[The historical condition in the spread of Sanqi (Panax notoginseng) in the Ming Dynasty].

A well-known and extensively applied Chinese herbs for promoting blood circulation and resolving blood stasis, San qi (Pana Notoginseng) is one of the medicinal plants first applied by the minority ethnic groups in southwestern China originally grown in Wenshan of Yunnan and Baise of Guangxi, China. The doctors in inland China began to know and apply it in the Ming Dynasty, indicating that the spread of medicine is restricted and influenced not only by geographical positions but also by social environments. The author suggests that it was the appropriate social environment, medical improvement inherited from previous generations and Li Shizhen's contributions that led to the spread of Sanqi (Panax notoginseng) in the Ming Dynasty.