Ji Desheng
Ji Desheng, Ji Desheng, or Ji De Sheng (Chinese: 季德胜) (October 6, 1898 – October 18, 1981) is a Chinese herbalist from Nantong, Jiangsu, China, specializing in snakebite medicine and treatment.
Early Years
Ji Desheng was born as an only child in Suqian County, Jiangsu, China on the outskirts of a dilapidated temple. His father, Ji Ming Yang, made a living by selling traditional Chinese herbal remedy. Equipped with a unique skill but without any possessions, the family lived a life of extreme poverty and hardship. Young Ji Desheng constantly wandered with his parents during his infancy.
When Ji Desheng was 6 years old, his mother passed away. He followed his father from morning to night; together they hiked hills to collect wild herbs, catch snakes, scorpions, centipedes and other insects to prepare for snakebite medicine. When Ji Desheng turned 18 years old, Suqian County was hit by a drought so severe that the land cracked and plague was epidemic. Ji Desheng fled the area with his father, relocating to Nanjing and the father-son duo continued to make a living by selling snakebite medicine. Ji Desheng continued to learn from his father's skills of catching snakes, treating snakebites with the snakebite medicine they made. Ji Desheng's knowledge of snakebite medicine grew with age and became his father's indispensable assistant.
Nomadic Life
During the winter of 1923, Ji Desheng relocated with his father to the town of Chahe at Rudong County. His father passed away the following year. The 25-year-old Ji Desheng was determined to follow his father's footstep and continue to produce the snakebite medicine which recipe he inherited. When passed into the hands of Ji Desheng, the snakebite medicine recipe is in its sixth generation. A forefather of the Ji family served as a snake medicine herbalist in the Qing court and developed the medicine during the 59th year of Emperor Qianlong era (i.e. 1795 AD). Ji Desheng had heard from his father that every generation has made positive development on the recipe.
In order to make improvements himself, Ji Desheng tasted dozens of herbal ingredients commonly used for detoxification and pain reducing include Ban Bian Lian and Huang Kai Kou. Because some of the ingredients are toxic, he suffered from poisoning repeatedly. When poisoned, Ji Desheng immediately took the antidotes taught by his father. With his intuition, experience, and repeated trials ingredient tasting, he was able to determine the effectiveness of the performance of each herbal. He also courageously let snakes bite his shoulders, arms, and toes; when poisoned, he applied different medicines to different types of wounds. Ji Desheng only applied the medicine onto his patients after testing out the medicine himself. After spending nearly 10 years of hard work, he was finally able to achieve his long-cherished wish of producing a standardized product. The end product was produced with a crushing a variety of ingredients into powder then adding liquid to reconcile and produce a cake-shaped tablet with 2.5 cm in diameter and 0.5 cm in thickness. The medicine also came in the shapes of pills. Each piece of the medicinal cake and pills were printed in a red Chinese character of "Ji" bearing the family name.
During the spring of 1942, Ji Desheng moved to Suzhou and successfully treated many snakebite patients. During the fall of the same year, a businessman attempted to befriend Ji Desheng by providing him money, gifts, and requesting Ji Desheng to be his mentor. Ji Desheng knew that the businessman wanted to steal his snakebite medicine recipe. Using the excuse of “need to gather fresh herbs from the wilderness and hills,” Ji Desheng left the city of Suzhou. Even during a time of dire poverty Ji Desheng was never motivated by quick financial gains.
In 1948 Ji Desheng moved to Nantong and continued to make a living as a street medicine vendor. At this time he has made improvement to the family snakebite medicine. By this time, Ji Desheng was able to identify the type and gender snakes that bit his patients, only from the shape and depth of the snakebite marks. He determined that venom of winter snakes have relatively low potency, venom of snakes that just came out of theirs holes have high potency, venom of snakes during the season of spring have higher potency, and venom of pregnant snakes have the highest potency. By utilizing his theory, he was able to apply the right amount and type of medicine to cure his patients. At this time, the name of Ji Desheng and his medicine began to spread.
Under the People's Republic of China
Viper snakes are the most common type of snake in China as they are widely distributed and have the highest number of victims. Ji Desheng explained the viper's high level of general patterns of life. He described that "during the spring the vipers began their activities; during the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox the vipers are productive and very venomous; during the morning and evening because the insects fly lower.” He also explained that vipers are also very active before abrupt climate changes such as thunderstorms. Ji Desheng discovered that snakes are typically more active during the spring and autumn. They are active in the dark, damp areas, caves, bushes, tree holes, shrubs, and flooded areas. Ji Desheng recognized that snakes with flat triangular head, thinner neck, bright skin color, tail short and thick tail can be the most dangerous snakes. These snakes leave the bitten area with clear fang marks and cause quick edema, as the toxin spreads quickly and threatens lives.
