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University of California Press

Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume VIII

Clothes, Utensils, Worms, Insects, Amphibians, Animals with Scales, Animals with Shells

by Li Shizhen (Author), Paul U. Unschuld (Translator)
Price: $190.00 / £159.00
Publication Date: Feb 2021
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 968
ISBN: 9780520976986
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Series:

About the Book

Volume VIII in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 38 through 46, devoted to clothes, utensils, worms, insects, amphibians, animals with scales, and animals with shells.

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 38 - 46

Section Clothes and Utensils. Chapter 38
Group: Clothes and Silk
Group: Utensils and Further Items

Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 39
Worms/Bugs I.Born from Eggs Group, First

Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 40 
Worms/Bugs II. Born from Eggs. Final Group

Section Worms/Bugs. Chapter 41 
Worms/Bugs III. Born from Transformation Group.

Section Bugs Worms/Bugs. Chapter 42
Worms/Bugs IV. Born from Moisture Group.

Section [Animals with] Scales. Chapter 43.
[Animals with] Scales I. Dragon Group. 
[Animals with] Scales II. Snake Group.

Section [Animals with] Scales. Chapter 44 
[Animals with] Scales III.
[Animals with] Scales IV. Fish without Scales.

Section [Animals with] Shells. Chapter 45 
Shells I. Tortoises and Tortoises Group.

Section [Animals with] Shells. Chapter 46 
Shells II. Clams Group.

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 38 – 46 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