Chapter 27 Section 3 Wang Qingren and "Correcting Mistakes in the Medical Forest"

Our country originally had a good start in the study of human anatomy, but unfortunately it did not develop well, as mentioned above.In the Song Dynasty, enthusiasm for anatomical research was once again revived, but unfortunately it did not develop well.On the contrary, later, human dissection was absolutely forbidden.However, in the Qing Dynasty, Wang Qingren, a famous doctor in Beijing, deeply felt the importance of human anatomy research in medical practice. Viscera, why is a blind man walking at night." These views of his are undoubtedly correct. In order to understand the internal organs of the human body, Wang Qingren was determined to conduct an autopsy to observe the real situation of the internal organs.Of course, at that time, it was impossible for him to put a corpse in the dissection room for systematic research.So he had to go to the Yizhong cemetery to find corpse specimens.In 1792 AD, Wang Qingren was practicing medicine in Daodi Town, Luan County, Hebei Province, where infectious diseases of children were prevalent and the mortality rate was extremely high.Poor families usually wrap their children's corpses in straw mats and bury them shallowly on graves.Wang Qingren went to the Yizhong every morning to observe the corpses exposed by the dog food. For 10 consecutive days, he observed more than 30 corpses.Later, he went to the execution ground several times to observe and conduct investigations.

Through actual observation, Wang Qingren found that there were many discrepancies between the viscera pictures drawn in ancient books and the reality.Based on his actual observation, he drew 25 pictures, and included them together with the wrong pictures drawn by the ancients in the book "Correcting Mistakes in the Medical Forest" for comparison.Wang Qingren's research indeed has many new insights.For example, regarding the diaphragm, Wang Qingren has paid attention to it for 40 years.Finally, he pointed out that the diaphragm is the boundary between the chest and the abdomen. Above the diaphragm, there are only two organs, the heart and the lungs, and the rest of the internal organs are below the diaphragm.He said: "The subthoracic diaphragm is as thin as paper and the most solid." These conclusions are correct.Regarding the lungs, doctors in the past believed that the lungs had six lobes, two ears, and 24 holes; while Wang Qingren’s description is: the lung duct is “divided into two branches, entering the two lobes of the lung, each branch is divided into nine middle branches, and each middle branch is divided into nine small branches.” Each small branch has several small branches, and there is no hole at the end of the branch, and its shape is like Eucheuma." He described the relationship between the trachea, bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli very accurately and vividly.Limited by the conditions at the time, Wang Qingren did not understand the blood circulation system composed of the heart and blood vessels and the function of blood circulation, but he roughly found out the distribution of the main arteries and veins, and the parts where they connect with the heart.Wang Qingren also observed the optic nerve, and described it in connection with vision. He said that the root connected to the eyes is like a string, which originates in the brain.The eyes see things belong to the brain tube.Although Wang Qingren's anatomical observations are still rough and incomplete, they are a step forward compared to previous ones.