A Catalog of Benevolent Items

Li Shizhen's Compendium of Classical Chinese Knowledge
1. Auflage, Selected Entries from the Ben Cao Gang Mu Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-520-40424-3
Verlag: University of California

Buch, Englisch, 410 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 632 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shizhen, Li

Weitere Mitwirkende

Unschuld, Paul U.

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizin, Gesundheit: Sachbuch, Ratgeber
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Komplementäre Medizin, Asiatische Medizin (TCM), Heilpraktiker Akupunktur
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizinische Mathematik & Informatik
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatur: Sammlungen, Anthologien
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director of the Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences at Charité – Medical University, Berlin. His previous books include Medicine in China: A History of Ideas and What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Health Care.