Who was LI SHIZHEN? #6

Scholar Worthy of Emulation #6

Starting in the 17th Century, in addition to several publishers reproducing the Bencao Gangmu, various explanatory texts and addenda to the work were written and published. The Wanfang Zhenxian (Needle and Thread for 10,000 Prescriptions), which served as an indexing system for finding herb formulas in the Bencao Gangmu, was written by Cai Lixian and published around 1652. The Bencao Gangmu Shiyi (Addendum to Bencao Gangmu) was written by Zhao Xuemin around 1800 A.D. and published in 1871 A.D. It included several corrections of mistakes, reorganized and indexed the materials, and added 716 medicinal substances, many of them introduced from foreign countries during the decades since Li collected his original information. This work introduced tobacco and described the practice of smoking opium for the first time, clearly showing the foreign influences that would have a huge impact on the entire future of China.

Li Shizhen also produced 11 other books on medical subjects, of which only 3 have survived to the present. Of those, his work on pulse diagnosis (Pinghu Maixue, 1564 A.D.) is most highly regarded and still referenced in discussions about the interpretation of the pulse categories. However, even if Li had done nothing else, he would have been recognized as a master scholar for the Bencao Gangmu. Li’s devotion to the subject--as revealed by the extent of his research and the decades of life dedicated to gathering, sorting through, and organizing the information--make him a scholar who is worthy of emulation even now, more than four hundred years after he completed his book.

REFERENCES

1. 1. Wang Zhenguo, Chen Ping, and Xie Peiping, History and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1999 Science Press, Beijing.
2. 2. Unschuld PU, Medicine in China: History of Pharmaceutics, 1986 University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
3. 3. Lu Gwei-djen, China’s greatest naturalist: a brief biography of Li Shizhen, American Journal of Chinese Medicine 1976; 4(3): 209-218.
4. 4. Unschuld PU, Medicine in China: Historical Artifacts and Images, 2000 Prestel Verlag, Munich.
5. 5. Huang R, 1587 A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline, 1981 Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
6. 6. Hu Shiuying, Knowledge of ginseng from Chinese records, Journal of the Chinese University of Hong Kong 1977; 4(2): 281-305.
7. 7. Wong Chimin and Wu Lien-Teh, History of Chinese Medicine, 1973 AMS Press, Inc., New York.
8. 8. Sai HM, Medicine in China, 1965 Hamdard Academy, Karachi, Pakistan.
9. 9. Hsu HY, et al., Oriental Materia Medica, 1980 Oriental Healing Arts Institute, Long Beach, CA.

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