Shennong: the legendary ancient doctor

Shennong, a legendary ancient figure, is also known as Sui Renshi and Fu. According to tradition, Shennong is the founder of agriculture, commerce, music and medicine. During the Warring States period, people preached Shennongtou, taught people to sow grains, invented agricultural production tools and taught well-drilling techniques, for the sake of the god of agriculture; He also made a market in Japan and China for people to trade, and he is a god of business; He also created banjo for the god of music; He also created drugs for the drug god. When it comes to Shennong, it is Yandi.

Shennong portrait

First, Shennong is a true god.

Shennong is a figure in ancient Chinese myths and legends in China. Shennong and Sui Renshi and Fu are also called. There are different opinions about it, and it is most appropriate to list Suirenshi, Fu and Shennong, which reflects the three different development stages of primitive society in China. During the Suiren period, people learned to make artificial fires, and their diet changed from raw food to cooked food, which improved their physique. In the Fu period, people progressed from consanguineous marriage to extramarital marriage, and the race evolved, and China gradually entered the patriarchal society from matrilineal society. During Shennong period, people learned to plant and breed, from hunting and gathering to farming, and human society entered the era of farming civilization.

In ancient times, people lived a life of gathering, fishing and hunting. Shennong invented and made wooden bases and coffins to teach people about agricultural production. He also invented medical technology, formulated a calendar, and pioneered the irrigation technology connecting nine wells. He was named Shennong because he invented farming technology.

There are several records about the history of Shennong. The Book of Changes contains: the work of Shennong, the wood is the coffin, and the wood is the thunder. Use it to teach the world. Since then, many ethnic groups in primitive society in China have gradually changed from hunting and gathering as their main means of subsistence to farming as their main mode of production. "White Tiger Yi Tong" Volume 1 No.2 contains: What is Shennong? People in ancient times all ate animals and animals. As for Shennong, there are many people and not enough animals. So Shennong taught the people to plow because of the time, the land benefits and the system. God transformed it to suit the people, so it was called Shennong. "Huai Nan Zi Xiu Wu Xun" contains: In ancient times, people drank the water of grass, picked the fruits of vegetation and ate the meat of snails and mussels, which sometimes caused many diseases and injuries. So Shennong began to teach the people to sow food. All these show that Shennong can create agricultural tools such as Reddy to teach people farming, which has benefited people a lot. Shennong made great achievements and was honored as the agricultural emperor and the Yellow Emperor. "The Great Biography of Shangshu Volume 4" said: Shennong is the agricultural emperor, and Shennong is also based on land discipline, knowing that the land is fat and sparse, so he entrusted the agricultural emperor with land. It means that its merit lies in exerting soil fertility, so it is called Rehmannia glutinosa.

The Five Emperors Historical Records contains:

At the time of Xuanyuan, Shennong declined. When a vassal invades and despots the people, Shennong can levy. Therefore, Xuanyuan used to use war to levy and not enjoy it, and the princes and salty guests came from this. Chiyou is the most violent, so you can't cut it.

Emperor Yan wanted to invade the princes of the mausoleum, and the princes returned the Xuanyuan with salt. Xuanyuan is the army of Xiu De, with five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts, five arts. Fight three battles, and then win the battle.

Chiyou's insurrection does not require the life of the emperor. So the Yellow Emperor became a vassal and fought against Chiyou in the land of Zhuolu, so the birds killed Chiyou. And the ministers respected Xuanyuan as the son of heaven and represented Shennong as the Yellow Emperor.

This shows that during the period of Huangdi and Shennong, the princes invaded each other and oppressed the people. Shennong could not conquer, so Chiyou, which was the most harmful to the Yellow Emperor, was cut down. Then the Yellow Emperor conquered Emperor Yan, who refused to accept himself, and his prestige increased greatly, so he replaced Shennong and won the world. This also shows that Shennong and Yan Di are not the same person.

Zhuang Yu said that Shennong had no intention of harming each other, and Shu Huace said that Shennong's punishment and politics were unnecessary, and Jia Bing could not afford to be king. This shows that Shennong did not conquer and did not expand by force.

According to the Records of the Picking Up, one day, a bird in a red robe flew over Shennong's head with a nine-spike valley in its mouth. Shennong buried it in the soil and later grew into millet. He rubbed the ears of wheat and put them in his mouth. It felt delicious. So, he taught people to cut down trees to remove weeds, and cultivated land and planted millet with axes, hoes, hoes and other production tools. Millet is planted every year, which solves the problem of people's eating.

