Full Description
Distills ten volumes, four dictionaries, and 1,800 years of knowledge into an authoritative introduction to the Ben cao gang mu.
The Ben cao gang mu was the world's most comprehensive encyclopedia of natural history and medicine when it was published in China in 1593. In fifty-two chapters, the physician Li Shizhen recorded two millennia of medical observations, interpreting the wide-ranging uses of plants, animals, minerals, and artificial substances and including countless verbatim quotations along with his own evaluations.
Edited and translated by Paul U. Unschuld, A Catalog of Benevolent Items provides thoughtfully curated selections from the Ben cao gang mu, organized by theme. This anthology offers little-known details of China's historical knowledge of nature; traditional Chinese medicine and its theoretical foundations; social and cultural facets of ancient Chinese civilization not documented elsewhere; and the information management of a sixteenth-century Chinese scholar.
Contents
Contents
Preface
Prolegomena
Historical background
Biographical sketch of Li Shizhen (1518 - 1593)
Structure and contents of the Ben cao gang mu
Notes on the translation
1. Division of items: 16 sections
2. Widespread culture, local customs, personal interventions
3. Visions of associations: From magic correlations observed in equal appearances and
functions to systematized correspondences of the yin and yang and Five Phases doctrines
4. Cosmic structures: Numbers, time, and cardinal directions
5. Demons and spirits, shamans and exorcism
6. Involvement of Buddhists and Daoists
7. The human body: Its organs and paths of entrance
8. Standing up to nature: Cosmetics, body enhancement, anti-aging
9. Social and natural conditioning: Gender and sex
10. The significance of reproduction: Fertility and pregnancy, abortion and birth
11. Case records: Assessment and justification of therapeutic strategies
12. Neglected heritage: Tool-supported therapy
13. Sources of therapeutic expertise: Beggar and sovereign, chance encounters and dreams
14. Dealing with poison
15. Raw materials found in nature and objects produced from them
16. Explanation of names
17. "Further research is required": Controversy and judgment
18. Sample text and plant monograph: Chai hu, sickle-leaved hare's ear
Appendix
Dynasties
Approximate times of persons and
texts mentioned in the anthology
Glossary
