Medical learning and a career in Qizhou
Li was born at Qizhou in Hubei. His father, Li Yanwen, practiced medicine and wrote medical works. This household provided access to books and clinical learning. In the preface to his own pulse treatise, Li described his father's work on the four methods of examination and explained that he selected material to make study more manageable.
The later History of the Ming records service in the household administration of the Prince of Chu and emphasizes Li's extensive reading and compilation. His work joined medical practice, editing and authorship. Identifying medicinal substances, distinguishing pulses and examining medical theory involved related but distinct literary projects.
Comparing and reorganizing materia medica
The Ming history explains the Bencao Gangmu through problems of naming and classification: accumulated additions had divided one substance under several names or confused different materials. Li compared earlier writings, removed repetition and revised the manuscript. The biography reports consultation of more than 800 authors and three drafts.
Its 52 volumes were organized into 16 divisions. Entries began with a principal name and proceeded through alternative names, identification, properties, uses and prescriptions. The arrangement gave sources and practical categories recognizable places. After Li's death, his son Li Jianyuan presented the work and a memorial to the court, extending the family's involvement from composition into circulation.
References: [2]
Pulse verses and the extraordinary channels
In the 1564 preface to Binhu Maixue, Li criticized confusion in popular pulse verses and argued that taking the pulse should accompany other forms of examination. Sections compare pulse characteristics, similar categories and associated conditions, using verse to aid memory and placing earlier texts beside his own distinctions.
The introduction to Qijing Bamai Kao distinguishes the twelve regular channels from eight extraordinary ones and explains the need to collect accounts dispersed across books. Images of canals and lakes help express its traditional theory. These works preserve Ming categories, citation practices and methods of teaching; their theoretical and therapeutic statements belong to that historical medical context.