Volume IV in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation
of chapters 15 through 17, devoted to marshland herbs and poisonous
herbs.
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 U. 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.