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University of California Press

Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume II

Waters, Fires, Soils, Metals, Jades, Stones, Minerals, Salts
by Li Shizhen (Author), Paul U. Unschuld (Translator)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $190.00 / £159.00
Publication Date: Feb 2021
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 906
ISBN: 9780520976979
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Series:
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About the Book

Volume II in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 5 through 11, devoted to waters, fires, soils, metals, jades, stones, minerals, and salts.

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.

About the Author

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director at the Institute for Chinese Life Sciences, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Table of 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 5 - 11. 

Section Waters. Chapter 5
Group I: Waters of Heaven 
Group II: Waters of the Earth

Section Fires. Chapter 6

Section Soils. Chapter 7

Section Metals and Stones. Chapter 8
Group I: Metals
Group II: Jades

Section Stones. Chapter 9 
Group III: Stones

Chapter 10: Section of Stones 
Group IV: Stones

Section Stones. Chapter 11 
Group V: Salt Stones/Minerals

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 5 – 11 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."––Z'ev Rosenberg, author of Returning to the Source: Han Dynasty Medical Classics in Modern Clinical Practice