Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu Volume 1: Chinese Historical Illness Terminology

Description

Edited by Paul U. Unschuld & Zhang Zhibin
Hardcover book
ISBN 9780520283954
768 pages, 7.00 x 10.00″

The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518-1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition on Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This first book in a three-volume series analyses the meaning of 4,500 historical illness terms.

About the Editors:

Zhang Zhibin is Professor at the Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director of the Horst-Goertz Endowment Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences at Charite-Medical University Berlin. His previous books include What is Medicine?, Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing.