Full Description
The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518-1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This third book in a three-volume series offers detailed biographical data on all identifiable authors, patients, witnesses of therapies, transmitters of recipes, and further persons mentioned in the Ben cao gang mu and provides bibliographical data on all textual sources resorted to and quoted by Li Shizhen and his collaborators.
Contents
Acknowledgments
I. Introduction
1. The Ben cao gang mu Project
2. The Two Conflicting Origins of Chinese Medicine and Pharmaceutics
3. Chinese Materia Medica Literature
4. The Sources Cited4.1. Materia Medica and Medical Texts4.3 Sources Beyond Materia Medica and Medical Literature5. The Dictionary Entries5.1. Bibliographical Entries:5.2. Biographical Entries:
II. Persons and Literary Sources
III. Appendices
Appendix A
Chinese Dynasties
Appendix B
Index of Substance Entry (SE) in Alphabetical Order
Appendix C
List of Entries of Names of Persons
Appendix D
List of Entries of Literary Sources
