Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica)
Written by Li Shizhen (1518-1593) of the Ming Dynasty . The work, completed in 1578, includes 52 volumes with 1.92 million characters. It contains 1,892 kinds of drugs, including some 300 to 400 discovered by the author himself, classified in a systematic way. For each drug the author first determines its name, and gives its place of origin, image, and method of cultivation or collection. He then verifies real varieties from fake ones, and corrects some mistakes in previous medicinal classics.
He also discusses the processing, properties and functions of the drugs. The author collects over 11,000 formulas and prescriptions, including those by ancient physicians and other proven ones used by ordinary people from generation to generation. He also makes 1,100 illustrations of the drugs. The work summarized the achievements in Chinese material medical and botany before the 16th century. It was first published in 1596, and translated into Japanese in 1607. Besides Chinese, there are now English, French, German, Japanese and Russian editions of the great work, which was praised by British scientist Charles Robert Darwin as an encyclopedia of Chinese material medical. |
