"Knowing what he has committed, treat it with food, if the diet does not heal, and then order the medicine" - Tang · Sun Simiao's "A Thousand Golden Prescriptions· Food Treatment"
The Tang Dynasty physician Sun Simiao was born in the seventh year of the Great Unification of the Western Wei Dynasty (541), and claimed that he "suffered from the wind and cold at a young age, repeatedly built medical doors, and exhausted his family property with the resources of decoction and medicine". In his early years, he was eager to learn and knowledgeable, but later he suffered from illness and often needed to seek medical advice, so he decided to become a doctor and vowed to save the suffering of the soul. Later, he practiced medicine for more than 70 years and was respected as the "King of Medicine".
Every year on the second day of the second lunar month, there will be a lively grand temple fair in Yaowang Mountain in Shaanxi, and visitors come from all over the world to pray for peace and health. As a 100-year-old doctor, Sun Simiao has a complete set of self-health care methods.
Sun Simiao attaches great importance to dietary therapy, emphasizing: "The foundation of life must be based on food." "To be a doctor, you must first understand the source of the disease, know what it is committing, cure it with food, and then order medicine." Because although medicine cures diseases, "the medicine is strong, like a royal soldier, and the violence of the soldier is not allowed to happen in vain?" Therefore, medication should not be taken lightly unless it is absolutely necessary. The diet is peaceful and smooth, impartial, "can expel evil and calm the internal organs, please the mind and refresh the will to enrich the blood." If a doctor "can use food to calm the disease, relieve feelings, and relieve the sick, it can be described as a miracle method for good workers to bait the old for many years, and it is also a great way to maintain health." It can be seen that Sun Simiao not only regarded diet before medicine but also regarded it as a means of maintaining longevity, and expounded the principle that good doctors "treat diseases and save people, and emphasize prevention and treatment".
Sun Simiao attaches great importance to food therapy, and deliberately introduces the proposition of "suitable food", and exclaims: "Those who do not know suitable food are not enough to survive!" "The so-called food is to eat in moderation. He agreed with the saying that "there are many diseases in the old age, and there are few diseases in the hungry years", and the people in the Guanzhong area are frugal and have a simple diet, so they are less sick and live longer; The people of Jiangnan live a rich life, delicacies from the mountains and seas, and are prepared for everything, and many diseases and early deaths are examples to prove this view. He opposes eating too much, insisting that the staple food is not too full, and that he does not drink too much; If you are greedy for a while, you will invite endless calamities. Therefore, normal people should eat small and frequent meals: "The appetite is small and the appetite is more, and the more is difficult to eliminate." It is wonderful to strive to achieve the situation of "always wanting to be hungry and hungry." The principle of eating appropriately is also reflected in the fact that the diet should be light but not greasy, the feeling of sweetness, sourness and spiciness, and the cold, heat, cold and warmth are moderate.
Before the age of agriculture, food was mainly obtained through fishing, fishing and hunting required physical strength, and gathering required wisdom. The Huainanzi · Cultivation Training" says: "(Shennong) tastes the taste of a hundred herbs, and the sweetness and bitterness of water springs, so that the people know what they have done." At this time, seventy poisons were encountered in one day. "It's a reminiscence of difficult times.
The emergence of drugs is based on the conscious act of foraging for medicine in humans, and this process is indeed related to foraging. It is conceivable that "Shennong" tasted the rhizome of rhubarb, suffered abdominal pain and diarrhea, so he included this plant with "big roots and yellow leaves" in the list of toxic and harmful substances, becoming one of the "seventy poisons" encountered in the legend. Until one day, someone in the tribe was suffering from the accumulation of food, and "Shennong" suddenly remembered this plant that could "cleanse the stomach and intestines and bring the old to the new", and found it for the sick to take it, and all kinds of discomfort were cured. The first drug in the history of human treatment was born, "gathering poison to share medicine", which is roughly what it means.
According to the political system conceived in the "Zhou Li", there was a chef under the Tianguan mound, who was in charge of the food and cooking of the palace, and there was a "food doctor" in the series of physicians at the same level as the chef, specializing in "palming and the king's six foods, six drinks, six meals, hundred shames, hundred sauces, and eight treasures of Qi (the same dose)". The duties of a food doctor are not related to the color and aroma of food, but to match the diet according to the medical logic of the time, and the nature of his work is similar to that of later generations of nutrition cathars. ·Although the book is not transmitted, it refers to the "Golden Kui Yaolu" of "Fruits, Vegetables and Grains Taboo and Treatment", and it is speculated that its content is food taboo miscellaneous treatment, which may be the creation of "food doctors".
Judging from the title of the book and a small number of inscriptions, it can be roughly divided into two categories: one is biased towards chefs and officials, mainly recording the storage of raw materials, processing and brewing, cooking operations, and even ritualized procedures in major activities such as sacrifices; The other type is biased towards food medicine, which mainly has three aspects: food fasting, food nutrition, and food treatment, and food taboos are still the mainstay. For example, the "Laozi Fasting Sutra" and "Yellow Emperor's Miscellaneous Dietary Taboos" recorded in the "Sui Shu · Jing Ji Zhi", as well as the "Bian Que Food Ban" and "Hua Tuo Food Theory (Forbidden)" cited in his book, etc., obviously belong to this category from the title of the book; In addition, Tao Hongjing's "Nourishing Life Extension Record· Food Abstinence" also specializes in discussing food taboos. As for the monograph with the purpose of food nourishment and food treatment, or the "food treatment" in volume 26 of Sun Simiao's "Preparation for Emergencies and Thousands of Gold Prescriptions" as the starting point, this single book is usually called "The Food Treatment of a Thousand Golds".
Food treatment is not unique to the Tang Dynasty, "Zhou Li ·Tianguan · Disease Doctor" "with five flavors, five grains, five medicines to nourish their diseases", according to Zheng Xuan's note: "five grains, hemp, millet, millet, wheat, beans also." The relevant "medical" explanation can be found in Yang Shangshan's "Yellow Emperor's Neijing Taisu": "Five grains, five animals, five fruits, and five vegetables, which are used to satisfy hunger, are called food, and are called medicine to cure diseases." It is advisable to eat japonica rice for spleen disease, that is, its medicine; To satisfy hunger and deficiency is to eat. Therefore, the import of personal things, for example, is the same. ”
There are two typical examples of the difficult separation between medicine and food. "Jin Kui Yaolu" has angelica ginger mutton soup, which treats cold hernia, abdominal pain, and urgency: "Angelica three taels, ginger five taels, mutton one catty, eight liters of water, boiled three liters, warm seven he, three times a day." "If you suspect that the drug Angelica is used in this case, which is not pure enough, you can also read the story of Hua Tuo. "Romance of the Three Kingdoms· Hua Tuo's Biography" cloud: "Tuo Xingdao, I saw a person who was sick and choked, and he couldn't get off because he was addicted to eating, and his family wanted to go to the doctor in a car. Hearing his moaning, he parked the car and looked at it, and said: There has always been a cake seller on the side of the road who sells garlic and garlic, and he takes three liters to drink it, and he should go away from his illness. That is, as he said, he spit out a snake. In this regard, Tao Hongjing said in the "Preface to the Collection of Notes on the Materia Medica· "This covers the things between heaven and earth, and it is used between heaven and earth. Therefore, rice, fruits, vegetables, insects, beasts, birds and birds, many edible products are also grandly included in the "Materia Medica".