It is often said that the ancient imperial doctors had a high level of Chinese medicine, but let's look at these ancient emperors. Their life span was very short. Does this mean that the level of Chinese medicine is actually not that good? It is often said that this ancient royal family has a short life span and is not good at Chinese medicine. Many friends ask me this question.

I'll talk to you today. Why did the life span of ancient emperors tend to be short?

We mainly take the emperors of the Qing Dynasty as an example. Why does the emperor have a shorter life span? Is this related to the level of doctors? I think this is mainly a sociological problem, which has nothing to do with the level of doctors.

Today we will analyze them one by one.

First of all, if we rank the longevity of emperors and their children, you will find that in the early Qing Dynasty, the longevity was higher, and the later it became shorter. Then this phenomenon also existed in other dynasties in China. Why is this happening?

The founding emperors usually became emperors at once, often riding horses and shooting arrows, so they exercised a lot, so their physique was good and their life expectancy was long.

How about going to the back? Behind the growing pampering, riding a horse, fighting and opening a bow are often not enough. So these royal children became worse and worse. Then someone said, you see, this is the fate of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, this is a very normal reason, that is, more and more pampered, so the body is getting worse and worse. This is the first reason, which is the lack of exercise.

We all know that we can eat three meals a day. Many modern studies show that the more you eat, the greater your life expectancy may be affected. This is an experiment done with mice abroad, and it is delicious and full. Its life span is short, and it is very fat and bloated, unwilling to move, and its life span is short. What about the other group of mice? You didn't give it enough food, which made it a little hungry, but it didn't starve to death. Therefore, its life is particularly long. This is based on animal experiments, so eating too well is not a good thing.

So what do you know about the royal family? Fat, sweet and delicious, right? According to the rules of the Qing dynasty, how many dishes did the emperor eat every meal? There should be 120 lane, which is a normal law. Then some emperors want to be frugal, so let's just say that there is no need to do so much, but even if they are frugal, there are dozens of dishes. So an emperor like Gan Long knows a little about keeping in good health, so his dishes will be filled with medicinal materials and have a good life, which is the longest among emperors. Then other people who don't understand these things, I want delicious food, which is too bad.

Then at the end of the Qing Dynasty, this rule became more and more exquisite, so there were more and more dishes. In Cixi, 120 may not be enough food. So the question is, are all the dishes in this 120 cooked fresh? Well, you think it's necessary to follow the procedure in the palace. I'm too busy to cook now. So he will cook you the dishes that the emperor likes to eat. Some dishes are just for show and have been stewed on the fire. The emperor said that dinner would be served, and they immediately came up from a distance, but the emperor did not eat. Therefore, knowing that this dish will not be passive, I will take the next geothermal meal, so I don't have to cook it separately. So like Emperor Guangxu, he didn't have much authority himself. Now I only cook a few dishes nearby, and everything in the distance is served back and forth. So you say 120 is good? In fact, not necessarily. Some emperors eat well, while others eat really badly.

So the emperor's diet, according to what we saw today, is really messy. If you have the power, like Qianlong, how well you eat. If the emperor has no power, then what you eat may be to cope with the past. So these 120 dishes are often very, very bad. So it can be said that everyone thinks that this Qing emperor should eat well, right? In fact, the facts are often complicated. This royal diet is not suitable for our health as we thought. It does not promote health, but often has a destructive effect. So, can things like the royal diet be controlled by physicians? No, this physician can't get in a word, because there is a special kitchen and so on, and there are rules in this palace. So this diet is the second factor.

The emperor's life, the physician really can't interfere. For example, Zheng De of Ming Dynasty liked playing very much. He established various entertainment places in the suburbs of Beijing, such as the Leopard House, where he raised tigers, leopards and rare animals. What are you still doing? Collect beautiful women from all over the world. Then, according to the literature, he accepted a wide range of beautiful women, such as those from the western regions, blond, and blue-eyed, such as those from North Korea, and these beautiful women also attracted him, so he made love day and night. So, friends, think about it. Will the emperor be in good health if this continues? A Zhongyuan person, you are looking for a blonde, and a, I guess, not bad. You find ten, you find dozens, or a hundred. I think this body will be ruined. So the doctor made great efforts to restore his health.

