The “alternative” legacy of a family of TCM practitioners

There is an old Chinese saying, “If you are not a good minister, you should be a good doctor”. Hanging a pot to help the world can be said to be an inheritance and a tradition of the ancient culture of Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine is very profound and has played a great role in promoting and protecting the health of the Chinese people and the world. So how has Chinese medicine developed to the present day? And how has it evolved? Li Jiren is one of the 30 national masters of Chinese medicine selected by the state in 2009, and is also the inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage “Zhang Yi Paste”, which has a history of over 400 years.

Every Thursday morning is the time when Li Jiren sits in Wuhu Yiji Mountain Hospital. The old man is 85 years old this year, but although his health is not as good as the last two years, he still insists on coming to the hospital to see patients.

Li Jiren, formerly known as Li Yuanshan, was born in She County, Anhui Province in 1931. During Li Jiren’s adolescence, his eldest brother died tragically, and he was suffering from malaria, and then he saw his hometown fathers suffering from illnesses during the war.

After learning medicine, Li Jiren worshiped in Xin’an famous doctor Zhang Gengui, Zhang Gengui this lineage can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty Jiajing years Zhang Shouren, the treatment of difficult and serious diseases in internal medicine is very good, often a post to see the effect, began to be called “Zhang a post”. Through the Ming, Qing and Republic of China, there are more than 400 years of heritage history. Later Li Jiren married Zhang Gengui’s daughter Zhang Shunhua as his wife, did the door-to-door son-in-law, this became the “Zhang a post” 14th generation of inheritors. It took more than 60 years to grow from a village doctor to a generation of national medical masters.

Li Yan, Li Jiren’s second daughter, has been studying medicine with Li for almost 30 years, and is one of the main inheritors of Li Jiren’s clinical medical skills. Although she has been a teacher for many years, Li Yan still habitually accompanies her father whenever he goes to the clinic. For each patient, Li Yan has to see it once, and then Li Jiren sees it again.

Although it is father and daughter, Li Yan still likes to call her father master and apprentice in the hospital. Because in the old society, she was not allowed to study medicine. According to the ancestral tradition, “Zhang Yitiao” is passed on to men but not women, and it is passed on inside but not outside, so Li Yan can get the opportunity to learn medical skills because of the changes made by Li Jiren’s generation.

Unlike the conservative inheritance of the ancestral tradition, Li Jiren has been thinking about how to develop the business of Chinese medicine all his life. Early in the liberation, he and his wife Zhang Sunhua donated their ancestral “Zhang Yitiao” recipe to the country. In addition to contributing the recipe, Li Jiren also accepted a wide range of disciples, as long as the sincere learning of Chinese medicine, the old man will be devoted to teach.

Today, Li Yan is the director of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine at Yiji Mountain Hospital and the leader of the National Key Discipline of Traditional Chinese Medicine Paralysis. The influence of her father, Li Jiren, is undoubtedly great in achieving such achievements today.

In addition to Li Yan, his daughter, Li Jiren has four sons. It is worth mentioning that the eldest son, Zhang Qicheng, the fourth son, Li Biao, and the fifth son, Li Zu, are all doctoral candidates. Some are spreading Chinese studies, some are doing scientific research, and all are engaged in careers related to TCM. Each of the children has Li Jiren’s shadow behind the direction of their employment.

In addition to his second daughter, Li Yan, there is also his third son, Li Stile, who has passed on his clinical medical skills. Unlike Li Yan, who worked as a doctor in a tertiary hospital in the city, Li Jiren arranged for Li to work as a village doctor in his hometown of Dingtan, She County.

In the 1980s, Li Jiren was given the opportunity to settle in Wuhu with his family, but “Zhang Yitiao” had been passed down in She County for hundreds of years, and Li Jiren did not want to break the tradition in his hometown, so he left his third son Li Jiao, who was just 17 years old at the time, in Dingtan.

Although he was very reluctant, Li did not disobey his parents’ order and stayed in his hometown in Dingtan to study medicine. He quickly adapted to the life of a village doctor, picking herbs from the mountains, making his own pills, and calling his father from time to time to ask for medical advice.

Today, Zhang Yitiao, under the legacy of Li Jang, is one of the most famous Chinese medicine doctors around She County. Villagers from all over the countryside are willing to see him for medical treatment. One reason is Li’s high medical skills, and the other is the low consultation fee. Not only was the consultation fee low, but the price of medicine was also low, and this was all at the request of his father, Li Jiren.

Li Stile’s resentment against his parents for forcing him to stay in the countryside to carry on Zhang Yitiao’s legacy has long been relieved. In his opinion, “Zhang Yi post” can be passed down in an ancient way in his body, is a very fulfilling thing. On the one hand is to preserve the heritage, on the other hand, but also innovative development. For Li Jiren, it is his greatest wish to make Chinese medicine recognized by more people.

Li Zizhi, Li Jiren’s youngest son, studied TCM in college and graduated with a doctorate from Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Under Li Jiren’s guidance, Li did not become a TCM doctor, but went to the Institute of Bioinformatics in the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University.

A traditional Chinese medicine doctor to engage in computer automation computing, such a huge cross-border, think about it, you know how difficult it is. The first few years of scientific research can be said to be clueless, one after another hit a wall. The support and encouragement from his father, Li Jiren, undoubtedly gave him great confidence and motivation.

In order to support Li Zu to go further on the scientific road, Li Jiren put together more than 800 effective prescriptions that he often used, and divided them into different categories for Li Zu’s reference. And through these 800-plus prescriptions, Li Zu found out the core medication ingredients, and then through networked calculations, using experiments to find out exactly which ingredients are effective against germs, finally found a breakthrough point in the direction of cold and heat in Chinese medicine theory.

On November 4, 2014, the Wall Street Journal published a two-page article on On November 4, 2014, the Wall Street Journal published a two-page article titled “East Meets West in the Lab”, highlighting the results of Li Zu’s group in the field of pharmacology and systems biology of TCM networks. As soon as the newspaper came out that day, Li Zizhi called Li Jiren to tell him that at that moment he wanted most of all for his father to share his joy.

For Li Jiren, whether it is Li Yan and Li Jang who are in the clinical field, or Li Zu and Li Biao who are in the scientific field, or Zhang Qicheng who is spreading the Chinese medical science, each child in the family has inherited his or her own mantle and has achieved excellence in various fields. Perhaps for this family, the inheritance is not only limited to skills and morals, but also a kind of tenacity and persistence in the bones.

Originating from Xin’an, based on national education, emphasizing clinical aspects and moving towards science. From this, we can see that Li Jiren in the development of Chinese medicine in this matter, showing the concept of openness and sharing, the purpose is to promote Chinese medicine, cure more people’s diseases, the inheritance is precisely hanging pots to help the world, the kindness of the doctor. Chinese medicine is the treasure of ancient Chinese science, and in order to inherit, develop and apply the valuable wealth left to us by our ancestors, and to better benefit mankind, we need more Chinese medical sages with perseverance and commitment.