Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume IV - (Ben Cao Gang Mu: 16th Century Chinese Encyclopedia of Materia Medica and Natural History) by Li Shizhen (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Volume IV in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 15 through 17, devoted to marshland herbs and poisonous herbs.

The Ben cao gang mu is a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia of medical matter and natural history by Li Shizhen (1518-1593). The culmination of a sixteen-hundred-year history of Chinese medical and pharmaceutical literature, it is considered the most important and comprehensive book ever written in the history of Chinese medicine and remains an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners. This nine-volume series reveals an almost two-millennia-long panorama of wide-ranging observations and sophisticated interpretations, ingenious manipulations, and practical applications of natural substances for the benefit of human health. Paul U. Unschuld's annotated translation of the Ben cao gang mu, presented here with the original Chinese text, opens a rare window into viewing the people and culture of China's past.

From the Back Cover

"The contribution of this work is immense: a complete translation of one of the landmark scientific/medical works in Chinese history. The Ben cao gang mu, historically, has been the most comprehensive materia medica, with 1,892 medical substances. But because of the various regions of mainland China explored by Li Shizhen, Ming dynasty-era social mores, language, the multiple cultures of China, and different usages of medicinals throughout China, it has been difficult at best to translate this work into European languages, including English. Previous attempts have led to inferior works. The Ben cao gang mu also quotes many preceding works of materia medica, some no longer available, and folk knowledge of remedies, so few herbal medicine texts can compete with this one. It is an invaluable resource, indeed, for the clinician and the scholar and in university libraries. It is academic, precise, readable, and well sourced."--Z'ev Rosenberg, author of Returning to the Source: Han Dynasty Medical Classics in Modern Clinical Practice

About the Author

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director at the Institute for Chinese Life Sciences, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.