Who was the physician of Emperor Zheng De at that time? Xue Lizhai, a famous doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. Xue Lizhai is the ambassador and dean of Imperial Hospital. He said in the medical book, to what extent did he serve the emperor? I'm tired of being sick. I need to recuperate. Why? Your majesty will not listen to you! What does the emperor mean when he says you want to abstain from sex? You don't want to live? Right? I continue to play. I'll let you know when I'm done. Give me some aphrodisiac. We can't watch him die without mending. After you fixed it, he became more proud. So this doctor is very, very difficult. This Xue Lizhai took great pains to make himself in a bad mood and have physical problems. He has to write a prescription for himself. Where can you refute this?

These living habits of the emperor are far from being interfered by the physician. For example, in the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Xianfeng of the Qing Dynasty died earlier, 3 1 year. Why? Because Emperor Xianfeng of Qing Dynasty was a famous lecherous emperor. Xianfeng is a weak man, so he is catching up with domestic troubles and foreign invasion, catching up with the opium war, and he feels very sad inside. Can you rely on something to solve your worries? One is to drink, and the other is to recruit beautiful women, specifically to let eunuchs go out to find beautiful women, especially Han Chinese beautiful women. Generally speaking, in this kind of marriage of the Qing royal family, the women chosen were Manchu and Mongolian, but Emperor Xianfeng liked the beauty of the Han nationality and went to Jiangnan to recruit beautiful women. As a result, accompanied by these beautiful women, the body is getting worse and worse. Before she died, she was very weak and kept coughing up blood. As you can see, what does this have to do with? This has something to do with wine color.

Then things like this have little to do with doctors, and doctors can't control them. You said that I should make a suggestion to tell the emperor that your three palaces and six hospitals are not suitable and should be changed to monogamy. Dare you mention it? After you mentioned it, you were dying. Therefore, the doctor's work is basically on a rotten wood, and I will try my best to repair it for you and let you decay slowly, but in the overall environment, the work done by the doctor is actually very limited.

The first is consanguineous marriage and incest, which is far beyond our modern imagination. Because Manchu was a nomadic tribe at that time, many nomadic customs were still preserved after entering the customs. At that time, women were their own property, so nomadic tribes had a habit that after the leader died, his numerous wives would be inherited to their sons or given to these brothers. It seems strange now, but it is normal among ancient nomadic tribes in China, such as Xiongnu. This phenomenon was obvious in the early Qing Dynasty before entering the customs, so it was only after entering the customs that the Chinese culture was accepted and adjusted.

What were the problems with the marriage of the Qing emperors? There is also political marriage, that is, who to marry, in order to win over the tribe he belongs to. Let me give you an example. For example, Huang Taiji, his first five concubines, all came from the same Mongolian tribe, that is, the Borzijit nationality in Mongolia. What is the relationship between the three concubines? It's the relationship between menstruation and his nephew. What do you mean? It was this girl who married Huang Taiji, so her aunt also married Huang Taiji at the same time. We modern people found it unacceptable at first sight, but at that time, ancient people thought it was normal.

Let's give another example. For example, the emperor shunzhi married two wives, both his uncle's daughters. What do you mean, his cousin. Later, one of the granddaughters of Empress Xiaozhuang Wen also married Shunzhi. What is this? This is his junior again. This kind of consanguineous marriage, as we now know, will lead to genetic problems, so children will be particularly sick. This is also an important reason why the Qing royal family became weaker and weaker later. Do you think a physician can decide this reason? I couldn't decide, and then the whole atmosphere was like this, and physicians could do very little.

At what age do girls usually get married like these royalty? 12, 13 years old, sometimes even earlier than this, 12 years old. For this matter, Huang taiji personally wrote an imperial edict. What is that? It is said that if a woman marries before 12 years old, she must be severely punished, and she must wait until 12 years old to get married. This is the late marriage of that year, that is to say, Huang Taiji personally issued a letter saying that everyone should marry late and must marry late and have children late. So how can we get married later? /kloc-marriage at the age of 0/2 is a late marriage. /kloc-Never get married before you are 0/2 years old.

