Chinese culture is broad and profound, with a long history, and medical skills are also among them, and Chinese medicine and Chinese medicine are the great crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese nation. In the thousands of years of Chinese history, many famous doctors have emerged, such as Hua Tuo, Bian Que, Sun Simiao, Zhang Zhongjing, Li Shizhen, Ye Tianshi, etc., and Meng Shu is also one of them.
Meng Xu, a native of Pingli, Xinfeng Township, Liang County, Ruzhou, was a famous scholar, pharmacist, and founder of Chinese medicine diet therapy in the Tang Dynasty, and the 31st grandson of the ancient thinker and educator Mencius. Meng Shu has been gifted and intelligent since childhood, has the ability to never forget, likes the art of medicine, and likes to collect and study folk dietary prescriptions. During the Gaozong Dynasty, Jinshi and the first, served as the county leader, and moved the Fengge people. Later, after offending Wu for his gaffe, he was demoted to Taizhou Sima, and was later promoted to the waiter of the Ministry of Rites. Li Dan, the crown prince, admired Meng Xu's talent and called him to be a waiter and be responsible for explaining the scriptures. In the third year of Chang'an (703 years), worship the history of the same state, so it is called Meng Tongzhou. In the early years of Shenlong, he was old and wise, living in seclusion in Yiyang Mountain, Ruzhou, and taking medicine bait every day. In the early years of Kaiyuan, he died at the age of ninety-three.
Meng Shu has studied medicine and health preservation techniques, and had close contacts with the famous doctor Sun Simiao when he was young. After returning to his hometown, he often concocted drugs to save the world, although he was old, he was still in the prime of life, so someone asked him how to maintain it, Meng Shu replied: "If you want to protect your body, you must be kind and keep your mouth, and you can't leave the medicine." In order to popularize the knowledge of healing and health preservation among the common people, Meng Shu combined the practical experience accumulated throughout his life with the prescriptions of the dietary therapy part of the medical treatises of his predecessors, and compiled the three volumes of "Nourishing Formulas", which were copied and used in his hometown. Later, it was supplemented and adapted by the monk doctor Zhang Ding into "Dietary Therapy Materia Medica".
Dietary Therapy Materia Medica" systematically summarizes the dietary therapy drugs and dietary treatment prescriptions before the Tang Dynasty, which is the first dietary therapy monograph in China and the earliest existing dietary therapy monograph in the world, which is consistent with modern nutrition and has made great contributions to the development of medicine in China and the world. "Dietary Therapy Materia Medica" still has clinical value to this day, and Meng Shu is also known as the "originator" of dietary therapy in the world. Judging from the written records, the earliest tea drink also came from the "Dietary Therapy Materia Medica", which has a special treatment of "hot poison diarrhea" and "low back pain is difficult to turn".
In addition to "Dietary Therapy Materia Medica", Meng Xu's other medical monograph on incurable diseases "Bixiao Fang", which proposed the method of using linen cloth to dispense medicine for the diagnosis and treatment of jaundice hepatitis, and some people say that this is the earliest pH test paper.
Meng Shu single-handedly pioneered the science of Chinese medicine dietetics, and he paid special attention to all kinds of food and drug taboos in his life, advocating "keeping the middle to achieve harmony and seeking efficiency in stability". In his later years, due to the old illness of Li Dan of Tang Ruizong, Ruizong gave the name of "Meng Yutang" with the meaning of "Meng's Qihuang, Yu Ze Baishi", which was inherited by Meng's descendants, and has now been selected as the intangible cultural heritage of Henan Province and Ruzhou City.