A Catalog of Benevolent Items : Li Shizhen's Compendium of Classical Chinese Knowledge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shizhen, Li.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Li, Shizhen, 1518-1593. Ben cao gang mu.

Li, Shizhen.

Materia medica--China--Early works to 1800.

Materia medica.

Medicine, Chinese--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800.

Medicine, Chinese.

Natural history--China--Pre-Linnean works.

Natural history.

Genre:

Formularies (Medicine)

Early works to 1800

Pre-Linnean works

Early works

Physical Description:

1 online resource (378 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2024.

Summary:

Distills ten volumes, four dictionaries, and 1,800 years of knowledge into an authoritative introduction to the Ben cao gang mu. The Ben cao gang mu was the world's most comprehensive encyclopedia of natural history and medicine when it was published in China in 1593. In fifty-two chapters, the physician Li Shizhen recorded two millennia of medical observations, interpreting the wide-ranging uses of plants, animals, minerals, and artificial substances and including countless verbatim quotations along with his own evaluations. Edited and translated by Paul U. Unschuld, A Catalog of Benevolent Items provides thoughtfully curated selections from the Ben cao gang mu, organized by theme. This anthology offers little-known details of China's historical knowledge of nature; traditional Chinese medicine and its theoretical foundations; social and cultural facets of ancient Chinese civilization not documented elsewhere; and the information management of a sixteenth-century Chinese scholar.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Series Editor

Contents

Preface

Prolegomena

Historical background

Biographical sketch of Li Shizhen (1518 - 1593)

Structure and contents of the Ben cao gang mu

Notes on the translation

1. Division of items: 16 sections

2. Widespread culture, local customs, personal interventions

3. Visions of associations: From magic correlations observed in equal appearances and functions to systematized correspondences of the yin and yang and Five Phases doctrines

4. Cosmic structures: Numbers, time, and cardinal directions

5. Demons and spirits, shamans and exorcism

6. Involvement of Buddhists and Daoists

7. The human body: Its organs and paths of entrance

8. Standing up to nature: Cosmetics, body enhancement, anti-aging

9. Social and natural conditioning: Gender and sex

10. The significance of reproduction: Fertility and pregnancy, abortion and birth

11. Case records: Assessment and justification of therapeutic strategies

12. Neglected heritage: Tool-supported therapy

13. Sources of therapeutic expertise: Beggar and sovereign, chance encounters and dreams

14. Dealing with poison

15. Raw materials found in nature and objects produced from them

16. Explanation of names

17. "Further research is required": Controversy and judgment

18. Sample text and plant monograph: Chai hu, sickle-leaved hare's ear

Appendix

Dynasties

Approximate times of persons and texts mentioned in the anthology

Glossary.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780520404250

0520404254

OCLC:

1450096595