So the emperor gave this order. Did everyone carry it out? Not implemented, nor did Huang Taiji himself. It's Huang taiji's own princess, and her daughter got married very early. For example, his eldest daughter, Princess Julun, got married before 12, his second daughter got married before 1 1, and his fourteenth daughter just turned 9 when she got married. Therefore, we can see that the situation of early marriage is very, very serious throughout the Qing dynasty royal family.

So what about early marriage? You'll have children early. At this time, your body has not yet formed. You are only nine years old and only ten years old. When your body is not completely strong, you will have a baby. This has also hit women particularly hard. So why do some royal children often get sick and die when they are very young, and some die at birth? Many people say that this is not the level of doctors, but it has nothing to do with doctors. You are close relatives from generation to generation, and then get married early and have children early. This is definitely very, very problematic physically, even if there is a congenital disease. This is beyond the scope of the doctor's intervention.

It was a princess just now. In fact, the emperor did the same. For example, the emperor shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, which is familiar to everyone. Do you know how old the emperor shunzhi succeeded to the throne? He succeeded to the throne at the age of six, and then the emperor would have a queen after he succeeded to the throne, so he got married very early and gave birth to his first son at the age of 14. The emperor shunzhi lived to be 23 years old, so how many children did he have between 14 and 23 years old? A * * * gave birth to eight sons and six daughters.

So what is the quality of the children born to such a young emperor and a young queen's concubine? When their bodies haven't grown up? It must be bad, right? So the first child, 14 years old, lived only two months, the first daughter lived for one year and seven months, and then the second son, not bad, lived for fifty years, which was a long life at that time. Then the second daughter lived to be 32, which was not bad. She came of age and her third daughter died at the age of five. Then the third son, Emperor Kangxi, lived to be 69 years old, which was a long life. Four daughters are seven years old, five daughters are six, and so on, so I won't say much.

Generally speaking, the quality of this life is very poor. Why? It has a lot to do with his early marriage and childbearing. This was the custom of the royal family at that time, and these things were beyond the doctor's intervention, so the quality of the children he gave birth to was very low, and I think it is difficult to adjust it no matter how you adjust it.

This is not a simple medical problem, there are many complicated reasons.

For example, how did Cixi finally die? She suffered from severe diarrhea and finally died of weakness. At that time, the physician gave her treatment, in fact, with these problems. At that time, there was a doctor named Shi Huan, a famous doctor who had just been recruited from outside. It was the emperor of the Qing Dynasty who recruited famous Chinese medicine practitioners from all over the country to Beijing to treat themselves, so he recruited Shi Huan.

At that time, he said that he would use the method of ebony pill to treat it. Wu Mei Pill has a good effect on treating diarrhea, especially diarrhea with mixed cold and heat. There are hot drugs in this prescription, such as aconite, dried ginger and so on. And cold medicines, such as Coptidis Rhizoma and Cortex Phellodendri. It's cold and hot. But when this prescription was handed over, the military department saw it and said that it took a lot of effort and the medication was a bit harsh. Who will shoot this board? What if the effect is not good? So this prescription lingers among several naive adults, and no one makes the final decision. In this way, everyone will understand that the prescription for treating the emperor is actually not determined by the physician, but ultimately by this bureaucratic system. Therefore, everyone says that this side is not good, and we must prescribe a peaceful and plain prescription, which will be presented if nothing happens. So I began to deal with the prescription, and as a result, this Cixi died. Therefore, Cixi herself could not come up with a good prescription.

