Li Shizhen is a native of Qizhou, and his grandfather and father both worked as doctors. His father, Li Yanwen, was very interested in medicinal herbs, and Li Shizhen was influenced by his father since he was a child, and often went up the mountain with his friends to collect various medicinal herbs.
As the days went by, he could recognize the names of various plants and trees, and he could also know what grass could cure what diseases, and his medical knowledge gradually became richer, and Li Shizhen devoted himself to studying medicine with his father.
In the same year, there was a great flood in his hometown, and after the water receded, there was an epidemic, and the sick people were poor people who had no money.
Li Shizhen's family is not wealthy, but the father and son are very sympathetic to the poor, and the poor come to them for medical treatment, and they are carefully treated, regardless of remuneration. The common people are grateful to them.
In order to study medical skills, Li Shizhen read a lot of ancient medical books, our country had medical books very early in ancient times, the Han Dynasty people wrote a "Shennong Materia Medica", after more than a thousand years, many new medical books have been published.
Due to the limited level of social development and the difficulty of finding good medicine, Li Shizhen germinated the idea of compiling a new, reliable, and complete book of "Materia Medica".
Li Shizhen spent 27 years, walked thousands of miles, sometimes in order to find the herbs in the strange peaks and mountains, he had to risk his life to pick, but also to taste it himself, decades of hard work was not in vain, and finally completed the medical masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica".
Xu Guangqi (1562-1633 AD), Wanli Jinshi, astronomy, calendrical calculations, firearms, entered the Catholic Church, and studied with the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci.
In the 40th year of Wanli (1612 AD), he served as a compiler of the almanac, and worked with the missionary Xiong Sanba to make the heavens and the earth and other observators.
In the first year of Chongzhen (1629 AD), Xu Guangqi also calculated the calendar with missionaries such as Long Huamin, Deng Yuhan, Luo Yacob, etc., and he paid attention to the practical learning of the world, and studied many fields and water conservancy.
He is the author of "The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration", "Chongzhen Almanac", and translated "Geometric Original" and "Taixi Water Law", which are of great scientific value.