Second, the legend of tasting grass

According to Huainanzi Xiuwu, in ancient times, people drank grass water, picked fruit from trees and ate tobacco meat, which sometimes caused many diseases and injuries. So Shennong began to teach the people to sow grains, which are suitable for the land, dry, wet and fat. Taste the taste of herbs and the ups and downs of water springs, and let people know what to do. At this time, 70 kinds of poisons were encountered in one day. The legend that Shennong tasted a hundred herbs before he had medicine in later generations mostly originated from this.

Zhang Huibin wrote that Shennong tasted a hundred herbs.

There is such a story. It is said that in ancient times, grains and weeds grew together, and medicines and flowers were mixed together. No one could tell which fruits were edible and which grasses could cure diseases. Limin people hunt for a living. There are fewer and fewer birds, thinner animals and people are starving. The terrible thing is that you are sick and ill, without medicine and medicine, and you have to wait for death slowly.

How to solve the problem of eating and treating diseases for the people, Shennong thought hard about how to make the people not hungry, treat the sick and relieve their suffering. He thought hard for three days and nights and finally came up with a solution.

On this day, Shennong, with a group of subjects, set out from Lishan, Suizhou, his hometown, and went to the mountains in the northwest. They walked for 7749 days, their legs were swollen and their feet were cocooned, and finally they came to a mountainous area. At present, the mountains are connected with the peaks, the flowing water in the valley is gurgling, the mountains are full of exotic flowers and grasses, and the fragrance is intoxicating. Just as they went on, suddenly, a group of wolves, insects, tigers and leopards came out of the canyon and surrounded them. Shennong ordered his subjects to wave magic whip to drive away wild animals. The beast was hungry, too, and drove away a batch and came again. They fought for seven days and nights, and finally all the wild animals were driven away. Those greedy and fierce tigers, leopards and pythons were scarred by demons and later became stripes on their bodies.

Seeing that it was too dangerous here, the subjects retreated and advised Shennong to go back. He said firmly: No! How can we go back when people are starving and suffering from diseases? He led the people into the canyon and came to the foot of a big mountain.

The mountain towering into the sky, half inserted into the clouds. It is surrounded by cliffs with a sharp knife on it. The waterfall on the cliff hangs down, covered with moss, smooth and slippery, with nowhere to climb and half a foot to climb. You can't climb up without a ladder. The subjects advised Shennong to go back as soon as possible. He strongly disagreed. If the task is completed, going back is tantamount to giving up all previous efforts. He climbed to the top of a small stone mountain and looked around, wondering how to climb the mountain in front of him. Later, people called this small peak Wang Nongge.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he suddenly realized. He saw several golden monkeys tossing and turning on the hanging Gu Teng and fallen rotten wood, and climbed up the mountain in the blink of an eye. He called his subjects together and asked them to cut wooden poles and vines, build a shelf against the cliff, and build a layer every day. No matter whether it is windy or rainy or hot in winter, they never stop working. After a year of hard work, I walked 360 floors and finally reached the top of the mountain. Legend has it that scaffolding was the way to learn from Shennong.

Shennong led his subjects to climb the gallows and climb to the top of the mountain. The mountain is a sea of flowers and plants. Flowers are in full bloom, colorful, dense and fragrant. He told his subjects to be vigilant against wolves, insects, tigers and leopards, pick flowers and plants by themselves, put them in their mouths, and judge which ones can reach the peak after the Spring Festival and which ones can be used as medicine. He ordered his subjects to plant rows of dense firs on the mountain as city walls to prevent wild animals from entering, and to build huts inside the walls to shelter them from the wind and rain.

During the day, Shennong led his subjects to taste herbs on the mountain. In the evening, he recorded the harvest of the day by the light of the bonfire: which grass is bitter, which is hot, which is cold, which can satisfy hunger and which can cure diseases. Later, people called the place where he lived a wooden city.

Shennong tastes a hundred herbs at a price, which is very dangerous. Once, he put a grass in his mouth and tasted it. Suddenly, he felt dizzy and fell to the ground. The subject helped him sit up. He knew he was poisoned, but he was speechless. He pointed to a ganoderma lucidum in front of him and pointed to his mouth. The subject chewed Ganoderma lucidum with his mouth and fed it to his mouth. Soon, his poison gas dissolved, and his head was no longer dizzy and he could speak. The subjects were afraid that he would be in danger again and advised him to go down the mountain. He still refused and continued to taste 100 kinds of herbs.