At that time, famous doctors were recruited from all over the country, including a famous doctor from Jiangnan named Du. This Du is very knowledgeable and has a good therapeutic effect. Then after he was recruited, he treated the queen mother, and later he wrote a book about this process. Then at that time, he felt the pulse of Emperor Guangxu. Emperor Guangxu said, if you have a good diagnosis, just follow your thinking, don't change it, and don't listen to others. It means that you should stick to your own method, never be influenced by bureaucrats to change the prescription, just follow your advice. So he thought he should be able to cure the illness of Emperor Guangxu. But before long, he found a problem, that is, their doctor was on duty. Today, two doctors consult together, and the next day, two doctors consult together. This Du found that the consequence of taking turns on duty was that your prescription changed immediately and could not be executed. How can we cure him of this disease? He himself said that when we went to Beijing to treat the emperor, we just wanted to cure the emperor's illness and then gain fame. Now it seems that this reputation will definitely be lost, not only lost, but also no problem.

So he found an official named Lu Runxiang. This Lu Runxiang comes from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, and his father knows medicine. He was admitted to the top scholar, and he was an official in Beijing at that time, so because he was the top scholar, the emperor also valued him very much, and sometimes he often discussed medicine with him. So sometimes Lu Runxiang would come to the palace to see the emperor. Du told me, Lord Lu, you also know medical skills, and your family's medical skills are also brilliant. Do you have this opinion about seeing a doctor? If you look at it this way, it will not only look bad, but also bear the responsibility in the future. How to do this? Please tell me. Do you know what Lu Runxiang said to him? He said that the rules in the palace have always been like this. If you go to see a doctor, nothing will happen. This is the process of going in for consultation every day. Not much to say, let's talk about it in the palace. It's not good for you to talk too much about it. This is the rule of the court. You really shouldn't ask too much.

The system is so corrupt and rigid that doctors can't display their talents at all. Dr. Du actually stayed there until Guangxu died, but unfortunately, he failed to show his talent.

So you don't think this doctor is good? That's not true. Later, after the founding of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai fell ill, so he moved Du to Beijing and stayed there for a year. At that time, Yuan Shikai had stomach trouble, which was very serious. As a result, Du took a pair of medicine, and Yuan Shikai's stomach trouble was basically relieved at once. Yuan Shikai felt particularly magical, saying that my stomach trouble didn't happen in a day or two, so many doctors didn't like it. This western doctor has seen it, and everyone can't help it. Your medicine will solve this problem. So he left this Du Zhongjun with him and made him an official for a year. But what about Du Zhong Jun? Later, he returned to the private sector and practiced medicine in Beijing. Then we may all be familiar with Du's descendants. She is the host of CCTV, and her husband is the actor Chen. Where's Du Zhong Jun? He once wrote a story about how he entered the palace to feel the pulse of the queen. It can be seen that it is very difficult for the physician to see the queen and feel the pulse. In fact, many things are beyond his control.

So is the doctor's level high? It's very tall. It should be said that in those days, doctors all over the country were at least excellent, not the best, but they were also excellent. Because the famous doctors recruited from all over the country are knowledgeable, they came to the palace, but for various reasons, these various management system problems failed to display their ambitions and their own means could not be displayed at all. So why is the emperor's life span so short? In fact, this has little to do with doctors because there are many influencing factors. This problem should be viewed more from the perspective of sociology. I think this is a more objective academic point of view. I think it is unfair to judge the level of doctors simply by this matter.

Of course, you say doctors are so high? Not necessarily. The famous doctors recruited from all over the country are of high level, but there are many doctors in hospitals. After a long time, because the whole management system is particularly old-fashioned, a style has gradually developed, and doctors' prescriptions are as plain as possible, and they can cope with it. This is because doctors want to avoid accidents and lose their minds as much as possible. So what do people mean by "the articles of the Hanlin Academy and the prescriptions of the Imperial Hospital"? It's just not as good as everyone thinks. Think about it carefully, it was also caused by the decadent management system at that time.

So today I will tell you about this matter in detail from beginning to end, so that everyone can understand. When looking at the problem, we should put it in the social environment at that time, and then see how these factors work and how they lead to this result. Only in this way can we treat a problem comprehensively and fairly, so as not to be biased. Otherwise, if we don't look at many factors, we will just grasp a little. This is called getting into a dead end and it is easy to go astray. If we can measure everything in the world from all angles and aspects, then you will see things more comprehensively and draw more correct conclusions.

That's all for today. I hope I can share some past events of Chinese medicine with you in the future.