Chapter 221 Learning Chinese Medicine Should Start from an Early Age
As the old man walked into his room, a strong aroma of medicine hit him. Except for the east room where he rested, all other vacant spaces were piled with various herbal bags and neatly placed piles of books.

The room was filled with a unique tranquil atmosphere, as if time had stopped, with only the aroma of medicine and books intertwined. These herbs and books were collected by the old man with great effort.

Liu Zhiye was pleasantly surprised to find that among the medical books and classics that his grandfather had collected for him, many were famous medical classics, including some precious ancient medical books.

These classics include "Huangdi Neijing", "Shennong Bencaojing", "Nanjing", "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases", "Treatise on Warm Diseases", "Pulse Classic", "Acupuncture and Moxibustion Jia Yi Jing", "Emergency Prescriptions for the Elbow", "Liu Juanzi's Ghost Prescriptions", "Leigong Paojiu Lun", "Compendium of Materia Medica", "Complete Prescriptions for Women", "Essentials of Surgery", etc.

These medical classics not only contain rich medical theories, but also include a large amount of clinical practice experience, and have extremely high reference value for medical research and clinical practice.

This old man really worked tirelessly. In about a year, he collected thousands of medical works, prescription books, etc. from famous doctors throughout the dynasties.

Among them, many precious books belong to out-of-print or long-lost masterpieces of famous authors, which amazed Liu Zhiye. These books are not only huge in number, but also rich in content, covering many fields such as traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, etc.

Among these precious books, there are many prescriptions that were compiled and verified by my grandfather himself, and are highly practical and safe.

Some prescriptions even combine the results of modern medical research, providing new ideas for the innovation and development of traditional Chinese medicine.

These rare books and precious prescription books are the treasures of medicine. After careful consideration, Liu Zhiye decided to re-copy and reprint these books to prevent them from being lost.

Liu Zhiye was more and more delighted as he looked at these priceless treasures. These priceless treasures made him feel a great sense of responsibility. There are countless precious medical books hidden among the people, but unfortunately many of them were not properly protected and eventually lost.

In order to pass on these precious cultural heritages, he decided to increase his collection efforts and broaden his collection channels.

He is not short of money, and it is easy for him to get money now and in the future. However, when money accumulates to a certain level, it is just a number.

It would take several lifetimes to spend all the money, not to mention that after death, it is like a light going out. Is this time travel just for money and benefits? This seems a bit too superficial.

Stephen Chow once said: What’s the difference between a person without ideals and a salted fish.

Liu Zhiye decided to do something for this country and this nation within his ability. He had no choice before, but now he has a choice.

The old man looked at Liu Zhiye with great joy. He was an old Chinese medicine practitioner and was particularly concerned about the development of Chinese medicine.

Although the old man has not left the western Beijing area for decades, he has taught several outstanding apprentices.

Among them, Liu Zhiye’s uncle and the Chinese medicine doctors in Liujiazhuang and other villages were all trained by the old man himself.

These disciples have now become Chinese medicine doctors in the communes near the western part of Beijing, curing illnesses and relieving pain for the villagers, and are deeply respected and loved by everyone.

In Liu Zhiye's generation, only his younger brother Liu Zhitai inherited the medical tradition from his grandfather, but Liu Zhiye's approach was incomparable to Liu Zhitai's. He not only passed on traditional Chinese medicine, but also promoted it.

Liu Zhiye smiled and said to the old man: "Grandpa, I want to discuss something with you!"

The old man cheerfully gestured for him to sit down and talk.

Liu Zhiye made a pot of tea for the old man and continued, "Grandpa, you know, there is a big difference between the learning methods of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Chinese medicine needs to be cultivated from a young age..."

The old man nodded in agreement. He picked up the teacup, blew it gently, and then took a sip slowly.

Liu Zhiye went on to say: “Traditional Chinese medicine requires a focus on inner cultivation and understanding, while Western medicine focuses more on learning at the technical level.

Therefore, I think if we cultivate children's interest and love for Chinese medicine from an early age, it may be more helpful for their future development."

The old man sighed deeply, with a hint of helplessness and regret in his eyes.

"However, there are still too few children willing to learn Chinese medicine, and most of them have become family traditions."

He recalled the past, when he studied Chinese medicine, it was an attractive career path. At that time, Chinese medicine had a high status in people's minds and was highly respected.

However, over time, this situation seems to have changed.

Nowadays, the status of traditional Chinese medicine has gradually declined, there are many misunderstandings about people's cognition and understanding of traditional Chinese medicine, and trust in it has also declined.