After 7749 days of hard work, he tasted the flowers and plants of every mountain here and made a detailed record. He tasted rice, millet, millet, wheat and beans to satisfy his hunger. They take the seeds back and let people plant them. This is the later grain. He tasted 365 kinds of herbs and wrote Shen Nong's Materia Medica Classic to treat diseases for people all over the world.

Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and was ready to go down the mountain. The wooden frame they built disappeared, and the wooden poles they built grew into a beautiful forest. Just as he was worried, a group of white cranes descended from the sky and took him and several protected subjects to heaven.

In order to commemorate the achievements of Shennong in tasting a hundred herbs and benefiting the world, people named this forest Shennongjia. The stockade where Shennong lived before he ascended to heaven was called Liuxiang stockade.

Third, the true classics of materia medica

Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica is one of the four classic Chinese medicine works of Han nationality in China, and it is the earliest extant Chinese medicine work. Originated from Shennong, it was assembled into a book in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The author is different, and the book was not written in a short time. It is a monograph that collects the pharmacological experiences of many physicians in Qin and Han Dynasties, and it is the first book in China that systematically summarizes traditional Chinese medicine. Most theories of traditional Chinese medicine, the law of compatibility and the principle of harmony of seven emotions have played a great role in the practice of medication for thousands of years and are the source of the development of TCM theory.

Shennong's Herbal Classic

Shennong Herbal Classic is divided into three volumes and contains 365 kinds of medicines, including 252 kinds of plant medicines, 67 kinds of animal medicines and 46 kinds of mineral medicines. According to the three categories, it is divided into three categories: upper, middle and lower. This is the earliest pharmacological classification in China, which has been used for several generations, and most of the drugs contained in it are correct.

The preface to Shennong's Materia Medica says: 120 herbs are king, which are mainly responsible for nourishing the sky, are nontoxic, and will not hurt people if taken for a long time, such as ginseng, licorice, rehmannia root and jujube; One hundred and twenty kinds of Chinese medicine are ministers, and nourishing qi is mainly to respond to people. They are non-toxic and toxic, so we should consider them as appropriate. It is necessary to distinguish the medicinal properties, such as lily, angelica, longan, coptis, ephedra, angelica dahurica and scutellaria baicalensis. Supplemented by 125 kinds of drugs, the indications should be tailored to local conditions. It is toxic and cannot be taken for a long time. Such as rhubarb, aconite, kansui, croton, etc.

Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica also contains rich and profound drug theories, laying a theoretical framework for pharmacology. In the aspect of drug compatibility, the principle of prescription is put forward. The top grade medicine is the monarch medicine, the middle grade medicine is the minister medicine, and the lower grade medicine is the adjuvant medicine. In the prescription, there should be not only monarch drugs, minister drugs, but also auxiliary drugs that help to use drugs. Its proportion is one monarch, two ministers, three assistants and five ambassadors, or one monarch, three ministers and nine assistants.

In drug compatibility, we should pay attention to appropriateness and taboo. Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica puts forward the principle of compatibility of seven emotions: drugs have a single line, mutual needs, mutual use, mutual fear, mutual evil, opposition and mutual killing. All seven emotions are viewed in harmony. When using messengers, do not use the opposite of evil. In other words, the prescription of Chinese herbal pieces must pay attention to the influence of drug properties and interaction on drug efficacy. The so-called "one person is the only one" means that drugs play their role independently. Such as Shen Du soup and Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. The so-called "interdependence" refers to the compatibility of two drugs with similar effects, resulting in synergy. Such as rhubarb, mirabilite, angelica and white peony root. The so-called mutual promotion refers to the compatibility of two drugs with different functions and can promote each other. Such as Radix Astragali and Poria, Atractylodis Rhizoma and Radix Saposhnikoviae. Fear means that one drug can inhibit or reduce the efficacy of another drug. For example, platycodon grandiflorum is afraid of bletilla striata, and clove is afraid of turmeric. The so-called killer is that one drug can reduce or eliminate the toxicity of another drug. Such as rhubarb, aconite, kansui and red peony root. The so-called phase evil means that the combination of two drugs will reduce or lose their efficacy, which is a incompatibility. For example, Shen Yuan hates dried ginger, and Baji hates thunder pills. The so-called contrary means that the combination of the two drugs can produce toxic and side effects, which is a incompatibility. Such as aconite against Pinellia ternata and asarum against veratrum. Seven emotions originally refer to seven feelings or emotions of people. Pujifang

