我记得二十年前，我校的彭坚教授讲过一句话，他说：“我们湖南中医应该研究熊继柏现象。”确实是学徒出身，我倒不在乎什么研究我的现象，也没有谁研究过我的现象。我一直在考虑的是中医的教育问题。我不讲规律，我就讲讲我是怎么读书的。

苦抄与背诵：打好中医基础

《医学》这本书，虽然有着师傅的指导，但是打好基础主要还是要靠自己的努力。我用的方法是苦抄与背诵。第一本书——《雷公炮炙四大药性赋》，我四个早上把它背完，一早晨背一个药性，寒、热、温、平，就四个早上背完了。白天我就玩，没有事干。

背完了接着就是《药性歌括四百味》，当时背了，但现在我不一定还记得。四大药性赋我还能背，要我写我还能写下来。《药性歌括四百味》我就写不下来了，这就是第二本书。

第三本书——《医学三字经》。要说明的是，我读的书都是抄来的，不是原版的。第一，没有书买；第二，买不起。都是抄师傅的，抄了有错别字，师傅给你改正，再教一遍，让你去读，就这样的。

第四本书是《脉诀》，包括《王叔和脉诀》和《濒湖脉诀》两本脉诀，这就是我们现在讲的诊断学。这是第四本书。

第五本书是《医宗金鉴•四诊心法要诀》，讲的是诊断学。

归纳起来，当初苦抄和背诵下的中医基础分为中药学、三字经、诊断学三类。

师傅领进门：学习方剂与内科学

打下这三类书的基础后，我开始学方剂。首先是《局方》、《汤头歌诀》、《时方歌括》，这两本方剂歌括全能背，比如藿香正气汤。这两 本方剂book I all can recite.

Read the prescription after reading the internal medicine. The first book is Chen Xiuyuan's "Time-Forged Marvels". "Middle Wind... wind, refers to external invading evil winds." This is how I started to learn internal medicine.

After learning internal medicine, my teacher started teaching me in a jumping style. This was my first teacher, Hu Daiqian, who was a Qing dynasty scholar with excellent classical Chinese skills. He said that I could read books but couldn't read them with others; he wanted me to have a private lesson because we were in the same class. He let me study "Shang Han Lun" by reading "New Annotations on Shang Han Lun". First, I read the original text; his standard was for me to memorize it.

I memorized it while studying it at the same time and asked questions like: Is pork skin just any pig skin? My teacher replied: It's just pig skin! So why did you ask such a question? My teacher felt strange.

And so on with these questions which are still remembered now as they were during my studies of these classics books which are difficult to understand but had been learned through hard work and dedication.

The process of learning continues until 1958 when China launched its Great Leap Forward movement and I became a doctor immediately after completing my studies in traditional Chinese medicine.