With experience, Ji Desheng was able to go anywhere and determine snakes’ presence without seeing them. At the same time he is also able to tell people the type of the snakes with his own special sense of smell, sharp vision, and experience. When people do not believe him, he is able to lure the snakes out of its hole by putting frog skin on his hand and whistling. He is able to lure out the female snakes by making a unique squeaky sound.
In 1955, Nantong City Health Bureau implemented the policy of to centralize and improve traditional Chinese medicine. The Nantong Municipal Health Bureau visited Ji Desheng several times in order to learn more about this magical snakebite medicine. One time, the official observed a snakebite patient from Li Gang village of Tong Zhou County, a Nantong port town. The patient swelled from the toes to the knee sat in a wheel chair while waiting for treatment. After using the snakebite cake, topical powder, and acupuncture treatment, he quickly eliminated the swelling. The patient was able to return home during the same evening. In an event that further impressed the Health Bureau officials, Ji Desheng took a toxic viper from the cage and had the snake bite his left hand. His hand quickly turned red and began to swell. Ji Desheng soaked the snakebite cake in water and applied it to the wounded area. The medicine quickly impeded the spread of the venom.
Impressed, in 1956, Nantong Municipal Health Bureau invited him to join the Nantong Ji Desheng Hospital, as an out-patient specialist treating snakebites. This is a major turning point of Ji Desheng’s nomadic life. The original Ji Desheng snakebite medicine was effective but lacked scientific testing. For instance, the original snakebite medicinal cake was easy to rot and degenerate. Also, the original dose was a black particle with a foul smell that can also cause coloring of the teeth. For these reasons, the hospital set up a snakebite research group to improve the snakebite medicine. Together with the research group, Ji Desheng made adjustments to eliminate the earlier drawbacks. Respecting Ji Desheng’s contributions, the improved product was officially named Ji Desheng Snake Tablets. By 1958, Ji Desheng has treated over 100 patients and with no single case of death, attracted the attention of the pharmaceutical industry outside Nantong. The Ministry of Science and Technology, with affirmation from the Ministry of Health, published the “Research of Ji Desheng Snake Medicine” as a major scientific and technological achievements. In August, officials invited Ji Desheng to Beijing to meet the Party and State leaders and there he met premier Zhou En-Lai. Chinese Academy of Sciences subsequently appointed him as Research Fellow and the Ministry of Health awarded him the "vanguard of medical and health technology revolution," a title of high honor.
On August 28, 1960 the China Ministry of Health, requested Ji Desheng go to Wuhan to treat a PLA officer. At the age of 63 and hospitalized for pleurisy, Ji Desheng accepted the request and left for Wuhan immediately. After nine hours of travel on water, land, and air, Ji Desheng arrived at 11:30pm. He immediately went to his patient regardless of his illness and fatigue. The patient had 2 bite marks on his left foot and was suffering from limb swelling, genital swelling and was at a semi-conscious state with life at stake. Judging from the bite marks and symptoms, Ji Desheng determined that the officer was bitten by a powerful viper and had only a few more hours to live. He acted decisively to provide acupuncture to “Ba Feng” pressure point, apply topical snake medicine to the ankle and knee, and had the patient intake snakebite tablets. The patient woke up from his coma after one hour. After three days the swelling subsided and he could walk slowly. After 8 days of treatment and care he saved the man’s life. Throughout his life he saved countless number of patients like this inidividual.
Later Life and Legacy
From 1956 and 1972, Ji Desheng, as the snakebite specialist at Nantong Hospital, treated over 600 patients with the complete cure rate of 99.57%. The Jiangsu Province Snakebite Research Group conducted in the 1990s that since 1973, on the basis of prescription, Ji Desheng Snake Medicine successfully treated 99.32% of the 1700 received cased.
Ji Desheng continued to personally gather ingredients of his snakebite medicine in the country, woods and hills. He led the research efforts to find cures for cataracts and cancer. Before he could reach his dream of successfully applying this magical recipe to these diseases, he passed away unexpectedly on October 18, 1981 at the age of 83 to brain hemorrhage.
Ji Desheng’s eldest son, Ji Rongsheng applied modern technologies and developed a topical product using the ingredients passed down from Ji Desheng and ancestors.