A Catalog of Benevolent Items

"Paul U. Unschuld's translation of the Ben cao gang mu is a monumental achievement of scholarship, and one that makes available to English readers its incredible trove of information about premodern Chinese culture. A Catalog of Benevolent Items introduces some of those treasures in a thematic reader that will appeal to students, curious readers, and anyone interested in natural history and the nature of knowledge."—Andrew Schonebaum, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Maryland "Unschuld's complete B en cao gang mu translation is a milestone for Chinese medicine, providing an essential window on Li Shizhen’s masterwork. Astutely organized by topic with Unschuld’s critical introduction to each section, A Catalog of Benevolent Items is a necessary companion to the full work, both engaging and enlightening the reader."—Donald Harper, Centennial Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Chicago "This work will be useful to medical professionals, researchers, and teachers of Chinese medicine, history, and culture—an invaluable resource that can then be used to examine the depths of the complete volumes and dictionaries that comprise the B en cao gang mu."—Z'ev Rosenberg, author of Returning to the Source: Han Dynasty Medical Classics in Modern Clinical Practice 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…