Main description:

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.

Contents:

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 15 - 17

Herbs IV, Marshland Herbs, Chapter 15
Herbs V, Marshland Herbs, Chapter 16
Herbs VI, Poisonous Herbs, Chapter 17

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. Lists of Substances
6.1 Identification of pharmaceutical substances of plant origin mentioned
in BCGM ch. 15 - 17
6.2 Substances discussed in chapters 15 - 17
6.3 Currently accepted scientific identification of substances discussed in
BCGM ch. 15 - 17