Born to an affluent family in Changshu,[2] Miao did not sit for any imperial examinations and purportedly began learning medicine on his own from the age of seventeen.
However, after many of his academic friends were persecuted or purged by court eunuch Wei Zhongxian, due to a dispute over governmental policy,[7] Miao retreated to his hometown.
His treatise on the Shennong bencao jing, titled Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng Shū (神农本草经疏) or Exegesis of the Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica, was published in 1625, with the assistance of a distant relative named Mao Fengbao (1599–1659).
Among the prescriptions discussed in the Xianxingzhai biji (先醒斋笔记) or Notes from the Studio of Early Enlightenment is a decoction containing a virgin boy's urine mixed with various herbs that Miao had used to treat Ding himself in 1615, when he suffered a minor stroke.
[13] According to his contemporary Qian Qianyi:[13] He thinks deeply and observes attentively, as if deep in Chan meditation; now he closes his eyes and falls into hypnosis, and in the next moment he rises with full force, lifting his beard and rolling up sleeves, and proceeds to write a prescription and put together some medicines.