Call it joy, anger, worry, thinking, sadness, fear and shock. In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen once made an incisive summary of the harmony of the seven emotions, namely: a lone ranger, unilaterally helpless; People who need each other cannot do without each other; Messenger, my assistant; People who are afraid of each other are subject to each other's system; Those who kill each other are also poisonous; Those evil people took away my ability; On the contrary, the two are not consistent. These seven emotions should be seen together, and they must be good to each other when they are used, not to people who are opposite to each other. If it is poisonous, it can be used to kill each other.

No, it doesn't work. In fact, the above seven emotions can be summed up in two aspects: synergy and confrontation.

Shennong Materia Medica briefly records and describes the efficacy and indications of various drugs. Practice has proved that his understanding of the efficacy of drugs contained in Shennong Materia Medica is mostly correct, such as ginseng tonifying deficiency, coptis stopping dysentery, ephedra stopping asthma, Changshan stopping malaria, rhubarb stopping diarrhea and so on. The drugs contained in it cover more than 70 kinds of diseases, such as internal and external diseases, women, children and five senses/kloc-0. In addition, the nature and taste, origin and collection, processing methods, principles and methods of medication of drugs are all involved, which greatly enriches the knowledge system of pharmacology.

The historical position of Shennong Herbal Classic cannot be underestimated, and its influence is extremely far-reaching. The theory of assistant prescription by monarch and minister was put forward for the first time, which was used by later generations, and 13 pharmaceutical theories were summarized in the preface to Shennong Materia Medica. It stipulates the dosage forms of drugs, and holds that some drugs should be pills, powder, boiled water, dipped in wine and decocted paste, while others should not be eaten in soup or wine, and should not violate the medicinal properties of drugs. It puts forward an objective evaluation of the effectiveness of drug treatment, and holds that if you want to treat its disease, you must first examine its source, and then take medicine to treat it when its pathogenesis, five internal organs are not deficient, six hospitals are inexhaustible, blood vessels are not chaotic, and the spirit is not scattered. If the disease has become, you can get half of the cure. The illness is over and life will be hard. It emphasizes dialectical medication, and puts forward that it is necessary to distinguish the cold and heat nature of diseases, distinguish the cause and treatment, and distinguish the severity of diseases. It attaches importance to the relationship between the time of taking medicine and the curative effect, and thinks that patients with chest and diaphragm diseases should take medicine first; If the disease is below the abdomen, take medicine before eating; If the veins of the limbs are sick, it is advisable to eat on an empty stomach; If the bone marrow is sick, you should eat at night. It follows the theory that medicine has yin and yang, and puts forward that medicine has five flavors: sour, salty, sweet, bitter, pungent, cold, hot and cold, and it should be toxic and non-toxic. It should be considered that medicine has seven emotions and combinations, and so on. These theories guided the later medical practice.

However, Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica also has its limitations. First, the determination of the total number of drugs is affected by the number of operations. There are only 365 kinds of drugs, many commonly used drugs in Han Dynasty are not among them. Second, some pharmaceutical theories are influenced by the Confucian thought of respecting monarch in Han Dynasty, which is divorced from clinical practice, such as the theory of drug king, the theory of not using drugs to prolong life, and the mechanical regulation of the ratio of monarch to minister. Third, under the influence of alchemists, the longevity and longevity of drugs are exaggerated unilaterally; Fourth, they have a wrong understanding of the efficacy and toxicity of calculus drugs. For these toxic stone medicines, crushed stone, cinnabar, realgar, alum and magnet are only toxic, while crushed stone and cinnabar are listed as top grade, indicating that long-term use will not hurt people, while realgar and magnet are listed as domestic products, which are considered to have the miraculous effect of intellectual fit and immortality. Nevertheless, Shennong's Herbal Classic has made great contributions in the history of pharmacy.

Shennong is a figure in ancient Han myths and legends in China. It is said that he invented and made wooden bases and coffins to teach people about agricultural production. He also invented medical technology, formulated a calendar, and pioneered the irrigation technology connecting nine wells. The beautiful legend of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs has been circulated for more than 2000 years. Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but as one of the four classic works of Han Chinese medicine in China, its historical position cannot be underestimated and its influence is far-reaching, which is beyond doubt. It is the root of traditional Chinese medicine.