The Newly Revised Materia Medica, also known as Tang Materia Medica, was compiled by 23 people including Su Jing, a physician ordered by the Tang government in 659 AD. It is said that this book is not only the first pharmaceutical classic published by the government in China, but also the earliest pharmaceutical monograph in the world. Chen Zangqi, who has been dealing with herbs since childhood, understands that the New Materia Medica is only ordered by the imperial court to draw the shape of drugs, and the editors such as Wuji are all senior officials of the imperial court, so they can't make in-depth investigation and study, so there are some omissions and mistakes in the content, so it is necessary to sort out and edit it.

1959 edition of the newly revised materia medica (from the collection network)

In 739 AD, after years of painstaking research and compilation by 10, a pharmaceutical masterpiece Notes on Materia Medica with a volume of 10 was finally published. As the name implies, the purpose of "herbal supplement" is to clean up and sort out the drugs omitted in the newly revised compendium of materia medica. Compared with the newly revised Materia Medica, this book adds 692 kinds of medicinal materials, each of which is accompanied by theory and practice, and has high academic value.

Compendium of Materia Medica is divided into preface 1, compendium 6, and puzzle-solving 3. Among them, Compendium classifies the properties of traditional Chinese medicine into 10, which is the basic rule of clinical prescriptions, so that it will have future generations. The "animal experiment" put forward in Jiefen is the earliest animal pharmacological experiment in the world, which is nearly a thousand years earlier than that in the west. The so-called animal pharmacological experiment refers to the experiment conducted with animals in order to find out the performance of drugs.

After the publication of Materia Medica, it was successively included in Yaoxinfang (Japan), Zhengbencao (Song), Kaibao Bencao (Song) and Jiayou Bencao (Song). Some effective recipes for treating tea recorded in the book have influenced Southeast Asian countries diplomatically.

Later, in the history, the first edition of Compendium of Materia Medica was unfortunately lost. Later doctors were discriminating about pearls, which were restored according to "Zheng Ben Cao", and finally "Ben Cao Bu" was published. Regrettably, the record of "herbal therapy of tea" in the book is only a few words: "(tea) reaches the sky and achieves human resources. All medicines are the medicine for all diseases, and tea is the medicine for all diseases."

In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen, a medical expert, was overjoyed when he read Compendium of Materia Medica, saying that the book was "rich in books, precise in nuclear materials, fallacious in setting ropes, seeking for roots and living in seclusion, and it has only been a book since Compendium of Materia Medica". Later, when he compiled Compendium of Materia Medica, he quoted 368 kinds of drugs contained in Compendium of Materia Medica.

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History has entered a new century. In 2003, The Collection and Interpretation of Materia Medica, edited by Shang Zhijun, an expert in materia medica philology and founder of materia medica philology, was published by Anhui Science and Technology Publishing House. This 460,000-word book makes a comprehensive interpretation and annotation of Notes on Materia Medica. According to the book, Compendium of Materia Medica quoted 27 kinds of pharmaceutical literature/kloc-0, which shows the depth and breadth of the research on Chen Zangqi. After thousands of years of hard work, a generation of famous pharmaceutical works finally shines again.

Shang Zhijun's Notes on Materia Medica (from the Internet)

What Chen Zangqi certainly didn't expect before his death was that the influence of convalescent students in treatment of tea far exceeded that of herbal supplements. Since the Tang Dynasty, doctors have never stopped studying tea recuperators. By the Qing Dynasty, the wind of treating tea prevailed, and the contents, application scope and production methods of medicinal tea were constantly updated and enriched. Nowadays, therapeutic tea has become an indispensable part of medicine in China, and it is increasingly favored by people for its unique charm and good curative effect.

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References:

1, paper "and drug health care" (author Zhou Yimou)

2, 360 Library's Notes on Materia Medica