It refers to the four landmark classics that have played an important role in the history of the development of traditional Chinese medicine, and have great guiding role and research value for ancient and even modern traditional Chinese medicine.
There is controversy about the specific composition of the four classics.
Academics generally regard the “Huangdi Neijing”, “Nanjing”, “Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases”, and “Shennong’s Materia Medica” as the four classics of traditional Chinese medicine.
There are also some traditional Chinese medicine textbooks that regard “Huangdi Neijing”, “Typhoid Fever”, “Jinkui Essentials”, and “Warm Diseases” as the four classics.
The former statement is more adopted.
Compendium of Materia Medica
Although the views of traditional Chinese medicine doctors on the “Compendium of Materia Medica” are not as extreme as Chen Xiuyuan and Huang Yuanyu,
But I can’t say how much I like it, Chinese medicine students regard the “Compendium of Materia Medica” more as an extracurricular reading, at most they turn a few pages in their spare time to increase their knowledge, but that’s all.
Without modern medicine, the reference value of the “Compendium of Materia Medica” in Chinese medicine alone is still not great, because Li Shizhen only records and does not verify, which is very troublesome, particularly poor to use, troublesome when quoting, unless jointly cited, but a book is enough, and its medical value is not as good as the “Pulse Studies of the Lake” and “Eight Pulses of the Strange Classics” written by him.
The most valuable authoritative bibliography of Materia Medica, which is worth referring to in traditional Chinese medicine, is “Shennong’s Materia Medica”, followed by “Famous Doctors’ Separate Records”, “Certificate Materia Medica”, “Materia Medica” and the “Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine” published by modern Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. These are the books that are currently frequently cited.
The Compendium of Materia Medica, which was discovered and carried forward by foreigners, was recognized by Darwin, has a great reputation in the world, and has been compiled into textbooks. It is not to belittle the “Compendium of Materia Medica”, the reference value of this collection of Materia Medica, is even inferior to the “Compendium of Materia Medica” of the Qing Dynasty.
Its intermediate value is to let the world know that the old medicine is poorly practical and accurate, and it is not worthy of its name.