Compendium of Materia Medica

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Siku quanshu Bencao Gangmu.jpg
The Siku Quanshu edition of the Compendium of Materia Medica
Traditional Chinese
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Simplified Chinese
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Literal meaning Principles and Species of Roots and Herbs
[show]Transcriptions
Compendium of Materia Medica is a pharmaceutical text written by Li Shizhen (151
8-1593 AD) during the Ming Dynasty of China. This edition was published in 1593.
Illustration from a copy of Compendium of Materia Medica, from 1800
The Compendium of Materia Medica, also known by the romanizations Bencao Gangmu
or Pen-tsao Kang-mu, is a Chinese materia medica work written by Li Shizhen duri
ng the Ming Dynasty. It is a work epitomizing the materia medica known at the ti
me. The Compendium of Materia Medica is regarded as the most complete and compre
hensive medical book ever written in the history of traditional Chinese medicine
. It lists all the plants, animals, minerals, and other items that were believed
to have medicinal properties.
The text consists of 1,892 entries, each entry with its own name called a gang.
The mu in the title refers to the synonyms of each name.[1]
Contents [hide]
1
Name
2
History
3
Content
4
Value
5
Errors
6
Popular culture
7
See also
8
References
9
External links
Name[edit]
The title, which Unschuld[2] translates as "Materia Medica, Arranged according t
o Drug Descriptions and Technical Aspects", uses two Chinese compounds. Bencao (
Pen-tsao; "roots and herbs; based on herbs, pharmacopeia, materia medica") combi
nes ben (pen; ? "root; origin; basis") and cao (tsao; ? "grass; plant; herb"). G
angmu (Kang-mu; "detailed outline; table of contents") combines gang (kang; ? "m
ain rope, hawser; main threads, essential principles") and mu (? "eye; look; cat
egory, division").
The characters ? and ? were later used as "class" and "order", respectively, in
biological classification.
History[edit]
Li Shizhen completed the first draft of the text in 1578, after conducting readi
ngs of 800 other medical reference books and carrying out 30 years of field stud
y. For this and many other achievements, Li Shizhen is compared to Shennong, a g
od in Chinese mythology who gave instruction on agriculture and herbal medicine.
Content[edit]
The Compendium of Materia Medica has 53 volumes in total:
At the very beginning is the table of contents, containing a list of entries inc
luded and 1,160 hand drawn diagrams to serve as illustrations.
Volume 1 to 4
an 'index' (??) and a comprehensive list of herbs that would treat
the most common sickness (?????).
Volume 5 to 53 the main content of the text, containing 1,892 distinct herbs, of

which 374 were added by Li himself. There are 11,096 side prescriptions to trea
t common illness (8,160 of which is compiled or collected by Li).
The text is written in almost 2 million Chinese characters, classified into 16 d
ivisions and 60 orders. For every herb there are entries on their names, a detai
led description of their appearance and odor, nature, medical function, effects
and side recipes etc.
Value[edit]
With the publication of Compendium of Materia Medica, not only did it improve th
e classification of how traditional medicine was compiled and formatted, but it
was also an important medium in improving the credibility and scientific values
of biology classification of both plants and animals.
The compendium corrected many mistakes and misapprehensions of the nature of her
bs and diseases. Li also included many new herbs, adding his own discoveries of
particular drugs and their efficacity and function, as well as more detailed des
criptions of the results of experiments. It also has notes and records on genera
l medical data and medical history.
Compendium of Materia Medica is also more than a mere pharmaceutical text, for i
t includes a vast amount of information on topics as wide ranging as biology, ch
emistry, geography, mineralogy, geology, history, and even mining and astronomy,
which might appear to have little connection with herbal medicine. It has been
translated into more than 20 languages and spread all over the world. Even now i
t is still in print and used as a reference book.
Errors[edit]
Compendium of Materia Medica also contains information that has since been prove
n to be erroneous due to the contemporary limited scientific and technical knowl
edge. For example, it is claimed that lead is not toxic. It is also claimed that
otters are "always male", and that the Moupin langur is ten feet tall, has back
wards feet and can be caught when it draws its upper lip over its eyes.[3]
Popular culture[edit]
"Compendium of Materia Medica" is the title of a song performed by the Taiwanese
singer Jay Chou in his album Still Fantasy. The lyrics discuss Chinese pride an
d make references to aspects of Chinese herbal medicine.
See also[edit]
Pharmacognosy
Chinese herbology
Yaoxing Lun
Traditional Chinese medicine
Li Shizhen
Mellified Man
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Zohara Yaniv; Uriel Bachrach (2005). Handbook Of Medicinal Plants. Psy
chology Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-56022-995-7.
Jump up ^ Unschuld (1986), 145.
Jump up ^ Roach, Mary (2009). Bonk : the curious coupling of science and sex. Ne
w York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 164, 165f. ISBN 9780393334791.
Luo Xiwen, tr. Bencao Gangmu: Compendium of Materia Medica. 6 vols. Foreign Lang
uages Press. 2003. ISBN 7-119-03260-7. (Review, Edward B. Jelks)
Unschuld, Paul U. Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics. University of C
alifornia Press. 1986. ISBN 0-520-05025-8
External links[edit]
Chinese source text at zh.wikisource.org (see also an automated translation)
Bencao gangmu ????, ChinaKnowledge article
Bencao Gangmu Materia Medica, ChinaPage article
Li Shizhen: Icon of Chinese medicine, Association for Asian Research article

Pen ts'ao kang mu (The Great Herbal), page from 1672 edition, National Library o
f Medicine
[show] v t e
History of medicine in China
Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article:
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Categories: Ming dynasty literatureChinese encyclopediasChinese medical textsPha
rmacological classification systems1578 booksMemory of the World Register
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