawing. After the book was completed, it was prefaced by Ming Xiaozong himself, bound into 36 volumes in the format of Yongle Dadian, and kept in Nan wooden box, which is the orthodox transcript of the Ming court.

However, only two months after the book was written, Ming Xiaozong died unexpectedly, and the cause of death became a big mystery. Among the 49 editors of the original book, 12 were investigated for the murder of Emperor Xiaozong, so this Ming Dynasty Pharmacopoeia "Essence of Materia Medica" has been sealed in the palace library. Later, I don't know how to hide it in the National Library of Rome 1877.

Li Shizhen entered Thai Hospital about 50 years ago, so it is impossible to be ignorant of the past. At this time, Ming Wuzong, who succeeded Xiao Zong, has passed away, and Ming Shizong has been emperor for more than 30 years, and may not care about the mystery of his death. So you can have a glimpse of the materia medica, sealed in the palace, and not publicized. Therefore, it is not excluded that Li Shizhen was lucky enough to see this book during his work in Tai Hospital. It is also for this reason that he intends to compile a new monograph on materia medica that can surpass this book. However, it is impossible to satisfy his ideas and realize his wishes in the working environment of the hospital. Because Li Shizhen was not as famous as Rong Lu, he didn't work long in the hospital, so he resigned and went home.

Third, the great contribution of Compendium of Materia Medica

Before and after working in Taiyuan Hospital of Li Shizhen, Li Shizhen began to write Compendium of Materia Medica after a long period of preparation. In the process of compiling, he wore sandals and carried a medicine basket, took his students and son Jianyuan over mountains and mountains, sought medical advice, and traveled all over Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and other vast areas, as well as Niushou Mountain, Sheshan Mountain, Maoshan Mountain, Taihe Mountain and other famous mountains and rivers. He traveled thousands of miles, listened to thousands of people's opinions and read more than 800 books.

Compendium of Materia Medica consists of 16 parts, 52 volumes and about 1.9 million words. The book contains 15 18 kinds of drugs collected from various herbs, and 374 kinds of drugs are added on the basis of predecessors, accounting for 1892 kinds, including 1 195 kinds of plants; * * * Collected 1 1096 ancient pharmacists' prescriptions and folk prescriptions; There are more than 1 100 pictures of drug morphology in front of the book. This masterpiece has absorbed the essence of herbal works of past dynasties, corrected the previous mistakes as much as possible, supplemented the shortcomings, and made many important discoveries and breakthroughs. It is the most systematic, complete and scientific medical work in China up to16th century.

Facing the vast treasure house of materia medica, how to control and manipulate it has become the most critical issue. It can be said that this is one of Li Shizhen's greatest contributions. He not only solved the problem of drug method and retrieval, but also embodied his new viewpoint on plant taxonomy and valuable thought on biological evolution and development. Li Shizhen broke the 1000-year-old classification of upper, middle and lower products since Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica, and divided drugs into water, fire, soil, stone, grass, grain, lai, fruit, wood, utensils, insects, scales, vectors, birds, animals and people, with a total of 16. The proper name of each drug label is the outline, and the following items of the outline are clear. The book also systematically introduces the knowledge of various drugs. Including correction, name explanation, explanation, correction, treatment, odor, indications, inventions, appendices, attached prescriptions, etc. The history, morphology, function, prescription and other aspects of the drug were expounded in detail. In particular, "invention" is mainly Li Shizhen's new discovery and experience in drug observation, research and practical application, which enriches the knowledge of materia medica.

According to Mr. Ma's research, the artificial classification established by Li Shizhen in botany is a scientific method to classify plants with similar practicality and morphology into various types and classify them step by step. Li Shizhen classified 1000 plants according to their different economic uses, postures, habits and inclusions. It is divided into five parts (i.e. grass, orders, vegetables, fruits and grains), then into 30 categories (i.e. grass 9, wood 6, vegetables, fruits and grains 5), and then into several categories. He not only put forward the genetic relationship between plants, but also unified the naming methods of many plants.

In a word, Li Shizhen used the method of outlining to re-analyze and sort out all kinds of drug materials of herbal medicines in past dynasties, which made this nearly 2 million-word herbal masterpiece rigorous, clear-cut, focused and well-prepared, and truly achieved "extensive but not complicated, detailed but not leaking".

Compendium of Materia Medica is a monograph on pharmacology, but it also records many contents closely related to clinic. The third and fourth volumes of the original book are "Indicating Drugs for All Diseases", with 1 13 indications. Among them, the third volume of Exogenous Internal Injury includes drugs for treating typhoid fever and cough and asthma, and the fourth volume is mainly for five senses, surgery, gynecology and pediatrics. It is clearly recorded in the original book that there are more than 20 kinds of drugs that can cure the plague: Cimicifuga foetida, Folium Artemisiae Argyi, blood wax, calcined lead, actinolite, gunpowder, Radix Isatidis, Herba Ephedrae, Radix Clematidis, Humulus Humulus, hemp, fermented soybean, zucchini, bamboo shoots, pears, pine trees, polyporus, bamboo, rock, rhinoceros and peach borer.

In addition, the Compendium of Materia Medica contains various prescriptions 1 1096, involving clinical departments, including internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, ent, etc. More than 2900 of them are Laos and the rest are New Zealand. The scope of treatment is mainly common and frequently-occurring diseases, and the dosage forms used are pills, powders, ointments and pills. Many prescriptions are scientific, simple and cheap, and very practical. For example, prescriptions for cough appear in various drug prescriptions, such as:

Acute lung asthma: two or two pieces of Aristolochia (peeled and covered), half two pieces of crisp (fried in a bowl with slow fire), and one or two pieces of licorice (baked) as the end. One dollar each, a glass of water, half fried, sipped or simmered.

Asthma with phlegm and cough: Zhang Yafen: five ginkgo leaves, two and a half ephedra, and two or two (fried) licorice. Water for one and a half minutes, stir-fry for eight minutes, and eat while lying down. Another store in Jinling treats asthma, ginkgo biloba and asthma soup, but people who eat it have no effect. That's where people started. Prescription: Semen Ginkgo (parched), Herba Ephedrae San Qian, Perillae Herba, Flos Farfarae, Rhizoma Pinelliae Preparata, Cortex Mori (honey-baked), Semen Armeniacae Amarum (peeled tip), Scutellariae Radix (slightly parched) and Glycyrrhrizae Radix. Water for three minutes, stir-fry for two minutes, and divide it into two parts at any time. No need for ginger.

Phlegm cough due to lung heat and obstruction of chest and diaphragm: one or two of Fructus Trichosanthis and Rhizoma Pinelliae (soaked in soup for seven times and baked) were used respectively. Ginger paste pills are as big as five pills. Take 50 capsules each time and drink ginger soup after eating.

Therefore, Compendium of Materia Medica also has high reference value in clinical treatment.

4. The most famous edition of Jinling and other editions of Compendium of Materia Medica are circulating.

Compendium of Materia Medica was published in 1578, and was finalized after three revisions. In order to publish and engrave this book as soon as possible, Li Shizhen went to Taicang and Nanjing twice in 1580 and 1590, and asked Wang Shizhen, a contemporary writer and former minister of punishments, to preface it, and Hu Chenglong, a publisher in Jinling, promised to engrave it. It took four years from 1590 (18th year of Ming Wanli) to 1593 (21st year of Ming Wanli). When the original work was about to be published, Li Shizhen passed away and failed to witness his painstaking efforts. Three years later, on 1596, Compendium of Materia Medica was completely published in Nanjing, known as Jinling Edition. At present, this version has become a treasure of the world, and there is not much left.