Full Description
Volume VIII in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 38 through 46, devoted to clothes, utensils, worms, insects, amphibians, animals with scales, and animals with shells.
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 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.
Contents
1. Prolegomena
1.1 History of Chinese materia medica literature
1.2 Structure and contents of the Ben cao gang mu
1.3 Biographical sketch of Li Shizhen (1518 - 1593)
2. Notes on the Translation
3. Wang Shizhen's preface of 1590
4. Translation of the Ben cao gang mu. Chapters 38 - 46
Section Clothes and Utensils. Chapter 38
Group: Clothes and Silk
Group: Utensils and Further Items
Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 39
Worms/Bugs I.Born from Eggs Group, First
Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 40
Worms/Bugs II. Born from Eggs. Final Group
Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 41
Worms/Bugs III. Born from Transformation Group.
Section Bugs Worms/Bugs. Chapter 42
Worms/Bugs IV. Born from Moisture Group.
Section [Animals with] Scales. Chapter 43.
[Animals with] Scales I. Dragon Group.
[Animals with] Scales II. Snake Group.
Section [Animals with] Scales. Chapter 44
[Animals with] Scales III.
[Animals with] Scales IV. Fish without Scales.
Section [Animals with] Shells. Chapter 45
Shells I. Tortoises and Tortoises Group.
Section [Animals with] Shells. Chapter 46
Shells II. Clams Group.
Appendix
5. Weights and measures.
5.1 Measures of capacity.
5.2 Measures of weight.
5.3 Measures of length.
5.4 Measures of the size of pills.
6. Appendix Pharmaceutical Substances of Plant Origin mentioned in BCGM ch 38 - 46 in passing. By Ulrike Unschuld.
