By Wu Liyang

Romantic Cures in Compendium of Materia Medica

By Wu Liyang

S ubtlemeaningswerealways hiddeninChineseancient books.Even in the bookCompendium of Materia Medica,there are slight traces of sex.

Breast milk was called“wine of god”in Volume 52-The Category of Human and was described as“an exquisite invention of nature,which allows human to be fine and pleasant”. Volume 36-The Category of Woods portrayed the unique use of belt.“If a woman is suffering from a difficult birth,burn a five-inch piece of her husband’s belt into ash and serve it with wine.”And the column concerning combs appears to be more romantic:“If a man’s urethra is blocked, burn a wooden comb of a widow into ash and serve it after boiling.For frequent urination and micturition pain, burn a wooden comb which has been used for years and keep the ash.Serve it with cold water.The patient should choose the comb from the opposite sex.”

In front of these descriptions in such aprofessionalpharmacy book,the dogmatic morality seems so weak.It is not clear whether a wooden comb can be considered as herb.Even if it can, why does it have to be a widow’s or served to the opposite sex?Someone may argue that there is no scientific basis.However,life must be tedious if everything is required to have scientific basis.Besides,it may have psychological basis.

Such examples can be often found in professional pharmacy books.It is interestingthatthosekind-hearted medicalspecialistsalsohavesuch sense of romance.Maybe it is the result of oppression of old-fashioned moral code.It is morbid and can be considered as the fantasy,retrospection,interiormonologueandfree imagination by the author,Doctor Li Shizhen.

In contrast with the romantic Doctor Li,poet Meng Jiao held an opposite point about sex and love.He wrote“One cannot approach a sword or a beauty.A sword can hurt your hand while a beauty can harm your health. Rugged roads can destroy wheels in ten rounds.Lust can sap one’s vitality over one night.”

Compendium of Materia Medicais really a fancy book full of subtleties. Those lines of romance allow huge space to savor,not to mention the art of medicine and the profound natural science.

(FromMarks on the Book,the Commercial Press.Translation:Zheng Yi. Illustration:Chen Quansheng)