Therefore, fewer and fewer people are willing to study Chinese medicine, and children's interest and enthusiasm in Chinese medicine have also waned. The decline of Chinese medicine does have historical reasons, which are inextricably linked to traitors like Wang Jingwei.

During the Republic of China period and even before the founding of New China, our country actively opposed feudal superstition and promoted science and culture, considering it one of the main tasks at the time.

In this context, the development of Western medicine coincided with the main theme of the times. Anatomy, an important subject of Western medicine, can intuitively reveal the mysteries of the human body and provide a variety of accurate data, which makes people believe that this is science and therefore highly respected.

In contrast, although traditional Chinese medicine has accumulated rich clinical experience and theoretical systems in its thousands of years of development, it was questioned and neglected in that era because its principles and efficacy could not be explained scientifically.

A bunch of laymen, shouting slogans and holding banners, destroyed China's treasure to this extent. The ones who are wrong are the ignorant people, or the era that created the ignorance.

Especially traitors like Wang Jingwei, his treasonous behavior further exacerbated people's misunderstanding and rejection of traditional Chinese medicine.

With the strong sponsorship of foreign pharmaceutical companies, Wang Jingwei played an important role in abolishing traditional Chinese medicine on the political stage after the merger of Ning and Han.

He repeatedly stressed the need to "eliminate old abuses" and advocated "reform and change" to demonstrate his status as a "reformist leader."

In order to further demonstrate his "enlightened and democratic" political personality, gain political capital and seek political status, Wang Jingwei decided to take action against "traditional Chinese medicine".

In February 1929, Nandu held the first large-scale Central Health Committee meeting since the establishment of the National Government. This event attracted health elites from all over the country, including officials from the Ministry of Health, and representatives from provincial and municipal hospitals and medical schools, with a total number of more than 2 people. At the instruction of Wang Jingwei, the focus of this meeting was to abolish traditional Chinese medicine.

The background and atmosphere of the conference are thought-provoking. First of all, all the delegates are from Western medicine backgrounds, and their attitudes and positions towards Chinese medicine are very clear.

They tend to favor Western medicine and believe that the theories and methods of traditional Chinese medicine have many problems and need to be reformed or abolished.

Secondly, the conference also invited several foreign Western medicine pharmaceutical companies as sponsors. These pharmaceutical companies that produce Western medicine paid to sponsor the discussion on abolishing traditional Chinese medicine. The meaning is self-evident.

Wang Jingwei delivered a highly inflammatory speech at the conference, closely linking the abolition of traditional Chinese medicine with the "revolutionary cause."

He emphasized that traditional Chinese medicine was a major obstacle to China's health administration, and if traditional Chinese medicine was not abolished, the revolutionary cause could not be accomplished.

Taking Japan's Meiji Restoration as an example, Wang Jingwei pointed out that the reason why Japan became strong was entirely due to the abolition of Chinese medicine.

The reason why this damn Meiji Restoration was able to change the lives of the Japanese people was precisely because it abolished Chinese medicine.

Using this as an introduction, he called on those present to be brave in reform, dare to innovate, and make the abolition of traditional Chinese medicine an important part of China's health administration.

……

Liu Zhiye was also well aware that people of this era had great prejudices against traditional Chinese medicine, but as a later generation, he saw the opportunity for future countries to begin to vigorously develop traditional Chinese medicine.

In order to achieve this goal, they need to pay a lot, including time and energy. However, as long as they persevere and believe in the power of traditional Chinese medicine, the future will definitely get better and better.

He pondered for a moment and said, "Grandpa, we can't change the overall environment, but we can start from our own side. If there are no students, the village primary school will have primary school students. In the future, the village middle school can also cultivate talents who study traditional Chinese medicine."

"Another thing is that people's misunderstanding of Chinese medicine is only temporary. Not everyone does not believe in Chinese medicine. In fact, there are many patients who have been cured by Chinese medicine, and the number of these people is countless.

They not only have full faith in the effectiveness of TCM, but also highly recognize its treatment methods.”

"Misunderstandings are not scary. What is really scary is that some mediocre doctors in traditional Chinese medicine do not understand medical principles, but they fill in the gaps and harm people's lives. This is the scariest thing."

"They are the culprits who destroyed the foundation of traditional Chinese medicine."

"In order to cultivate true TCM talents, we must start to focus on systematic training from an early age. The past teaching method of master-apprentice relationship is no longer appropriate;

Now we need to cultivate interests and hobbies from primary school students just like learning cultural subjects, and select through layers of screening until we reach professional Chinese medicine schools, so that we can select and train true Chinese medicine talents.

Only in this way can the culture of traditional Chinese medicine be inherited and carried forward.”

(End of this chapter)