What is the history of China people studying herbal medicine?

herbalism is one of the great heritages of Chinese medicine. The development of medicine in China started from herbal medicine. The descendants of the Chinese nation are thriving, and the population accounts for a quarter of the world, which is inseparable from the development of ancient Chinese herbal medicine.

herbal medicine was called "materia medica" in ancient China, including plants, animals and minerals. Among them, plant medicines account for the vast majority, hence the name "materia medica". According to the records of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronze inscriptions in China and recent archaeological excavations, as early as the Yuanmou people's era (1.7 million years ago) and Lantian people's era (6,-8, years ago), the ancestors of the Chinese nation invented cooking food with fire and curing diseases with herbs. The hieroglyphic "medicine" created is the word "music" under the grass, and the two dance under the grass. Seven or eight thousand years ago, stone tools were invented to domesticate and plant wild animals and plants, plough farmland and collect herbs. Five or six thousand years ago, bronzes and ironware, stone nests for grinding medicine, ginger nests and grinding troughs were also invented one after another. Medicine and diet have the same origin, which is the unique feature of Chinese herbal medicine and traditional medicine. As early as Zhou Li and The Book of Songs, there were chapters on "Eating Doctors" and "Treating Hunger". China's earliest medical monograph "Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing" published in Han Dynasty was an epoch-making work in the world at that time, which was hundreds of years earlier than the history of "grass science" in ancient Greece and Rome. In the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian sent a mission to the Western Regions, spreading rhubarb, a Chinese medicine from China, to West Asia and Europe, and developed it into rhubarb soda tablets, which has become a popular cathartic medicine for three centuries. This is also the great contribution of China herbs to people's health in the world.

China herbal medicine has maintained the characteristics of combining medicine with medicine since ancient times, mainly composed of original plants, animals and minerals. It has the advantages of local production, easy collection, simple use, low price and good curative effect. It has been widely circulated for thousands of years and people are willing to use it. Especially in some places rich in Chinese herbal medicine resources, such as Tibet, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Mengqing New Grassland, Southern Tropical Forest, Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, Bashan Mountain in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinling and Loess Plateau, etc., all herbal medicines are household names, and they are sold everywhere in town fairs. According to legend, Sun Simiao, the king of medicine, handed down the red cloth, the knife, the water and the wine. Compared with western countries, such as Europe and America, which have taken a long road of synthetic medicine and returned to attach importance to the research and development of natural plant medicines, and the upsurge of extracting the effective components of single medicine has formed, it shows that China herbal medicine is an important wealth in the world's medical treasure house.

Chinese herbs are also called "seven medicines" in many places. There are many kinds and wide distribution, most of which have been handed down after long-term clinical practice and verification. Some of them are commodities officially listed by the state and Chinese herbal medicines included in the Pharmacopoeia by the state, and some are still used as herbs in the producing areas and folk areas. A batch of modern soap books and bamboo slips "Fifty-two Prescriptions for Diseases" unearthed in Changsha, which completely recorded the medical data of the Han Dynasty, should have recorded more than 1 diseases before the Huangdi Neijing, with 1-2 prescriptions for each disease, and as many as 2 prescriptions, 28 prescriptions and 24 kinds of drugs, of which only one third were found in Shennong Herbal Classic. It can be seen that the 365 kinds of commonly used drugs contained in Shennong Herbal Classic, the earliest general pharmacopoeia, were only a small part of folk drugs at that time. Tao Hongjing, who served as prime minister in the Liang Dynasty and later studied pharmacy, wrote "Notes on Shennong's Herbal Classics" and "Notes on Famous Doctors", which contained 73 kinds of Chinese herbal medicines. The Newly Revised Materia Medica in Tang Dynasty is the first pharmacopoeia officially promulgated by our country, which contains 844 kinds of traditional Chinese medicines. The Herbal Medicine of Syndrome in Song Dynasty doubled, containing 1558 kinds of drugs. Compendium of Materia Medica, written by Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty, contained 1892 kinds of drugs, which were later translated and published by more than ten countries in more than ten languages. After the Qing Dynasty, the medical masterpieces such as Guang Qun Fang Pu and Seventy-two Kinds of Medical Books in Chen Xiuyuan remained in this range. After the Chinese People's Republic of China and the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were 6,5 kinds of traditional Chinese medicine resources in the national compilation of traditional Chinese medicine in 1972, and 713 kinds of commonly used traditional Chinese medicine in the 1977 edition of China Pharmacopoeia, all of which were only a part of China's rich traditional Chinese medicine resources, and many of them had not yet been included. In 1982, the State Council decided to conduct a comprehensive survey of traditional Chinese medicine resources throughout the country and formulate a long-term development plan. Since 1983, all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have carried out it at the same time, organized more than 4, scientific and technological personnel, collected 2 million specimens and collected more than 1, folk prescriptions for five years. The China Medicinal Materials Company compiled and compiled the "Notes on Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources in China", which contained 12,694 kinds of traditional Chinese medicines, reaching the modern level.