Ben cao gang mu Volume IX

Ben cao gang mu, here the volume 9, offers a complete translation of chapters 47 through 52, devoted to fowls, domestic and wild animals, and human substances.
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.

Table of Contents

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 47 – 52

Fowl I. Water Fowl, Chapter 47
Fowl II. Land Fowl. Chapter 48
Fowl III. Forest fowl. Chapter 49
Fowl IV. Mountain Fowl Group 11

Four Legged Animals I. Domestic Animals. Chapter 50
Four Legged Animals II. Section Wild Animals. Chapter 51
Four Legged Animals III. Section Wild Animals
Four Legged Animals IV. Section Residential and Strange [Animals]

Human [Substances] I, Chapter 51

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 47 – 52 in passing. By Ulrike Unschuld.

Reviews
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. Zev Rosenberg, author of Returning to the Source: Han Dynasty Medical Classics in Modern Clinical Practice.

Ben cao gang mu: 16th Century Chinese Encyclopedia of Materia Medica and Natural History